October 2008 Colombia Peace Update

FOR's Colombian Peace Presence
2 October 2008

Contents:

• Action alert: No guns for army commander implicated in death squads
• Wave of violence and threats against grassroots groups
• Peace Community: Judicial Advances, but Paramilitaries Threaten
• Extradition: Shipping Out the Truth

Action Alert: No guns for army commander implicated in death squads
Send a fax to Congress to put a hold on military materiel

A witness testified that Colombian Army commander General Mario Montoya delivered weapons to a paramilitary death squad when he was a commander in Medellín, and the Colombian attorney general has opened an investigation into the charges, the Washington Post revealed on September 17.

Gen. Montoya, photo: Washington Post

"Gen. Mario Montoya has for years been a trusted caretaker of the sizable aid package Washington provides Colombia's army," the Post noted. Yet US officials have brushed off this and previous reports of the general's collaboration with death squads, saying, "Our experience with Montoya is a good one. He is a great field commander." When similar reports, based on a CIA document, surfaced last year, the State Department simply said it couldn't verify them. But Colombian prosecutors said the witness in this case has "a high degree of credibility."

In response to reports of hundreds of extrajudicial killings by the army, Congressional appropriators have put a hold on $72 million in military hardware — out of more than $180 million the State Department released in July by certifying that the Colombian government and military is cutting ties to paramilitaries and addressing human rights abuses by the armed forces.

US policymakers continue to give the public excuses for funding and training the Colombian military. "There are many excuses for war, and thousands of reasons to resist it," as the Medellín Youth Network says. The Los Angeles Times also called for a change in Colombia policy this month, saying the army has "murderous thugs on the loose" and insisting that "the U.S. should not be the financial backer of army-sponsored domestic terrorism."

Please send a message to Congressional appropriators today. They have the power to keep a hold on funds for guns, training and hardware for the Colombian army. They should use it! With the recent evidence linking Montoya to the paramilitaries, insist that Congress keep a hold on US military aid to Colombia. To send a message, click here.
Read the full Washington Post report.

Wave of Violence and Threats against Grassroots Leaders

"Post-conflict" is a buzz-word these days in Colombia. Since the demobilization of 30,000 paramilitaries, Colombian government officials often celebrate the country's "transition' and many Washington policymakers are convinced that Colombia is now on the right track. In this phase, there are only "emerging criminal networks," a phrase coined to explain the violence that persists in the wake of the demobilization. Government officials say these networks are gangs of criminals responsible for drug running, arms selling and other illegal activities, but they are not the same paramilitaries who terrorized the civilian population for many years. Both terms lead us to believe that Colombia is no longer in the midst of a conflict and that current violence is not politically motivated.

September brought (more) clear evidence that threats and cases of violence still abound in Colombia and that these cases affect the full spectrum of Colombia's human rights community:

• A leader of Women's Peaceful Path (La Ruta Pacifica de las Mujeres) was murdered;
• Sugarcane workers were victims of a violent crack down;
• A Nasa indigenous leader, also in Cauca, was killed;
• A member of a rural community that resists the expansion of palm oil plantations was threatened, abducted and held at gunpoint;
• Conscientious objectors in Barrancabermeja received a written death threat;
• Activist and economist Hector Mondragon was put a risk when one of Colombia's main newspapers falsely accused him of writing to a guerrilla leader.

Peaceful Path of Women Rejects the Murder of one of its Members in Medellín
Bogota, September 25 — Under circumstances that show violence in all its disgrace and society's degradation, Olga Marina Vergara, a member of the Peaceful Path of Women, was assassinated in Medellín. She was a feminist and peace leader, known for her work defending women in the capital of the Antioquia department. She was massacred on September 24 together with her son, daughter in law and grandson in her own house, in El Prado, a section of the city center.

"These deaths and this massacre are unacceptable. The Peaceful Path of Women, a political feminist collective which works to make visible the effects of war on women's lives, categorically rejects these events that show once again the degradation of war and society," says Marina Gallego Zapata, the national coordinator of the Peaceful Path of Women. To read the full statement, continue.

Minister of Social Protection Threatens Sugarcane Workers
Thousands of Colombian sugarcane workers in three southwestern states — supported by Colombia's largest labor federation — have been on strike since September 15, calling for basic minimum labor standards. Sadly, sugarcane companies and the Colombian government completely refused to negotiate with the workers and instead sent in state troops to break up the work stoppage. On September 24, riot police sprayed striking workers with tear gas, shouting at them, "this is nothing compared to what you have coming."

On September 23, Minister of Social Protection Diego Palacio, claimed that this is not a workers strike, but organized by vandals and he has information that behind the strike are organizations with shady origins. Palacio, far from providing respect for internal and international guarantees which maintain the right to free association and the formation of unions, acts to delegitimize and put at risk the safety of these workers as well as justify the violent crack down, which has been carried out by the public forces.

