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RIGHTS: War on Iraq Diverts Attention from Colombia - Prize-winner
By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Mar 31 (IPS) - The war on Iraq is drawing attention away from other conflicts, such as those of Palestine or Colombia, said a Colombian activist who was awarded the most prestigious international human rights prize Monday.
Human rights lawyer Alirio Uribe Muñoz, the winner of this year's Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, which is granted by ten of the world's leading human rights organisations, drew a parallel between the situation in Iraq since the U.S.-British invasion and the case of Colombia.
''A crime of aggression against the Iraqi people is taking place in an unjust and illegal war in the Middle East where all kinds of crimes are being perpetrated in name of the fight against terrorism,'' said Uribe Muñoz, president of the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers Collective, one of Colombia's most active human rights groups.
Meanwhile, the same arguments are cited in Colombia ''to destroy the last vestiges of the rule of law and cut down civil liberties as the war worsens, with increasing U.S. involvement,'' he added.
Uribe Muñoz said that while the United States is waging a global war on terrorism, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Vélez is using the same discourse to curb civil liberties.
The activist pointed to the irony in the fact that while Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, ''a dictator,'' is opposed to U.S. intervention, President Uribe is calling for heavier U.S. involvement in Colombia, asking for more U.S. weapons and troops, and inviting neighbouring countries to set up an international force to invade his own country.
The military attack on Iraq could distract the international community's attention from Colombia for several months, which would lead to a further deterioration of the human rights situation there, said Uribe Muñoz. He added, however, that his country was already in the grips of an all-out civil war.
The groups awarding the prize reported that there were more than 4,000 political killings - including 150 trade unionists - in 2001 alone.
According to international rights organisations, the great majority of gross human rights violations in Colombia are committed by paramilitary forces, which enjoy the complicity or tolerance of the army.
The Martin Ennals Award, created in 1993, is conferred annually upon ''an individual or an organisation who has displayed exceptional courage in combating human rights violations.'' The prize includes a cash award of 20,000 Swiss francs ''to further human rights work.''
Another activist, Morris Tidball-Binz, with the Geneva-based International Service for Human Rights, said he ''fully'' shared the Colombian human rights lawyer's concerns.
Tidball-Binz said that with regards to ''the question as to whether there is a relationship between the erosion of human rights in Colombia and the ongoing conflict in Iraq, the answer is obviously not simple.
''But if we go back to the tragic events of Sep. 11, 2001 and the unleashing of the 'war against terrorism' (by the U.S. administration of President George W. Bush), of which the war on Iraq forms a part, there certainly is a tangible cause/effect relationship'' with the escalation of the conflict in Colombia, he argued.
That is reflected ''in the tightening of the laws and the rules of engagement in Colombia affecting tens of thousands of civilians, laws that have became far harder in both military and civilian jurisdictions, allowing, for example, the military to arrest civilians for questioning'' without a warrant, said Tidball-Binz.
''We can thus say, with objective elements of proof, that there is a link between this war against terrorism and the worsening of the situation in Colombia,'' he maintained.
According to U.S. statistics, 90 percent of the cocaine consumed by more than 30 million people in the United States comes from Colombia.
The U.S. State Department also notes that of the 29 groups on its list of terrorist organisations worldwide, three are Colombian: the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National Liberation Army (ELN), and the right-wing paramilitary United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC).
Uribe Muñoz said that under the current conditions, direct U.S. involvement in Colombia, where U.S. military advisers and troops are already active, will continue to expand.
U.S. military personnel can be seen in Colombia not only training anti-narcotics or anti-terrorist battalions - ''as they are called now'' - but also taking part in armed actions, he said, noting that the FARC claim to have captured three members of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in combat.
There are also U.S. civilians working in Colombia, for private companies or security outfits, he added.
Uribe Muñoz was the first Colombian individual to win the award named after Martin Ennals (1927-1991), a British human rights defender who was one of the founders of the London-based rights group Amnesty International.
But an organisation working in Colombian territory, Peace Brigades International, won the prize in 2001 for the protection it provided human rights advocates who were facing threats.
Previous Martin Ennals prize-winners have been: lawyer Jacqueline Moudeina (Chad), who defended victims of Hissène Habré, former dictator of that north-central African country (2002); activist Immaculée Birhaheka for her work on raising awareness on the rights of women in the central African country Democratic Republic of the Congo (2000); and the founder of the Humanitarian Law Centre in Belgrade, Natasha Kandic (1999).
Others were Palestinian doctor Eyad El Sarraj, the founder of the Gaza Community Mental Health programme in Palestine (1998); and then-bishop Samuel Ruiz García of the diocese of Chiapas in southern Mexico, who was awarded the prize in 1997 for his peace-brokering efforts between the Mexican state and the Zapatista National Liberation Army, a guerrilla group.
The remaining award-winners were Clement Nwankwo, executive director of the Constitutional Rights Project of Nigeria (1996); Asma Jahangir, chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, one of the leading human rights groups in that country, and UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Arbitrary or Summary Executions (1995); and former Chinese political prisoner Harry Wu (1994).
Uribe Muñoz was handed the prize at a ceremony in Geneva Monday by UN High Commissioner of Human Rights Sergio Vieira de Mello, during the annual sessions of the UN Commission on Human Rights.
The ten organisations that select the annual prize-winners are: Amnesty International, Defence for Children International, Human Rights Desk Diakonie Germany, Human Rights Watch, HURIDOCS, International Alert, International Commission of Jurists, International Federation of Human Rights, International Service for Human Rights, and World Organisation Against Torture.
(END)
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