HUMAN RIGHTS: UN Prepares to Censure Colombia for Atrocities

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Apr 17 2001 (IPS) - The United Nations Commission on Human Rights is putting together a declaration of criticisms – coming from the global forum itself and from non-governmental organisations (NGOs) – against Colombian authorities regarding the country’s poor human rights record.

The document, to be released Apr 25 by Leandro Despouy, president of the UN commission, will contain some harsh judgments about the evolution of Colombia’s human rights situation, according to diplomats involved in drafting the text.

Delegates to the Commission on Human Rights, which ends its annual six-week period of sessions Apr 27 in Geneva, spent Tuesday assessing the violations occurred in Colombia, primarily arising from clashes between leftist insurgent groups, right-wing paramilitary squads, and government armed forces.

Representatives from the European Union (EU) and from the Colombian government participated in writing up the final text of the commission’s presidential declaration, said Joah Molander, delegate from Sweden, the nation holding the EU’s executive power for this semester.

The most controversial point of the document, commented one diplomat involved, mentions the role of President Andrés Pastrana’s government, and that of the armed forces, in relation to the right-wing paramilitary groups.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, said she is “deeply concerned by the increase in, and expansion of, the phenomenon of paramilitarism, and by the growing support that it is receiving among certain sectors of Colombian civil society.”

Robinson, who presented her office’s report on the Colombian situation before the Commission on Human Rights this Tuesday, called on Bogota to “tackle this (paramilitary) problem in a firm and transparent manner.”

But Colombia’s Vice-President Gustavo Bell Lemus questioned the references in Robinson’s report to “direct responsibility of the state” in the activities of the paramilitary groups.

“That is historically untrue,” Bell Lemus asserted.

Robinson pointed out in her presentation before the commission that the paramilitary United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) massacred at least 37 civilians last weekend in Alto de Naya, in southeast Colombia, a tragedy that left some 600 families displaced from their homes.

Floro Tunubalá, governor of Cauca department, however, says that approximately 100 people were killed during the AUC incursions into the area.

Further violence in the South American country occurred Sunday when the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) reportedly attacked the town of La Caucana, in the northwestern department of Antioquia, where 13 people were killed and eight were injured, according to a military spokesman.

But sources from the village put the death toll at 28. Most of the victims were rural workers, though there reportedly were also some guerrilla casualties.

The EU appealed to Colombian authorities “to continue efforts to effectively combat paramilitarism.”

Molander also focused on the Pastrana administration, urging it “to stop the cooperation and acquiescence of official bodies, members of the armed forces and individuals with paramilitary groups.”

The European representative condemned the human rights violations committed by members of the government’s armed and security forces, and called for such cases to be brought to trial.

Bell Lemus responded that his government has a resolute policy of pursuing and subduing paramilitaries, who are responsible for the greatest portion of massacres and commit the most violations of international human rights law in Colombia.

Over the last decade, as a result of the civil war, more than 35,000 Colombians have been killed for political reasons, while another 3,000 have disappeared and an estimated two million have been displaced from their homes, reported Sophie Marsac, of the London-based Amnesty International, a leading human rights watchdog.

In addition, Anna Biondi, of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, stated that 129 labour union leaders were killed in Colombia last year and another 180 received death threats, 27 were kidnapped and 14 disappeared.

High Commissioner Robinson expressed her annoyance with public statements coming from Colombian government officials that “called into question the objectivity and impartiality” of the work of her UN office.

Bell Lemus commented that reports from the human rights office “should go beyond simple denunciations, and instead be fed by a constructive spirit.”