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International Gathering of the Women and Peoples of the Americas against Militarization
(Translated by Rich Henighan, a CSN Volunteer Translator) Colombia, August 16-23, 2010 "My body is my house, my house is my homeland. I don't turn over the keys!" Introduction From August 16 to 23, 2010 in Colombia "The International Gathering of the Women and Peoples of the Americas against Militarization" will be held. It aims to denounce the growing militarism on the continent and make visible its negative impact on the lives of women and communities. The Gathering is an opportunity to review and articulate different paths for resistance of women and their communities at a local, national and international level. It is a setting for those who share the responsibility for the defense of the sovereignty of communities and of the right of women to live a life free of violence. This Gathering is occurring in the context of the recent signing of a "Cooperation Agreement on Security and Defense" between the governments of Colombia and the United States in 2009. This accord institutionalizes the presence of US military and contracted forces in seven military bases on Colombian territory. These personnel will enjoy diplomatic immunity, remaining outside the control of national or foreign laws, despite the history of abuses which have been documented in different countries and situations where there have been foreign troops. Why the Gathering? Throughout history, military cooperation in our hemisphere has promoted the career of the armament manufacturers, led to the creation of non-state armed groups, and sharpened internal armed conflicts, increased violations of human rights and of violence in general, all as part of a strategy of despoiling our homeland and our natural resources. Militarization manifests the patriarchal model which submits women and their homelands to the logic of domination through force of arms, allotting to itself a good part of the resources of our countries. For example, according to a report from The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), in 2009 the US dedicated $661 Billion to military expenses, Brazil $26.1 Billion, Colombia, $10 Billion, Mexico $5.49 Billion, Chile $5 Billion and Venezuela $3.254 Billion. In Lat in America, Colombia dedicated the largest percentage of its GNP to military expenses, 3.7%, according to the same SIPRI report. A study from 2008 revealed that 80 of each 100 public functionaries of the country were employed in work related to defense or security*. In the 2010 national budget, one billion pesos less are to be spent for education than for defense and security. For almost fifty years, the Colombian government has preferred a military solution in a war that has cost the civilian population the highest price in human lives and has had a special impact on women. More than 50% of the displaced are women who have had to assume work, household and family responsibilities as consequences of the forced displacement. It is also common that, in this context of armed conflict, acts of violence are carried out, principally against women, expressed as physical, psychological, and sexual aggression, domestic and sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancies and forced abortions. Social control is thus wielded over their lives in public and private by the different armed actors, both legal and illegal. The Military Accord, signed between the governments of the US and Colombia in November, 2009, is a new factor deepening the social and armed conflict which has differential impacts on women, threatens national sovereignty and constitutes a hostile gesture towards the Latin American countries which have undertaken an alternative model for society. *Isaza, Jose Fernando, Campos, Diogenes, Quantitative considerations about the recent evolution of the conflict, 2009 How is the Gathering going to be organized? The Gathering's schedule is divided into three parts: August 16-20: A Humanitarian Mission: 200 international delegates, men and women, will visit five regions of Colombia. August 21-22: Gathering-Debate with the participation of 1000 national and international delegates, men and women, on themes of: 1. Woman, Homeland and Development 2. Woman, War, Peace and Democracy 3. Woman and Social Movements 4. Resistance experiences from the social movements of the Americas: Honduras, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Colombia. August 23: Vigil for Life with about 10,000 delegates from Colombia and all the Americas participating. How to Participate? To join in advance, contact the office of the Feminist Popular Organization at (57) 3105776921 or (57 7) 6467963 Or Contact us at: www.mujerescontralaguerra.com on Facebook: Encuentro MujeresyPueblos on Twitter: MujeresyPueblos The Social Movement of Women against War and for Peace: movimientosocialdemujeres@gmail.com +57 7 646 88 69, Colombia Feminist Popular Organization: femenina@colnodo.apc.org +57 7 646 79 63, Colombia Worldwide March of Women: americas@marchemondiale.org +55 11 3032- 3243, Brazil
Colombia and the Challenge of Sexual Crimes
(Translated by Stacey Schlau, a CSN Volunteer Translator) July 2, 2010 The new government of Colombia should deal with the increase in the number of murders, sexual assaults, and threats against women. By Humanas Corporation and LolaMora Productions Lola Mora Productions: Do you know of demobilized paramilitary personnel who have become police officers? A woman in Puerto Limón, Department of Putumayo: We understand that some police officers were members of the AUC. This is one of my greatest fears. Lately what we have seen are threats against girls. They made them a military objective because of being seen with the police or the army. They received threats by cell phone; they had to move away. Interviewed March 2010 1 The Democratic Security policy of outgoing President Alvaro Uribe Vélez marks eight terrible years related to guaranteeing women's human rights in Colombia. Neither the demobilization of the United Self-Defense Forces nor Law 975 nor the Law of Justice and Peace (2005) have fulfilled expectations of truth, justice, and reparation for victims of sexual crimes. In Colombia, as in Iraq, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, sexual violence against women is a strategy of war, a tactic to destroy the enemy. Although few call it that, the reports published in the last six years about human rights in Colombia prove that all the armed participants in the conflict are responsible for committing sexual crimes against women and girls. International organizations have alerted the European Union about the scope of the rapes. In the past five years, various organizations and women's groups in Colombia have increased pressure to name sexual crimes as crimes against humanity; to recognize that sexual violence has become a systematic and generalized practice. Very quickly, these organizations have been subject to threats, [in documents] signed either by paramilitary groups that have not been demobilized or by new armed splinter groups from the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). Women and their struggles have become an intentional objective of the violence carried out by armed groups.2 The Re-Engineering of the Paramilitary Groups They are called the Black Eagles. They make all kinds of threats. They do not hide. They are the children of the AUC, which ended in 2006 with 30,000 members, of which 6% were women. Of these people, 10-15% wound up as criminals, as generally occurs in all the processes of the DDR3 in the world. This is a universal rule, according to Eduardo Pizarro, President of the National Commission for Reparation and Reconciliation (CNRR). The same thing happened in Ireland, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Angola. Between 3,000 and 4,000 demobilized paramilitaries have returned to their criminal activities. The Organization of American States (OAS) has confirmed at least 22 new armed groups in the [battle for] territorial control of cocaine export and arms dealing.4 Human Rights Watch (HRW)5 has found that the effects are devastating. Currently, the new groups have a terrible impact on the humanitarian situation and on human rights in Colombia. They habitually carry out attacks against civilians and atrocious crimes that include massacres, executions, and rapes. HRW holds them responsible for the increase in forced displacement: 150,000 annually, according to a document the Committee for Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights of the United Nations published recently.6 Other organizations define the process as re-engineering of the paramilitaries: "It is not a secret to anyone that in these areas micro-structures were maintained that allowed territorial, social, economic, and political control over some strategic zones. And beforehand, they recruited