Tell Georgetown University you disagree with this controversial appointment

Colombia's ex- president Alvaro Uribe-Velez has been invited by Georgetown University in Washington D. C. to teach in that university's Edmond A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. There are many reasons why this invitation is a mistake and a very bad idea. As President of Colombia Uribe was responsible for a great deal of violence and corruption. His actions and those of his government include the following:

            1. His government presided over the murder of thousands of innocent non-combatants, many of them kidnapped and later killed by the military and presented as "guerrillas killed in combat." This phenomenon became known as "false positives", a "positive" being Colombian military lingo for a killed guerrilla. When a common grave with some 2,000 bodies was discovered next to a military base in the town of Macarena, Uribe's response was to praise the military—likely responsible for these deaths---and criticize the human rights workers who brought the mass grave's existence to light.

            2. Uribe has a long history of support for paramilitary forces, illegal under Colombian law, and his political coalition is composed of many figures with paramilitary ties. High-ranking advisors of President Uribe even received a known paramilitary hitman in the Presidential Palace, almost certainly with Uribe's knowledge and approval.

            3. As President, Alvaro Uribe oversaw illegal wiretapping of Supreme Court Justices and opposition political leaders, apparently for his own personal political reasons. In fact, he ran the DAS (Colombia's FBI) as a personal political tool and the agency became involved in all manner of illegal activities, including committing homicides.

            4. In order to win re-election as President in 2006, Uribe, through high-ranking members of his Presidential staff, successfully bribed a Colombian Congresswoman to change her vote to one in favor of his re-election.

             5. Uribe severely criticized U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia Michael Fruhling, who worked vigorously to protect human rights, and later complained about U.N. investigator Philip Alston, when he examined the "false positives" occurrences.

            6. President Uribe presided over a government whose policies, particularly failure to control paramilitary violence in the countryside, led to the displacement of millions of people, bringing Colombia to the point of having the second largest internally displaced population in the world, 4.5 million people, nearly 10% of the country's inhabitants.
 
Some leading Jesuits have severely criticized Uribe's appointment by Georgetown, a Jesuit university.

See Javier Giraldo S.J.'s letter to Father John Dear S. J. http://colombiasupport.blogspot.com/2010/09/javier-giraldos-letter-to-john-dear-on.html

Please call or send a letter to Georgetown President Dr John DeGioia. Please call and write to
 
Georgetown Universisty President
 Dr. John DeGioia,
Office of the President, Georgetown University, 37th and O Sts., NW
Washington, DC 20057
Tel 202-687-0100

and ask him to rescind this appointment and not allow Uribe to teach at Georgetown.

Helpful links to read :

Journalist Fernando Garavito's letter to Georgetown University President http://colombiasupport.blogspot.com/2010/09/journalist-fernando-garavitos-letter-to.html



http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/145/mounting-evidence-of-colombian-president’s-involvement-in-massacre

http://www.elnuevoherald.com/2009/04/24/434344/asesinan-a-paramilitar-que-acuso.html

http://www.ddhh-colombia.org/html/noticias%20ddhh/testimonioinvolucraauribeconmasacre.pdf

http://movimiento-social-colombiano.over-blog.es/article-la-masacre-de-el-aro-12-a-os-despues-francisco-villalba-un-testigo-que-sabia-demasiado-55827899.html


http://www.cipcol.org/?p=548

http://www.zcommunications.org/murder-training-colombian-death-squad-used-live-hostages-by-el-tiempo

http://books.google.com/books?id=0yP9buLdQ4wC&pg=PA56&lpg=PA56&dq=masacre+El+Aro+Ituango+Francisco+Villalba&source=bl&ots=_uOpKR7gBA&sig=C0sTLbUimjbebrWd47D7X3lncjM&hl=en&ei=OdR_TOCRPIH6lweup5myDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CDsQ6AEwCDgK#v=onepage&q&f=false <http://books.google.com/books?id=0yP9buLdQ4wC&pg=PA56&lpg=PA56&dq=masacre+El+Aro+Ituango+Francisco+Villalba&source=bl&ots=_uOpKR7gBA&sig=C0sTLbUimjbebrWd47D7X3lncjM&hl=en&ei=OdR_TOCRPIH6lweup5myDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CDsQ6AEwCDgK#v>  <http://books.google.com/books?id=0yP9buLdQ4wC&pg=PA56&lpg=PA56&dq=masacre+El+Aro+Ituango+Francisco+Villalba&source=bl&ots=_uOpKR7gBA&sig=C0sTLbUimjbebrWd47D7X3lncjM&hl=en&ei=OdR_TOCRPIH6lweup5myDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CDsQ6AEwCDgK#v>


http://www.en.refugeelawreader.org/index.php?option=com_docman&amp;task=cat_view&amp;gid=2026&amp;Itemid=

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