In Cauca, an Indigenous Governor Assassinated
On September 28, Raul Mendoza, indigenous governor of the cabildo Peñón, former member of the council of chiefs of the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca, and ex-president of the Association of Cabildos of Tierradentro, Nasa Uus, was assassinated in cold blood, at 4:00pm when he was in his home in the city of Popayán, Cauca. The indigenous governor was leading an important process connected to the campaign for the Liberation of Mother Earth, in the Los Naranjos estate, located in the municipality of Sotará, which had been claimed by the displaced Nasa community and had made repeated pronouncements to organisms of the state about threats being made against him.

Members of the Inter-Church Commission Abducted and Threatened at Gunpoint
On September 3, Yimi Armando Jansasoy, a member of Inter-Church Commission Justice and Peace who accompanies the humanitarian and bio-diverse zones of Curvaradó, Chocó, was abducted and forced into a truck. Four armed men then threatened him and his family and demanded the names of everybody who is part of the humanitarian zone of Curvaradó. He was released after an hour and a quarter of intimidations and threats. On September 7, members of Justice and Peace received their seventh death threat by phone and on September 18, these human rights defenders were being followed in Bogota and were told of plans to assassinate members of their organization. These events are considered to be part of the Aguilas Negras' paramilitary strategy to control the region of Curvaradó and displace the community members from their lands, which have been illegally planted with palm oil. To read more, click here.

Barrancabermeja Youth Collective Receives Threat
The Youth Collective of Barrancabermeja, an organization that defends the rights of young people as conscientious objectors, received a written death threat last week signed by the Aguilas Negras (Black Eagles). The paramilitaries described the youth group's "petty cultural activities," accusing them of trying to camouflage marijuana smokers, drug addicts, alcoholics, gays, prostitutes and thieves as youth leaders, and accused them of hiding "who they really are, which is unordered guerrillas against freedom and the good functioning of the city." At the bottom of the page, the note is signed, "In the absence of the state and the increase in drug users, alcoholics, places that sell hallucinogenic drugs and businesses where the music is too loud until the late hours of the night, we will carry forth the activities of private justice for a free and tidy community."

The youth group responds to these accusations in a statement describing themselves, their identities and the risks they face. "In this situation [of armed conflict] a group of young people with dreams and hopes lives with the certainty that ideas are more powerful than weapons and that no army can defend peace. This group cries out, "we don't want to be part of this absurd war in which people kill each other who don't know each other, for the benefit of those who don't kill each other and do know one another."

They go on to say, "active non-violence and young people's work to build peace is at risk and has been threatened by the intolerance and nasty attitude of those who have weapons and hide behind their name Aguilas Negras. This group sows fear, targets us as guerrillas, stigmatizes sexual freedom and the freedom to express our personalities, accusing us of being drug addicts and thieves."

Hector Mondragon's Choice of Civil Resistance
Mondragon
On August 29 El Tiempo, Colombia's national newspaper claimed that an email to Hector Mondragon, Colombian activist and economist, was found on the laptop of FARC guerrilla leader Raul Reyes, who was killed by the Colombian government in March 2008. This assertion put Hector's own life and the communities with whom he works at risk, as any association with guerrillas often does. He wrote an eloquent response explaining his own commitment to non-violence titled "On My Choice of Civil Resistance," which can be read here.

While US dollars flow to army officials who collaborate with groups on the US list of foreign terrorist organizations, women, workers, indigenous communities, campesinos, youth and human rights defenders are being assassinated, threatened and targeted for the brave work they do. In light of so many cases of paramilitary threats, we urge you to oppose the State Department's July 29 certification of human rights conditions in Colombia. Contact Congressional leaders to request they maintain a freeze on the military aid funds affected by the certification.

Peace Community: Judicial Advances, but Paramilitaries Threaten

Community and FOR members on path in San José de Apartadó

FOR is encouraged by actions to hold military officials accountable for the massacre in February 2005 in which paramilitary and army soldiers brutally murdered two families in San José de Apartadó, and for the army cover-up that followed. In early September, Lt. Col. Orlando Espinoza and Major José Fernando Castaño were arrested for their participation in the massacre. Based on testimony of Captain Guillermo Gordillo who pled guilty to charges that he participated, an investigation may be opened into General Jaime Fandiño, then commander of the Army's 17th Brigade, for telling the captain not to testify about the presence of paramilitaries in his unit.

However, the war in San José has escalated in recent weeks, with paramilitary and army threats to Peace Community members and other peasant farmers in the area.
So while President Uribe was in Washington proclaiming the disappearance of paramilitary groups in Colombia, the Peace Community of San José witnessed recurring actions and threats from hundreds of paramilitary troops.

Area map, click to enlarge

On September 25, according to community leaders, 200 heavily armed paramilitaries in camouflage with insignias marked AUC — the initials for the supposedly demobilized national paramilitary army — stopped at a school in the settlement of Porvenir, close to La Unión (see map at right, click to enlarge), a Peace Community settlement where the FOR accompaniment team lives. The men reportedly told a family they were looking for guerrillas and everyone who help them in order to kill them, and that they had no problem with the army.

The same afternoon, other paramilitaries killed a man in Mangolo, a community between San José and the town of Apartadó, and left his body on the street, the Peace Community said.