young men from the ghettos of the largest cities," says the Carlos Pérez Collective Corporation of Attorneys.7 Paramilitary groups have again gotten involved in the Colombian conflict, in defense of the same interests: basically, the control of routes and trafficking in cocaine and arms, and the taking over of indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities' lands. Pizarro states that up to now, between four and five million hectares have been abandoned by these communities. In Colombia control over land reflects several goals, such as developing large-scale agriculture for export (sugar, palm oil, and other grains used in making bio-fuels), exploiting natural resources (water, coal, oil, uranium, etc.), and obtaining concessions for profitable projects to develop roads, energy, and electricity, planned in the Integration of the Regional Infrastructure of South America initiative (IRSA). The European Union (EU) and the United States government have been directly advised of serious violations of human rights. In May, days before signing the Free Trade Agreement between the EU and Colombia, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)8 requested that negotiations be suspended because "there is evidence that members of the government have been implicated in grave violations of human rights . . . Among them, the security forces have been implicated in assassinations, threats, arbitrary arrests, sexual crimes, and serious violations of the human rights of Afro-Colombians and indigenous people." Femicide Is Ignored Silence, fear, taboo . . . all words that take attention away from a reality that has not been invented: the situation of women's rights is critical. Between 2003 and 2007, sexual crimes increased, according to the Report on Sexual Violence and Femicide in Colombia, presented to the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights.9 The organizations that signed this report say that the numbers do not even remotely reflect the violence that women experience in Colombia, partly because "this violence rarely appears in autopsy reports." Genica Mazoldi of the Legal Option Corporation notes that sexual crimes are committed with the backing of impunity and that "as long as impunity persists, it is very difficult to imagine that women will file charges of sexual violence as a weapon of war." Gloria Tobón, of the Humanas organization and the Network of Women, highlights the fact that the Law of Justice and Peace (passed in 2005) has allowed the open naming of sexual violence and "fear has begun to be felt a little." Nevertheless, of the 14,576 charges filed with the Prosecutor's Office under this law, only .4% are for sexual crimes. The low number of charges of sexual crimes corresponds with the absence of guarantees that armed groups will submit to justice and intimidation; the last Report of the Task Force on Women and Armed Conflict10 affirms that there are obstacles that contribute to discouraging filing charges: "lack of recognition of women as subjects with rights and as victims; lack of confidence in state institutions; fear of being stigmatized and becoming victims again; naturalizing of violence; fear and silence; lack of knowledge or lack of information." The federal Attorney General's Office has also stated its concern "about the precariousness and insufficiency with which information is handled, and confirms the low level of technical skill of sources at the departmental level." The model of transitional justice adopted in Colombia , in order to allow for a process of paramilitary demobilization and national reconciliation, seems to have achieved the opposite: it has placed victims at a disadvantage when confronting perpetrators. While paramilitaries have had access to lawyers and economic aid for their reintegration, women do not count, either in terms of information or in terms of guarantees to move judicial processes forward. In the Rural Regions: The Return of the Paramilitaries and Domestic Violence What for the CNRR is a historic step, for others is a process filled with traps, gaps, and systematic errors.11 Paramilitary demobilization has normalized the modus operandi of these groups because it has meant the return of old assassins to the communities. Since 2007, some demobilized men have re-made their lives; others, thousands, have returned to bearing arms. The return has meant for women that the perpetrators continue exerting control over their lives and their bodies. The testimony presented to the CIDH in 2008 notes that "femicides committed by armed men in Colombia have increased, with signs of torture on the bodies of women," and they aver "that when demobilized men return to their families, domestic violence has increased in those homes." Sometimes, what is ignored in the capital city is an open secret in the jungle regions. In the interior, the policy of Democratic Security has not stopped crimes against women and children either: Putamayo is an example. This is a department that borders on Ecuador, torn apart by violence and the authorities' abandonment, where women tell stories of murders and disappearances that were never prosecuted. "My youngest daughter was disappeared by the AUC. I have kept my mouth shut for eight years, without being able to ask for mercy or anybody's help." This woman, who prefers not to reveal her name, lives in the town of La Hormiga, and she filed a complaint about the disappearance about a year and a half ago. If she did not do it before it was because "we didn't dare to do anything because we were threatened so severely." To this date, she has not had an answer. Gloria Tobón says that it is in these areas that the conflict is lived most harshly: "The majority of the victims are there, the leaders persecuted and the women questioning the war." The continuum of sexist and gendered violence is a product of the last demobilization. "In the 90s and now, girls are subject to abuse at home, in school, and in the streets," states Rocío Calvache, a psychologist who practices in Puerto Caicedo, Putumayo, and who has coined the term normopathy, to describe the behavior of apparent normality that both men and women in Colombia use to cope with the violence and horror. Free Testimony Normalizing when confronting crime is not pathological, but rather a product of impunity or injustice. This is how the low numbers of charges filed and the continuum of violence are explained. If a crime is not confessed, it is as though it did not exist. There is no victim, so therefore there is no justice. This seems to be the logic that guides the modality of free testimonies given to the paramilitaries who participated in demobilization [The option of Free Testimony given to these paramilitaries is the opportunity to receive a lighter sentence in return for freely confessing without being questioned by a judge]. It is a fact: in these confessions without interrogation or investigation they omit crimes of sexual violence. The recent history of universal and transitional justice has brought to light a perverse mechanism of defense of those listed as war crimes or crimes against humanity: any massacre or atrocity against the civilian population will be confessed by the accused before an individual or collective sexual crime. The gaps in Colombian paramilitaries' confessions follow the same tendencies as those of their counterparts in ex-Yugoslavia or in the hearings of the people's tribunals of the gacaca in Rwanda. These are the contradictions of a crime that, in a patriarchal environment, is encouraged and not judged as it should be. The Law of Justice and Peace and the rewards for paramilitaries who confess do not respect Resolution 1325 of the United Nations, because they impose trivial sentences on those guilty of crimes against humanity—this is the case of the sexual violence perpetrated by some paramilitaries who are now demobilized—between three and eight years in prison for voluntarily confessing their crimes. There are organizations ready to knock at the door of the International Criminal Court because "many crimes against humanity perpetrated against women by armed men are going through the system, and we women are working in organizations; it is a space we have and that is very important," says Gloria Tobón of the National Network of Women, "May sexual violence be judicialized, those guilty punished, and reparation effective," she concludes. On the international front another kind of pressure is being exerted. Oxfam International has asked the European Union for a zero tolerance policy regarding violations of human rights in Colombia, "especially sexual crimes against women in the areas of armed conflict." Zero tolerance should include the demand to investigate, judge, and sanction those found guilty and compensate the victims, because those in the affected regions do not forget. Luisa Margarita Gil Olaya, Coordinator of programs for those affected by the conflict for the New Rainbow Corporation, says, "if we do not recognize here that there is a phenomenon of victims or violence that has impoverished us, we will not be able to continue the nation building project." Notes:
