URGENT ACTION IN SOLIDARITY WITH RESIDENTS OF PEACE COMMUNITY

                 

     Yesterday, July 30, 2007, the Police set up a checkpoint across from the entrance to San Josesito, the settlement established by members of the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado when the Police established a Police station within San Jose. And Yair Jimenez, the public order chief for Antioquia, told the local news media that he was concerned that the government was not doing anything to tackle the topic of the legal status of the Peace Community, and that the call that he made was to enter the Peace Community. This he said was in response to a battle lasting more than half an hour between the Police and guerrillas, which took place on July 27 at 5:10 p.m. just 5 minutes away from San Josesito on the road between Apartado and San Jose. Distorting the truth, Jimenez said the battle had taken place just 100 meters out of San Josesito, when in fact it had occurred some 400-500 meters away.



           On July 28 at 3 p.m. at the place where Dairo had been murdered several days ago, five minutes out of Apartado and just 100 meters from a Police checkpoint, a man dressed in civilian clothes who carried a weapon stopped a public transportation vehicle and identified himself as a member of the Aguilas Negras paramilitary organization and said they were patrolling in the area and would continue to be there. This followed upon an incident of July 22, when two young men were stopped as they left San Jose for La Union by two men dressed as civilians who asked them for their identification cards (cedulas) and noted their personal information in a notebook. When the young men asked the two men who had stopped them for identification, the men responded by threatening to kill them.



           Please write to the following Colombian officials to urge them to remove the Police checkpoint from the entrance to San Josesito. The checkpoint places at great risk the lives of the people of San Josecito. And tell these officials the stigmatizing of the Peace Community must cease, as must the operations of paramilitary forces with the support of the Colombian Police and Army. It is totally unacceptable that the Government present the Peace Community , which has rejected the use of force altogether and is the victim of state-sponsored violence, as the cause of conflict and murders in the region. Tell the officials that the international community is watching carefully and expects the Colombian Government to live up to the commitments to protect and advance the interests of the Peace Community which the Inter-American Court and Colombia’s Constitutional Court have placed upon it

PLEASE WRITE RESPECTFULLY TO THE FOLLOWING :


IN THE US
Your Senators and Representatives see our website www.colombiasupport.net

US Embassy :
 Ambassador B@ state.gov

IN COLOMBIA

Liutenant Colonel Marco Tulio Avendano-Lara
Police Comander Uraba
comandeura@policia.gov.co


Secretario de Gobierno de Antioquia
Jorge Mejia-Martinez jmejiama@gobant.gov.co

Vice-president Francisco Santos
fsantos@presidencia.gov.co

Vice-Minister of Defense  Sergio Jaramillo-Caro
serjara@mindefensa.gov.co


Procuraduría General de la Nación
Dr. Edgardo José Maya Villazón
 reygon@procuraduria.gov.co ; anticorrupcion@presidencia.gov.co



Colombia Support Network
P.O. Box 1505
Madison, WI  53701-1505
phone:  (608) 257-8753
fax:  (608) 255-6621
e-mail:  csn@igc.org
http://www.colombiasupport.net








PLEASE BE GENEROUS! MAKE DONATIONS TO SUPPORT THE WORK WE DO


http://colombiasupport.net/Donate/






           

 

 

            

.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 



















Colombia Support Network
P.O. Box 1505
Madison, WI  53701-1505
phone:  (608) 257-8753
fax:  (608) 255-6621
e-mail:  csn@igc.org
http://www.colombiasupport.net




------ End of Forwarded Message