InfoBrief is a weekly news summary of events in the U.S. and Colombia produced and distributed by the U.S. Office on Colombia. Colombia This Week is reproduced with the kind permission of the ABColombia Group in London. Other sources include U.S. and Latin American newspapers, and reports from non-profit and grassroots groups. The content does not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Office on Colombia. If you would like to receive InfoBrief please contact jess_hunter@usofficeoncolombia.org indicating why you would be interested in this weekly news service. Previous editions of InfoBrief can be found at www.usofficeoncolombia.org
U.S. Current Affairs and Media
HRW Suggests Colombian Government Fails to Protect Rights of Displaced A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report released on October 14, entitled “Displaced and Discarded: The Plight of Internally Displaced Persons in Bogotá and Cartagena,” suggests the Colombian government has failed to protect the rights of millions of civilians internally displaced by armed insurgent groups. The report contends that displaced families are often denied access to education, emergency healthcare and humanitarian aid. “Displaced families in Colombia are doubly dispossessed,” said Michael Bochenek, counsel to the Children’s Rights Division of HRW. “After armed groups uproot them from their homes, the government then denies them their basic needs.” According to the report, in January 2004, the Colombian Constitutional Court declared that the government’s system of assistance for the displaced citizens was inadequate. In September of this year the Constitutional Court stated that “the status of unconstitutionality of the government policies has yet to be overcome; the implementation has been slow and insufficient as the amount of resources allocated to that purpose.” HRW reports that the government has promised to aid the displaced persons but only half of the applicants actually receive assistance, often after a lengthy wait. The time frame for assistance is usually limited to three months. Colombia has the world’s largest internal displacement crisis after Sudan. According to the human rights group, in the last three years alone, more than three million people, over five percent of Colombia’s population, have been forcibly displaced because of the country’s armed conflict. More than half of all displaced persons are children under the age of 18. Read the full report:
Court Orders Colombian Government to Compensate Families Devastated by 1 997 Massacre On October 12, an international human rights court announced that it has ordered Colombia to pay damages in the 1997 massacre of dozens of villagers by right-wing paramilitary fighters. In the southeastern village of Mapiripan from July 15-20, 1997, members of the Self Defense Forces of Colombia tortured and assassinated at least 49 people and then threw the rest of the bodies into the Gauviare River. The right-wing paramilitary fighters accused dozens of unarmedcivilians of being leftist guerrilla sympathizers and then killed them. The Colombian army failed to send troops into the village to end the massacre despite numerous requests for help. The Inter-American Human Rights Court ordered the Colombian government to pay $1 million in material damages, $2.6 million in punitive damages distributed between members of twenty victims’ families. In addition to ordering the construction of a monument and the publication of the sentence, the judges called on Colombia to implement an effective educative human rights program for its Armed Forces. The Colombian government will be reviewed in a year to verify that they have fulfilled the requirements of the sentence. If the country does not comply with the sentence, the case will go before the Organization of American States.
Peace Leader and Lutheran World Relief Invited Visitor Has Been Disappeared According to human rights organizations, last week Orlando Valencia, a dedicated leader in the Afro-Colombian peace community in the province of Chocó, was detained and disappeared by armed men. He and fellow community members along with international and national accompaniers were stopped by police from Belén de Bajirá. Valencia was taken to the police station and, upon his release, was taken against his will on a motorcycle by people alleged to be members of the paramilitary Self-Defense Forces. The previous week the U.S. Embassy denied him a visa to visit Chicago for a Partnering for Peace conference held from October 21-23. He was invited to the conference by Lutheran World Relief partner Red Ecumenica (Ecumenical Network) to be one of the guest speakers at the conference. Lutheran World Relief and other advocacy groups are calling for Colombian and United States government investigations into his disappearance. “Our immediate advocacy on his behalf could mean the difference between life and death. As we have seen with other cases, pressure from the international community can lead key officials in the Colombian government to take action to prevent further harm to community leaders,” said LWR president Kathryn Wolford.
Thousands of Colombians Protest Free Trade Accord with the U.S. On October 10, a total of 500,000 people, led by state workers’ unions, indigenous groups and students, marched to protest President Uribe’s conservative economic policies and the on-going free-trade talks with the United States. The proposed free trade agreement between the United States and the Andean countries of Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia has caused many Colombian citizens to fear worsened unemployment, and unaffordable medicine. Critics suggest that new pharmaceutical protection clauses would make it illegal to produce local generic medication making the cost of medicine unaffordable to many citizens. The protestors suggest that Andean growers of sugar cane, rice, corn, potatoes and cotton will lose their livelihood because they will be unable to compete with agriculture heavily subsidized by the U.S. Public schools and notary offices in Bogota had to close due to the number of employees who chose not to attend work in order to participate in the protests. In a roundtable with reporters on October 14, U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez predicted that once an Andean free-trade agreement is reached it will be ratified by the U.S. “As with CAFTA [Central American Free Trade Agreement], the facts will show the pact is good for our country, good for the Andean countries and good for the world,” said Gutierrez.
Upcoming Events and Seminars in the U.S.
On November 4, Rutgers University will host a conference entitled “40 Years of War: The effects of Colombia’s Civil War on Afro-Indigenous Populations” with keynote speakers Jess Hunter, Senior Associate at the U.S. Office on Colombia in Washington D.C. and Fatimah Williams Castro from the Rutgers Department of Anthropology Ph.D. program. The program is at 7 pm in the Multi Purpose Room at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. For more information, contact Diego Alejandro Arias at alejandroariasjr@aol.com.
Due to staff travel, Colombia This Week will not be distributed until October 24. We apologize for any inconvenience.
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