*The Humanas Corporation and Worldcom Foundation-LolaMora Productions have since 2006 run an international campaign, "Challenging the Silence: Media Against Sexual Violence": www.lolamora.net
1.- The testimony and interviews for this article were gathered by LolaMora Productions in Putumayo and Bogotá en March 2010, http://www.lolamora.net/ 2.- Sisma Mujer received a threatening letter at the beginning of 2010, which said: "We are not a new group. We are the Black Eagles and we are here. We are the army of social restoration." 3.- Processes of Demobilization, Disarmament, and Reintegration into civilian life for war combatants. 4.- Caramés, A. y Sanz, E. DDR 2009. Analysis of the existing DDR programs in the world during 2008. Bellaterra: Escola de Cultura de Pau, 2009. 5.- Report: Inheritors of the Paramilitary Groups: The New Face of Violence in Colombia, Human Rights Watch, 2010. 6.- http://www.codhes.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=799 7.- Collective Corporation of Lawyers Luis Carlos Pérez, Report on the Situation of Rights of Victims in North Santander (1999-2008), Colombia 2008. 8.- http://www.fidh.org/LA-FIDH-URGE-A-LOS-PAISES-MIEMBROS-DE-LA-UE-QUE 9.- Report: Sexual Violence and Femicide in Colombia, submitted to the Interamerican Comission for Human Rights, by Casa de la Mujer (Women's House), Mujeres que Crean (Women Who Create), Ruta Pacífica (Pacific Route), and Vamos Mujer (Let's Go Woman). Washington, October 23, 2008. 10.- IX Report on sociopolitical violence against women, youth, and girls in Colombia. Mesa de Trabajo Mujer y Conflicto Armado (Task Force on Women, Work, and Armed Conflict). December 2009. 11.- Caramés, A. y Sanz, E. DDR 2009. Analysis of the DDR programs in the world during 2008. Bellaterra: Escola de Cultura de Pau, 2009.
Protection order requires unblocking of the River Jiguamiandó
(Transalted by Steve Cagan, a CSN Volunteer Translator) Friday, July 9, 2010 The Penal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice issued a ruling in the second instance of protection for the fundamental rights of the Afro-Colombian people of the Jiguamiandó watershed, based on the failure of INVIAS [the national roads institute—SC], the Maritime and River Sub-Director, the Mayor's Office of El Carmen del Darién, and the National Planning Department to develop the necessary proposals and works projects that would have permitted the unblocking of the Río Jiguamiandó. The current situation of the watershed has caused the loss of crops as a source of work and of sustenance, displacement, stagnation of water, the production of serious diseases like malaria, pneumonia and skin infections and the inability to use the river as a transportation artery since 2003. The Corporation considered that, given the provisional measures granted to this community in 2003 by ICHR {Inter-American Commission on Human Rights—SC]: The international commitments by the Colombian state around International Human Rights Law and International Humanitarian Law also oblige the authorities to adopt a focus on the prevention of forced displacement that would be sufficiently differentiated and specific so that it would have an impact on the fundamental causes of this phenomenon and its disproportionate impact on the Afro-Colombian communities and their members. They likewise argued that an injunction is ultimately compatible with a protection order and may serve to defend fundamental rights, since its goal is the same: to defend fundamental rights such as life and [physical] integrity. In this sense, the Court pointed out that the communities of the Jiguamiandó are subject to special constitutional protection (when the subject is an affirmative action to defend their fundamental rights) because of the discrimination they have suffered. And it reiterates the unconstitutional state of affairs that these communities have had to confront, because of forced displacement, according to the decision T-025 of 2004 and the follow-up order 005 of 2009, which argues from a focus that differentiates the Afro-Colombian communities. The High Court asserted that: this condition of being subject to special protection is imposed on state authorities of every level with respect to the Afro-Colombian population that has been the victim of forced displacement, special obligations in regards to prevention, attention to and safeguarding of their individual and collective rights, which must receive particular diligence in their being carried out. Such a quality of being subject to special constitutional protection justifies, as was indicated in decision T-250 of 2004, the adoption of measures of positive differentiation, which respond to their conditions of vulnerability and defenselessness, and work, through a preferential treatment, towards making real the enjoyment of their rights. [1 <http://justiciaypazcolombia.com/Tutela-ordena-destaponamiento-del#nb1> ] The Court showed that: the authorities were conscious of the problem of the blocking of the river since 2003. Once the community returned to their territory, they had meetings with the participation of national-level bodies, which have intervened within the framework of the measures decreed by the Inter-American Human Rights Court in favor of this community and, despite have the project [approved] to carry out this work, the work has not materialized because it did not satisfy the legal requirements so the National Planning Department, through the Royalties Fund, and based on it, would develop the National Council of Economic and Social Policy (CONPES) document, in order to appropriate the resources. The solution to the problem involves the intervention of several national- and municipal-level institutions, which, while they may have carried out the studies, developed the project and presented it to the corresponding entities, have not subjected it to the processes established in the law in order to achieve its budget approval, nor have they proceed with due promptness and diligence. The Court pointed out that the Ministry of Transport, at the time they presented the project, should have considered the fulfillment of all the legal demands, especially considering that it is an entity that is predominant for national order, with knowledge of the theme and with the possibility of interacting with structures like INVIA and the Maritime and River Sub-Director, this latter entity being responsible for work projects in river transport and whatever is related to the unblocking and freeing up of the river in question. Then, in the face of the problems that overwhelm the community of the River Jiguamiandó, and the precariousness of the capacity for institutional response in order to arrive at a solution to the problem of unblocking and cleaning up the river, the protection judge cannot fail to recognize the vulnerability of individual and collective rights that accompanies this lack of official action, and which is illustrated by the videos that were attached to this document and in which can be seen the lamentable conditions of the community, which have their origin in sedimentation and piling up of dead trees. All that, added to the report delivered by the Colombian Geology and Mining Institute (INGEOMINAS) in February, 2003, which brings to light the piling up of dead trees, seismic threats, threats from hurricane-force winds, circumstances that the constitutional judge should think about with demanding rigor in their zeal to protect fundamental rights that like those of life, personal integrity, health and subsistence of the community bringing the action, are seen as seriously and fundamentally threatened. From that objective and judgmental appreciation of the omissions in official behavior which up until today have indefinitely delayed through time an offer of a reply and solution that were opportune and effective, which would permit the threats against the fundamental constitutional rights of the community bringing the action to be eliminated, it is imperative that the National Roads Institute, the Maritime and River Sub-Director, the Mayor's office of Carmen del Darién, and the National Planning Department adopt in coordination the necessary measures with the goal of achieving the unblocking and cleaning up of the Río Jiguamiandó. In this sense, the Court affirmed: from the constitutional point of view, it is imperative to allocate the necessary budget so that the fundamental rights of the displaced are fully achieved. The constitutional obligation of the state to guarantee adequate protection to those who, because of forced internal displacement find themselves in undignified living conditions cannot be postponed indefinitely. . [2 <http://justiciaypazcolombia.com/Tutela-ordena-destaponamiento-del#nb2> ] Based