Press release on Colombia surveilance

Surveillance of FOR Colombia Team Exposed;
Human Rights Groups Join FOR in Demanding Investigation

The Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) and other human rights organizations last week released letters delivered in Bogotá, Colombia, to U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield and Colombian Attorney General Mario Iguarán condemning the electronic monitoring of humanitarian groups. FOR and other non-governmental organizations revealed this month that the Colombian government had secretly intercepted communications to and from more than 150 e-mail addresses used by human rights activists, journalists, academics, and labor organizers for the past two years.

Intercepting e-mails of nonviolent activists working in combat zones is not only a detour from terrorism investigations. It also puts at risk our field team and the communities we work with, by suggesting that those working for peace and human rights are subversive, legitimate targets for right-wing violence.

Two FOR e-mail addresses have been revealed as surveillance targets during that two-year period. This covert action is a direct violation of our right to privacy as a humanitarian activist organization. We’ve also now learned that the Colombian military paid for computer hard drives ‘of interest to intelligence’ agencies. In June 2007, our Bogotá, Colombia office was broken into, ransacked, and robbed of laptop computers. These stolen laptops contained sensitive files on our work with members of Colombian peace communities, and the incident may have been a direct result of this state-sanctioned surveillance.

At the request of rural Colombian peace communities – who are committed to a nonviolent presence in the midst of the hemisphere’s longest-running war – FOR has maintained a human rights team of international activists in northwestern Colombia since 2002. In mid-2008, FOR and Amnesty International published research on the links between the Colombian military and extrajudicial murders of Colombian civilians. On October 29, more than two dozen Colombian army officials involved in such murders were fired. On November 4, as the scandal grew, General Mario Montoya, commander of the Colombian army, resigned his post.

The letter to Ambassador Brownfield from FOR and other NGOs also addressed the U.S.’s role with regard to these illicit efforts. The letter stated, “The United States bears significant responsibility in this matter, given that the agencies involved in these actions – National Police, Defense Ministry and Attorney General’s office – are recipients of extensive U.S. assistance. In 2006 the State Department awarded a $5 million contract to provide SIJIN [Colombian police intelligence unit] with ‘internet surveillance software.’ As a result, U.S. taxpayers were apparently paying for Colombian agencies to spy on legitimate U.S. and Colombian humanitarian organizations.”

The U.S. government must press for a thorough and transparent investigation into these abuses, since our taxpayer dollars are funding that brutal war. Downloadable PDF versions of the NGO community letters to the U.S. and Colombian officials may be accessed online here: Brownfield intercept letter and Iguaran Intercept letter.