The following day, back in Porvenir, paramilitaries blocked paths for local peasants, saying they had to leave the land, which now belongs to the paramilitaries, and that the Peace Community had to be eliminated, community leaders reported.

Three weeks before, on August 30, hundreds of paramilitaries battled guerrillas in Playa Larga, less than an hour's walk from a Peace Community settlement and adjacent to Porvenir, leaving dead on both sides. The FOR team in La Unión spoke with community members who heard further combat on several days following the August 30 battle.

Other sources, including the army, have confirmed the presence of 200 to 300 paramilitary troops in the area. One source reports that paramilitaries in the area are using armbands with FCU, for the Urabá Central Front. The paramilitaries are also known as Aguilas Negras, a national paramilitary network whose name has been signed on dozens of threats to civilian activist groups.

The presence in mountainous settlements of between 200 and 300 paramilitaries has not been seen for years in San José — and in fact is rare in most of Colombia. The confirmed presence of so many paramilitary soldiers raises the question — what is the army doing to address this threat? How were paramilitaries able to reorganize in an area that is heavily militarized since the AUC's demobilization in 2005?

But the army has proffered threats as well. On September 15, army soldiers detained Uberto Higuita in the school in Resbalosa settlement — not far from where a family was killed with machetes in February 2005. The soldiers reportedly told Higuita that he was good for having his head cut off, as is the Peace Community, to remember that they don't need guns to kill, that they prefer knives.

While we are gratified that Colombian investigators are pursuing prosecution of army officers involved in the February 2005 massacre, it is difficult to celebrate fully when the community continues to be terrorized by army and paramilitary gunmen — not to mention the impunity in the cases of 160 other community residents murdered by the army, paramilitaries and guerrillas.

Extradition: Shipping Out the Truth with Colombia's Paramilitary Leaders

By Mayra Sofia Moreno

Hebert Veloza (aka H.H.), one of the most infamous paramilitary leaders and a key witness in at least three massacres in the San José Peace Community, is currently waiting to be extradited to the United States. He is the next on the list of paramilitary leaders that will have to face charges — and probably serve sentences — in the United States for drug trafficking, production, and/or money laundering.

Nonetheless, with the extradition of these paramilitary leaders, their commitment to Colombian society is on hold, as they will leave unfinished business that was introduced through the Justice and Peace Law of 2005, the law regulating the paramilitaries' demobilization. Their extradition interrupts the public declarations that these paramilitary leaders are required to fulfill through confessions of all the crimes and violations against humanity that they are responsible for and simultaneously serve prison sentences. In an interview with the daily El Espectador regarding the Justice and Peace Process and his much discussed extradition, H.H declared that he has only shared "50% of the truth" about the crimes that terrorized several regions in the country. When asked, "And the other 50% of the truth will leave for the United States?" his response was, "Well, as soon as I am extradited, yes."

On May 14, the US Department of Justice and the Colombian government successfully completed the extradition of 14 top paramilitary chiefs, fifteen with "Salvatore Mancuso," who was extradited weeks before them. It is important to understand who are these individuals: they are key players in the Colombian conflict. The men constitute almost the whole leadership of the AUC, which was the paramilitaries' command structure, responsible for terrorizing an entire country, and actively promoted, organized and executed crimes against humanity on scales larger than that of any drug trafficking shipment made to the U.S.

While the notorious: Salvatore Mancuso, Diego Fernando Murillo, Rodrigo Tovar Pupo, Francisco Javier Zuluaga, Guillermo Pérez Alzate, Martín Peñaranda Osorio, Manuel Enrique Torregrosa, Henán Giraldo Serna, Edwin Mauricio Gómez, Diego Alberto Ruiz, Juan Carlos Sierra, Nodier Giraldo Giraldo, and Eduardo Enrique Vengoechea are being prosecuted in New York, Texas, Washington D.C., and Florida, there are victims waiting for justice and reparation throughout the Colombian countryside, particularly in the states of Antioquia, Valle del Cauca, Cesar, Arauca, Nariño, Córdoba and the entire region of Urabá.

Colombian Government and US Embassy
President Uribe said that a primary reason for approving the extradition of the 15 paramilitaries was that these leaders continued to commit crimes while in prison and that, in order to put an end to that, they lost the protection against extradition granted to them by the Justice and Peace Law. The same day the paramilitaries were extradited, President Uribe explained at a press conference that the decision to extradite the paramilitary chiefs was because "—Some of them continued to commit crimes after their incorporation to the Justice and Peace Law, others failed to adequately cooperate with the justice system and all of them failed to give reparations to the victims, since they have not returned the goods and wealth in their possession and/or have been stalling the reparation process."

But we should ask, why didn't the paramilitaries lose ALL the benefits granted to them by Law 975 of 2005 (i.e. maximum eight years in prison)? Why did they only lose their immunity against extradition to the United States? Instead of controlling the continuous illegal activities of these paramilitary leaders and punishing them for violating the agreements made through the negotiation process, why does the Colombian government agree to extradite them and leave as "unfinished business" the judicial process in their own country?
Read the full story here.