on the preceding reflections, the Penal Chamber recognizes the source of the action brought, and consequently revokes the challenged decision and in its place orders the Ministry of transport, INVIAS, the Maritime and River Sub-Director, the Mayor's Office of Carmen del Darién and the National Planning Department to, within the year following notification, move forward all the proposals and paperwork that might be necessary and indispensable for the approval and disposing of the budget that will allow the works for this project, with the objective of accomplishing the unblocking and cleaning up of the Río Jiguamiandó, to be made real and carried out. The Court orders the Ministry of Social Protection, the Director of the Administration Department of health of the Department of Chocó and the Mayor of the Municipality of Carmen del Darién, that they facilitate access to health services for the community that makes up the Great Council of the Río Jiguamiandó Watershed, and that they begin vaccination plans and fumigation programs aimed at eradicating the disease centers; to do this they will have to adopt an action program, with a precise calendar, to begin and carry out these tasks within a period of six months, counted from being notified of this decision and, in accordance with article 27 of decree 2591 of 1991, they will have to present a report every other month, communicating the progressive actions directed towards fulfilling the order. Finally, the SCJ (Supreme Court of Justice) orders the Social Action off of the President of the Republic [a national agency responsible for administering social programs in the name of the government—SC] to proceed immediately to coordinate the public works for unblocking and cleaning of the Río Jiguamiandó with the entities responsible for providing access to health, vaccination plans and fumigation programs that are indispensable for the municipality of Carmen del Darién. This entity will be subjected in carrying out its tasks to the terms [that were] fixed for the entities that it must coordinate.
Legal-Social Collective Orlando Fals Borda
(Translated by Eunice Gibson, a CSN Volunteer Translator) Preliminary report on the case of the cemetery of unidentified bodies In the Municipality of La Macarena – Meta FIRST SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SITUATION OF THE MUNICIPALITY The municipality of La Macarena is located in the southern part of Meta Province, in one of the five regions in which the province is divided. Its exact location is in the Duda-Guayabero region, in the east central part of the country, only 275 kilometers from the capital of the country. This municipality has a population of 25,079 inhabitants, according to the 2005 census. Of those, 3,703 live in the "county seat", and 21,376 live in the rural area. In the decade of the 1940's, farmers displaced by the bipartisan violence in the municipalities of San Vicente del Caguán (Caquetá Province) and San Juan de Arama (Meta Province) settled here. Nevertheless, its foundation was fixed in 1952 when the bipartisan conflict worsened in the region of Alto Caguán, and most of the farm population was forced to leave and settled on the banks of the Guayabero River. Graphic No. 1 
At the end of 1998, the national government, as a matter of policy in its Priority Program for Peace, sought to establish a better regional equilibrium so as to build a more egalitarian society. To do that, it decreed the setting up of a strategic zone for the country. They called it the Relief Zone. It covered 43,000 square kilometers in the southern part of the country, covering the municipalities of Mesetas, Uribe, Macarena and Vistahermosa in Meta Province and San Vicente del Caguán in the Province of Caquetá. The purpose of the free zone was to allow the participation of the groups who had taken up arms (FARC-EP) in a process of dialogue aimed at arriving at a peace agreement that would allow a negotiated end of the armed conflict that the country was suffering. Once the peace talks with the FARC-EP broke off, a series of military operations aimed at recovering the territory occupied by the guerrillas started to develop in this municipality, as well as in all of the Relief Zone. It has been that way ever since the change of presidents in 2002. The implementation of the Democratic Security Policy was initiated by the government of Alvaro Uribe Vélez and he started the Patriot Plan in 2004. These were carried out essentially as a military policy of recovering and consolidating those "old territories that were dominated by the insurgents". The incidents of violations of human rights and breaches of international human rights began to increase with the beginning of this government policy. That could be a direct consequence of the warlike spirit of the plans being carried out by the Colombian state. It was justified by "the war against terror" where there is no room for the application of the principle of distinction between combatants and the civilian population, given that the operational necessities of these actions demand concrete results in order to justify the excessive military presence in the area. In this region, just as in other areas of the country, this approach has resulted, in part, in the recurring extrajudicial executions of farmers, merchants, residents of "territories being recovered" who have been presented as "guerrillas killed in combat". Yet, along with that, like the other face of this gruesome coin, policies of judicial persecution, headed by the same armed forces present in the area, have been carried out. People are accused, without any legal basis, of "aiding the guerrillas." The phenomenon of forced disappearance is another of the cases of violation of human rights recurring in the area and it is found to be correlated with the extrajudicial executions of people who could not be identified by members of their families. The pattern identified in the extrajudicial executions permits the conclusion that many of the individuals first reported as disappeared have been identified as cases of guerrillas killed in combat, because of the restrictions imposed on the communities keeping them from being able to investigate the identities of people killed in military operations, and because of the transportation difficulties in being able to get to an urban community. SECOND PRESENTATION OF THE REPORT In its July 30-31, 2009 edition, the newspaper Llano 7 Dias (Plains Weekly) which circulates in Meta Province, there was a headline reporting that there was a cemetery in the municipality of La Macarena, where the National Army admitted that there were at least 564 unidentified bodies buried as Guerrillas killed in combat. The report also stated that General Javier Flórez, commander of the Omega Joint Task Force, maintained that only bodies of guerrillas killed in combat in the jurisdiction of the municipality were buried in the cemetery. According to the general, "Every unit keeps its own corpses." That is to say that the enemy's losses within other municipalities would be transported to that municipality's cemetery. Nevertheless, the newspaper concluded, based on the databases in the Mayor's Office in La Macarena, in the hospital and in the Attorney General's Office, there are unidentified bodies taken from nearby municipalities such as Vista Hermosa, Mesetas, La Uribe, San Vicente del Caguán and San José de Guaviare. Graphic No. 2 
According to figures compiled by this newspaper, in the time period between 2002 and 2009, the cemetery received 564 bodies of individuals presented as Killed in Combat. Of these, 403 could not be identified and the rest of them, 161 were identified and delivered to their families. It is notable that the Secretary of Government of la Macarena, Raúl Eduardo Hernández, believed at that time that his municipality might be "the largest crypt of unidentified bodies in Colombia". Along the same lines, the Mayor, Eliécer Vargas Moreno, believed that there may be 2,000 bodies in the sacred soil, given the constant flow of bodies that have been brought to the cemetery by the Armed Forces, which has caused a budget deficit for the municipality, as noted in the local paper: "The Mayor believes that there may be 2,000 bodies in the sacred soil, according to the calculations of the residents themselves. "This represents a cost of some six million pesos every month, because we have to buy body bags and accessories for the necropsies," said Vargas, who stated that it has already been necessary to expand the cemetery by 6,500 square meters in order to bury the unidentified bodies that are arriving every day from the war". The impact of these statements has been such that the local authorities of the municipality are hearing rumors that this could be a cemetery for false positives, and according to municipal officials there is a report of the formation of a committee of the Attorney General's Office to verify the situation. This Committee has never arrived in La Macarena. THIRD PREPARATION OF THE COMPLAINT November 20, 2009. The country's Inspector General, in statements made on November 20, 2009, requested the national and international scientific community to help create an identification laboratory in the Municipality of La Macarena, given the magnitude of the humanitarian situation. The laboratory could help carry out an investigation begun by his office in October 2009. The purpose of this laboratory would be the full identification of the bodies buried in the municipal cemetery of La Macarena. To do that, they would set up an interdisciplinary team of experts in anthropology, forensic medicine and genetics from the CTI, the Inspector General's Office, and the National Police. December 3, 2009. A British delegation of Members of Parliament, labor leaders, journalists and labor lawyers visited Colombia from November 29 to December 5, 2009, coordinated by the NGO Justice For Colombia. They visited the location of the Cemetery of Unidentified Bodies of the Municipality of La Macarena on a mission of verification, carried out December 3, 2009, as they set forth in their official report: "We met with the Army, the Secretary of Government, the Public Defender and leaders of the community of La Macarena. We listened to dozens of testimonies about the terrifying and brutal treatment of the farmers and other civilians by the Army. The hundreds of unidentified corpses in the cemetery horrified us. In spite of contrary assurances, the dates on the tombs make it clear that the extrajudicial executions are continuing. We saw no evidence of any investment in social infrastructure." February 2, 2010. Once the authorities took an interest in the matter of the cemetery of unidentified bodies in La Macarena, thanks to the complaint presented by the different communications media, the Mayor, in a statement made on February 2, 2010, denied that a common grave of unidentified people, containing 2,000 bodies, existed in his community: "it is untrue that there is a common grave where two thousand unidentified bodes are buried, as the communications media have reported." This assertion contradicted what the newspaper Llano 7 Dias (Plains Weekly) had reported in July 2009, when the Mayor was worried about the cost to the municipal budget of maintaining a cemetery with such a high influx of corpses. Continuing, the Mayor accused the international media and a sector of the national press of muddying the image of the municipality and of Colombia before the international community. Nevertheless, in spite of the retractions of the municipal officials, it is clear that there are a very large number of unidentified bodies in the cemetery of La Macarena and that that could explain many of the complaints about forced disappearance that organizations defending human rights have presented in this region. February 12, 2010. As an official response to the complaint presented to the country's Inspector General, Dr. Alexandra Valencia Molina, Director of the National Unit for Special Investigations, by means of a document dated February 12, 2010, reported that planned efforts to investigate the case of the Macarena Cemetery have been advanced. She also admitted that approximately 2,000 unidentified bodies do exist there and that efforts to identify them would be given high priority: "The goal is to present the case to the National Committee for the Search for Missing Persons with a proposal to generate an inter-institutional project that would collect contributions, both national and international, to hasten the exhumation and the scientific studies to achieve the identities of all of the approximately 2,000 bodies; to do that, we propose the creation of a specialized laboratory to do the identification right there in La Macarena." March 24, 2010. After this communication and in view of the request in the report that supports the previous investigation efforts that were carried out by the Inspector General's National Investigation Unit, this unit explained, in a document dated March 24, 2010, the manner in which they had reached this conclusion. "The displacement of the cemetery at La Macarena was preceded by a forensic physician and a support team from the National Office of Special Investigations, and through them, the preliminary conditions of the grounds and the manner in which the burials must have taken place were established, as well as an approximation of the quantity and location of the remains." April 16, 2010. The Inspector General, by means of a press release published on his web page, stated that he had received a report from the Director of the Technical Investigation Corps (CTI), Dr. Marilú Méndez Rada, in which she also admits the existence of "individual graves" scattered here and there: "What is more, she states that "In effect, what we found was individual graves containing the bodies of unidentified persons in a location in the cemetery. They had been buried in a controlled manner and according to documentation found in different municipal agencies (Police Inspection, DIJIN, CTI, Municipal Hospital). In the same manner, we could establish the existence of individual graves distributed in different locations in the cemetery, which had been made hastily and wherever there was space available at the time. "The foregoing was part of the activities carried out by Prosecutor Jaime Alirio Díaz Gamboa, attached to the support subunit of the Peace and Justice Unit. "As a result, the Inspector General stated his decided commitment to create an inter-institutional work group to carry out activities that would clarify the events related to the cemetery known as the La Macarena Cemetery." On the other hand, we have the information furnished by the Mayor of the Municipality, by the Secretary of Government, by General Javier Flórez, Commander of the Omega Joint Task Force, as well as the site visit carried out by members of the OFB Collective on several occasions. We can support our notes characterizing the situation and the elements of a pattern systematically applied in the treatment of the corpses brought to the municipality, thus: In the first place, persons killed in combat are the responsibility of the Omega Joint Task Force, which is headquartered at the military base in La Macarena and operates in the municipalities of La Macarena, Vista Hermosa, and Puerto Rico, among others. Second, the removal of the bodies is carried out by the DIJIN – Office of Judicial Intelligence and Investigation – part of the National Police, and they carry out these operations in conjunction with the Army. Third, this removal of corpses is done at the scene of the event and later, it is approved by the Attorney General's Office. Fourth, there is no certain and reliable accounting of the number of cadavers buried there. Fifth, the cemetery borders the military base. In fact, the road leading to the cemetery is controlled by the Army headquartered in the municipality. Finally, many of the bodies have been reported as "guerrillas killed in combat", as Colonel Yunda admitted to the British delegation that visited the area. FOURTH URGENT MEASURES Because of the situation set forth above, the Orlando Fals Borda Collective considers that we must request the national authorities responsible for public order, such as the Interior Ministry and the Justice Ministry, the Human Rights Program located in the Vice President's Office, the Human Rights Unit in the Attorney General's Office, the Inspector General, the Meta Regional Public Defender, as well as the national Public Defender to act immediately to: 1. Implement interim equitable relief necessary to obtain the information recorded in the official documents recording the acts of removal of the cadavers, the relevance of each, and the battle plans, among others; 2. In the same manner, impose the interim equitable relief necessary to secure the perimeter of the Cemetery of La Macarena to prevent alteration of the site, exhumation of the bodies and the destruction of the material evidence; 3. Create a Forensic Identification Center in La Macarena in order to achieve the individualization and complete identification of all of the unidentified bodies buried there. In the same manner, we solicit the aid, vigilance and cooperation of national and international organizations, of friendly governments, of members of European parliaments, and of the scientific-forensic community, in order to begin and complete the process of exhumation and identification of the unidentified bodies. In addition, it is imperative that the international community demand of the Colombian government that it commit itself politically and economically to this process, which is unprecedented in the history of our country, and that the government permit the independence and professionalism of the officials that participate in the investigative effort.
DESCRIPTION OR OUR ORDEAL IN MIAMI
DESCRIPTION OR OUR ORDEAL IN MIAMI
Friday July 17 ‘10
By Jack Laun and Cecilia Zarate- Laun
Upon returning to the United States from Colombia, where Cecilia and I were invited to accompany Noam Chomsky and others in the dedication of the Carol Chomsky Forest ( Bosque Carol Chomsky) in La Vega, Cauca, Cecilia and I were stopped at U.S. Immigration in the Miami Airport. We were told to proceed to a room where some 40 – 50 people sat waiting for their name to be called. We were forbidden to use our cell phones with threats of being confiscated. The immigration official that took us to the room told us that we should have at least 4 hours between our flight and connecting flights. We had about 1 hour between our Colombian flight and the connecting flight to Chicago, plenty of time to make the connection if we had not been detained by Immigration. As it was, we missed our flight while spending nearly 4 hours in the room to which we had been shown. After about 3 hours of waiting for our names to be called, we were called to the window of an immigration officer named Ms. Sewell, an Afro-American lady who was courteous and respectful toward us. She first questioned us together, then Jack separately and finally Cecilia separately.
She asked us what we were doing in Colombia. We said we were attending the dedication of a forest to the recently deceased wife of Noam Chomsky. Obviously unaware of who Noam Chomsky is ( Noam had continued through immigration and customs and on to Boston without incident), Ms. Sewell asked how to spell the name Chomsky. She made no further inquiry into our trip to Cauca.
However, she asked us a series of questions about one of the people we have visited and worked with in one of the sister communities of CSN. When we mentioned that for visa issues for persons we invite to come to visit sister communities in the United States we typically contact the human rights office of the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá, who is currently Carolyn Cooley, she asked us to give her contact information for Ms. Cooley. She asked if Ms. Cooley was an attorney working for us on visa issues in Colombia and we said “no”, that she was the human rights officer of the Embassy and that she had been very helpful to us and responsive to our concerns for visas for Colombians we invite to visit us in the U.S.
Ms. Sewell pursued one other area of questioning. She showed us a piece of paper on which were listed two telephone numbers with a 312 exchange, and she asked if we knew where they were from (we said we thought Chicago was area code 312) and whose numbers they were. Neither of us recognized either of the numbers and neither of us could recall calling those numbers. We told her this.
She made extensive notes and finally thanked us for answering her questions and told us our passports, which she had in hand, would be ready soon. We then waited for about 30 minutes while she made one or two phone calls and appeared to be typing up an extensive report. When she was done, she called us up to her window, gave us our passports and said we could leave. We picked up our bag next to the carousel below and went on to the American Airlines counter, where they assigned us a new flight on which we left Miami about an hour later. An American Airlines representative in the immigration room had taken our baggage claim and flight number when we first arrived, telling us that American would receive information of our being held up and thus missing our scheduled connecting flight.
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phone: (608) 257-8753
fax: (608) 255-6621
e-mail: csn@igc.org
THE GOVERNMENT SAYS THEY DON’T EXIST. IN REALITY, THEY HAVE ALWAYS BEEN HERE.
(Translated by Eunice Gibson, a CSN Volunteer Translator) Once again we want to make a record of the most recent activities that are putting the Peace Community at the most urgent and imminent risk. The events that we want to reveal to all humanity and because of which we request national and international solidarity are contrary to what the government is saying. They constantly distort reality, converting lies into and truth into lies. Nevertheless, that brazenness and that double-talk goes nowhere with the victims because the true story, the reality of what has happened to the victims is overwhelming. It cannot be distorted. We know that its accuracy and its true sense of searching for justice will be echoed by the voices of conscience in many different parts of the world. These voices refuse to fall for that atmosphere of "everything's OK" when the reality is completely different. The facts that we offer to universal justice are the following: On May 23, 2010 at about 10 a.m. Army soldiers entered the Resbalosa community's cane field and destroyed all the cane that had been planted and was growing. On June 26, 2010, in the morning, a group of 200 paramilitaries entered the town of Murmullo Alto and Alto Joaquin (part of our Community). The paramilitaries came from the Batata district where they are permanently and freely established in full view of the Army and the Police. On June 28, 2010, at about 4 p.m. the paramilitaries gathered together all the people from the towns of Murmullo Alto and Medio for a meeting. They talked against the Peace Community and said that it would have to submit to their orders or its leaders would be murdered. They took the names of all the people who were at the meeting, along with their ages, the location of their farms, and the names of their workers, their neighbors and of all of their families. They told them that now their lives no longer belonged to them, but to the paramilitaries and they would have to do what the paramilitaries told them to do and whoever refused would die. On June 29, 2010, the Colombian justice system dismissed the defamation claim that Dr. Gloria Cuartas had filed because of the defamatory statements that had been made about her, about Fr. Javier Giraldo, and about the Community in relation to the massacre of 2005. This court decision once again proves that we are right about the rottenness of the justice system. This is why we don't believe in it. It's fixed and it's part of the plan to exterminate our Community, giving free rein to the killers to do away with us and escape punishment. On June 30, 2010, four families from Murmullo Alto were displaced. Besides that, several people are not sleeping in their houses because they are afraid of the paramilitaries who can be seen on several roads and who set up checkpoints. On July 5, 2010, all day long, Army soldiers were conducting a "census" in the town of Porvenir, in spite of the fact that they were told that it was illegal. They just laughed and said they could do whatever they wanted. On July 5, 2010 at 4 p.m., paramilitaries held a meeting in the town of Osa, right next to the town of Alto Joaquin, which is part of the Peace Community. Once again they said they were taking a "census" and everybody would have to cooperate. Anyone that wouldn't give in to them would have to leave or be killed. They said if the Peace Community would not submit they would finish it off and they would kill the leaders first. On July 7, 2010 around 8 a.m. a paramilitary was sent to every house in Alto Joaquin, which is part of our Community. He said there would be a meeting in the next few days where they would lay down the rules of how everybody would have to work for them. The situation with this paramilitary activity is extremely urgent. The government refuses to do anything, but the threat is very real. There will be a huge displacement of members of the Peace Community, as they will leave together, and are already leaving. We ask urgently for solidarity to demand the cessation of these actions. In the midst of all these difficulties, we hold fast to our convictions and to the conscience of our community. In spite of all the decisions of this murderous structure, the victims are not demoralized. On the contrary, we believe in justice as a supreme value that guarantees our lives. That is why we are staying on the path to reach universal justice some day, and why we do not give up in the face of the government's criminal attitude. PEACE COMMUNITY OF SAN JOSÉ DE APARTADÓ JULY 10, 2010
URGENT ACTION: MAY - CRISIS ALERT: SEVEN LEADERS ASSASSINATED AND 110 HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS THREATENED
(Translated by Susan Tritten, a CSN Volunteer Translator) In spite of the calls by multinational human rights organizations,
announcements by national and international organizations, public
reports, and even more direct means to demand government action,
attacks against human rights defenders and social activists in
Colombia become more and more critical. Campana por el Derecho a Defender los Derechos Humanos en Colombia
(Campaign For the Right to Defend Human Rights in Colombia)
Communiques - June, 2010 In May we saw an alarming increase in attacks against human rights
defenders and social activists in Colombia, exactly three months
before the end of the current administration and in the last moments
of the electoral campaign. If, according to the data of the NGO for
the protection of human rights defenders, Somos Defensores (We Are
Defenders), 2009 was the worst on record in the last four years, with
170 cases, 2010, especially the month of May, seems to exceed what we
had foreseen. This month, seven human rights defenders and peasant
leaders were assassinated, four of them connected with reports of
forced displacement and claims for land restitution. Also, 100
organizations that work for human rights and social service
organizations for women, Afro-Americans, and indigenous peoples, among
others, were targets of threats by illegal armed or unknown persons,
using intimidating e-mail, fliers, text messages, and telephone calls. Many of these threatened human rights organizations take part in
dialogues with the Colombian government in Regional Roundtables and
the National Roundtable on Constitutional Rights, a process promoted
since 2009 by Committees for Human Rights and Peace, and various
sectors of society, seeking guarantees for the exercise of human
rights defense. In response to this situation, human rights defenders and social
activists demonstrated peacefully at the induction of the Minister of
the Interior and Justice on May 21, 2010, to demand comprehensive
measures to protect the lives of those who work for human rights in
Colombia. As a result of this protest, a meeting was held with Minister Fabio
Valencia Cossio, who made a commitment to monitor threats and attacks
against defenders and to respond immediately to any new danger.
Nevertheless, two days after this meeting, Alexander Quintero, a human
rights defender, was assassinated in the Department of Cauca and 30
other organizations received threats in Santander, Cauca Valley and
Cauca. During May and the first week of June, attacks and threats were
reported without receiving any attention from national, regional or
local authorities, not even the media. So the national and
international Campana por el Derecho a Defender los Derechos Humanos,
are compiling, in this urgent action notice, some of these violent
acts. They are doing this so that the national and international
public might become aware of this critical situation not as isolated
acts, but as a systematic pattern of aggression and intimidation by
armed and illegal persons who affect the work that human rights
organizations and leaders carry out in Colombia. In this way, we are making a plea to all organizations and persons
associated with the campaign, to the national and international media,
to the offices and agencies of the United Nations, to the academic
community, to unions and, in general, to the all people abroad and in
Colombia to: -- Petition the Colombian government to adopt immediate and effective
comprehensive measures to protect the lives of human rights defenders
and social activists. --Maintain vigilance over the safety and security of those who perform
legal and legitimate work in defense of human rights in Colombia. We are making a vigorous demand to all agencies of the Colombian
government who are responsible for the protection of human rights and
social organizers immediately to put into effect comprehensive
measures to protect these men and women who work for democracy, peace
and human rights in Colombia. Please see below a list of the most recent violent acts committed
against human rights workers in Colombia. Attacks against human rights workers compiled by the national and
international Campana Por el Derecho a Defender los Derechos Humanos
en Colombia in May and the first week of June, 2010, in the following
order: Date - Type of Offense - Place - Victim(s) - Method - Assumed Perpetrator. June 7 - Threat - Bogota - Office for the Protection of the Rights of
the People of Choco, Cauca, Narino and Huila, CODHES, CRIC, ACIN,
ASFADES, CIMA, ASOINCA, ONIC, NUEVO ARCOIRIS, SURCA, INDEPAZ, ASOPRO,
Corporacion Juridica Libertad (Juridical Freedom Corporation) -
Leaflet - Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia Bloque Central
(Self-defense United Forces of Colombia, Central Bloc) June 7 - Homicide - Vistahermosa, Meta - Walter Zuniga - Santo
Domingo area community leader, Commission for Human Rights of Bajo
Ariari - Assassination by assumed paramilitaries June 5 - Homicide - Gigante, Huil - Rigoberto Urriago - President of
the Community Action Committee of the Tres Esquinas district - Forced
from his house and assassinated outside - Assassination by assumed
paramilitaries May 29 - Threat - Sincelejo, Sucre - Eduardo Castro, member of MOVICE
and of ACEU and candidate for Student Council in the University of
Sucre - Declared a military target on April 28, 2010 by e-mail by an
organization that calls itself Nuevas Generaciones AUC, intimidating
telephone call - Nuevas Generaciones AUC (New Generations Self-defense
Forces of Colombia). May 28 - Assault - Pasto, Narino - Jonny Vidal, President of the
Foundation of Displaced Persons Minga of El Charco, Narino - Attempted
forced disappearance, assault with a pointed, sharp knife - Aguilas
Negras (Black Eagles) May 28 - Threats - Barrancabermeja, Santander - David Ravelo Crespo,
Director of the Regional Association of Victims of Magdalena Medio
(ASORVIM), survivor of the Union Patriotica (Patriot Union) -
Threatening telephone call - Not identified May 27 - Threat - Tulua, Valle del Cauca - Luz Marina and John Freddy
of ECATE, Berenice [Celeyta] of NOMADESC and Comite de Solidaridad con
Presos Politicos (Committee of Solidarity with Political Prisoners) -
Intimidating telephone call - Not identified May 27 - Threat - Santander de Qilichao, Cauca - Meraldino Cabiche
Ulchur - Territorial Inter-ethnic Union of Naya (UTINAYA), member of
the Red de Iniciativas y Comunidades de Paz desde la Base (Grassroots
Network of Initiatives and Communities for Peace) - Cell phone text
message - Aguilas Negras May 26 - Threat - Barrancabermeja, Santander - 18 organizations,
unions, and work places in defense of human rights in Magdalena Medio,
most of them members of the Barrancabermejo Chapter of MOVICE - E-mail
- Comando Conjunto de Limpieza (Joint Command for Social Cleansing,
paramilitaries) May 23 - Homicide - Santander de Quilichao, Cauca - Alexander
Quintero, leader of the victims of the Naya massacre, peasant leader,
member of the Union Territorial Inter Etnica del Naya (UTINAYA) and
president of the Asociacion de Juntas Comunales del Alto Naya
(Association of Joint Communities of Upper Naya), and member of the
Red de Inciativas y Comunidades de Paz desde la Base; Assassination -
Not identified May 23 - Threat - Cali, Valle del Cauca - Diego Escobar, Omar Romero,
and Wilson Saenz, Cut Valle, Sinaltracampo - Flier - Aguilas Negras,
Nueva Generacion May 21 - Threat - Pasto, Narino - Javier Dorado Rosero, president of
the Comite Permanente por la defensa de los Derechos Humanos (CPDH)
(Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights) Narino - Cell
phone text messages - Not identified May 20 - Harassment - Barrancabermeja, Santander - Maria Leonilda
Ravelo, president of Asociacion Nacional de Ayuda Solidaria (ANDAS)
(National Mutual Aid Association) Barrancabermeja, Asociacion de
Desplazados (Association of Displaced Persons), member of the steering
committee of CREDHOS - Stalking and intimidating telephone calls - not
identified May 20 - Threat - Barrancabermeja, Santander - More than 20 political
directors of FENSUAGRO declared military targets - E-mail - Bloque
Central of Aguilas Negras May 20 - Harassment - Bucaramanga, Santander - Miguel de la Vega,
recognized social activist, technical secretary of the Coordinacion
Nacional de Desplazados (CND) (National Coordinating Committee for
Displaced Persons) in that region, member of the operations team of
the Santander chapter of MOVICE, director of ANDAS en Bucaramanga and
survivor of genocide against the Union Patriotica - Attempted robbery
- Not identified May 18 - Homicide - San Onofre, Sucre - Rogelio Martinez, peasant
leader and human rights defender, and active member of the Sucre
chapter of the Movimiento de Victimas de Crimenes de Estado (MOVICE);
Assassination; Not identified May 17 - Harassment - San Jose de Apartado, Antioquia - Citizens of
Mulatos, Bellavista, and La Cristalina districts were accused of being
collaborators of the insurgency - Direct intimidation - National Army May 14 - Threats - Bogota D.C. - Various defenders and political
leaders and more than 50 organizations in Bogota, Choco and Cauca -
E-mail - Bloque Central of Aguilas Negras May 11 - Homicide - Araba (Via Turbo Necocle), Antioquia - Albeiro
Valdes Martinez, leader of land restitution process in Uraba, linked
to the Asociacion de Victimas para la Restitucion de Tierras y Bienes
(ASOVIRESTIBI) (Victims' Associationfor the Restitucion of Land and
Property) - Asssassination - Not identified May 7 - Homicide - El Castillo, Meta - Nilson Ramirez, affiliate of
Sintragrim in the Esmeralda district of El Castillo, Meta -
Assassinated - Not identified May 3 - Threat - Bogota, D.C - Rodolfo Vecino - Financial manager of
the Petroleum Workers' Union (USO) - E-mail - Not identified Campana por el Derecho a Defender los Derechos Humanos en Colombia -
Campaign for the Right to Defend Human Rigihts in Colombia Somos Defensores - We Are Defenders CODHES - Consultorio para los Derechos Humanos y el Desplazamiento -
Bureau on HumanRights and Displacement CRIC - Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca ACIN - Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca ASFADES - Association of Relatives of Detained or Disappeared Persons CIMA Center for International Media Assistance ASOINCA - Asociacion de Institutores del Cauca - Cauca Teachers' Union ONIC - Organizacion Nacional de Indigenas de Colombia - National
Indigenous Organization of Colombia NUEVO ARCOIRIS - New Rainbow - Business and Human Rights Organization
of former guerrillas INDEPAZ - Instituto de Estudios para el Desarrollo y la Paz -
Institute for Studies of Development and Peace ASOPRO - Asociacion de Professionales - Association of Professionals Corporacion Juridica Libertad - Corporation for Juridical Freedom Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia - United Self-defense Forces of
Colombia (paramilitaries) MOVICE - Movimiento Nacional de Victimas de Crimenes del Estado -
National Movement of Victims of Crimes of the State ACEU - Colombian Association of University Students Nuevas Generaciones AUC - New Generation Self-Defense Forces of Colombia Aguilas Negras - Black Eagles (paramilitaries) ASORVIM - Asociacion Regional de Victimas de la Violencia del
Terrorismo del Estado en el Magdaleno Media - Regional Association of
Victims of State Violence and Terrorism in Magdaleno Media Union Patriotica - Patriotic Union [Party] (victims of paramilitaries) ECATE - Asociacion ECATE - Social Development and Human Rights Organization NOMADESCE - Asociacion para la Investigacion y la Accion Social -
Research and Social Action Association CSPP - Comite de Solidaridad de Presos Politicos - Committee of
Solidarity with Political Prisoners UTINAYA - Union Territorial Inter-etnica de Naya - Regional
Inter-ethnic Union of Naya Asociacion de Juntos Comunales del Alto Naya - Joint Community
Association of Alto Naya Red de Iniciativas y Comunidades de Paz desde la Base - Grassroots
Network of Iniciatives and Communities for Peace CUT - Confederacion Unida de Trabajadores - National Workers' Union SINALTRACAMPO - Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores del Campo -
National Campesinos' Union Aguilas Negras Nueva Generacion - New Generation Black Eagles (paramilitaries) CPDH - Comite Permanente por la Defensa de lo Derechos Humanos -
Standing Committee for the Defense of Human Rights ANDA - Asociacion Nacional de Ayuda Soladaria - National Mutual Aid Association Asociacion de Desplazados - Association of Displaced Persons FENSUAGRO - National Campesinos Union CND - Coordinacion Nacional de Desplazados - National Coordinating
Committee for Displaced Persons ASINCORT - Asociacion Sindical de Institutores Nortesantandereanos -
Teachers' Union of North Santander ASOVIRESTIBI - Asociacion de Victimas para la Restitucion de Tierras y
Bienes - Association of Victims for the Restitution of Land and
Property Sintragrim - Sindicato de Trabajadores Agricolas Independientes del
Meta - Union of Independent Agricultural Workers of Meta USO - Union Sindical Obrero del Petroleo - National Oil Workers' Union Comision Nacional de Derechos Humanos y Paz de la USO - National
Commission on Human Rights and Peace of the National Oil Workers'
Union
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