Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean

COLOMBIA-ECUADOR: Rights Case May Be Spanner in Works of Restoration of Ties

Gonzalo Ortiz *

QUITO, Nov 10 2010 (IPS) - A decision by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to investigate Ecuador’s complaint against Colombia for the killing of an Ecuadorean citizen in a 2008 cross-border bombing raid came just as the two countries appear to be on the verge of restoring diplomatic relations.

Ecuador broke off ties in March 2008 following Colombia’s bombing of a temporary camp of Colombia’s FARC guerrillas in Ecuador.

An Ecuadorean citizen, Franklin Aisalla, was killed in the attack. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) decided to accept the Ecuadorean government’s complaint about his alleged extrajudicial execution — the first complaint filed by one Organisation of American States (OAS) member against another ever to be accepted in the 50-year history of the regional body’s human rights commission.

Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño said he would meet with his Colombian counterpart, María Ángela Holguín, on Nov. 18 to discuss “sensitive pending questions” in bilateral relations. But he said Monday that the question of the full restoration of ties and the IACHR case are running on “separate tracks.”

However, according to reactions by Colombian politicians reported by the local press after the IACHR decision was announced on Nov. 4, Ecuador is mixing issues from two different spheres: the diplomatic and the judicial.

Patiño did not rule out the possibility of discussing the Aisalla case with Holguín, at the Colombian minister’s request. The government of Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has not yet made any official statement on the subject.


The two neighbouring countries restored relations to the level of business attachés, but ambassadors have not yet been exchanged, because Ecuador is first waiting for information from Bogotá on the bombing of the FARC camp.

Aisalla and 24 others — four Mexicans and 20 Colombian rebels, including a top FARC leader, Raúl Reyes — died in the attack.

The cross-border air and land raid was ordered by the Colombian government of then right-wing President Álvaro Uribe, without prior warning to the administration of leftist President Rafael Correa of Ecuador.

Ecuador alleges that Aisalla was the victim of extrajudicial execution, and accuses Colombia of violating his right to life. The IACHR formally accepted the complaint on Oct. 21.

“We applaud the fact that Ecuador has turned to legal channels” to solve the conflict that led to the severing of ties with Colombia, Eduardo Carreño, an attorney from the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective, which has brought a number of cases before the IACHR, told IPS in Bogotá.

For his part, Iñigo Salvador, director of the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador’s Centre for Research on International Law, told IPS: “The truth is that just when significant progress had been made towards the normalisation of relations, this IACHR decision was announced. And while it is important, it will cause a stir at the foreign ministers’ upcoming meeting.”

Carreño said it is important that legal routes are followed, because conflicts must be solved through legal, pacific means, rather than by actions like the bombing by Colombia’s armed forces.

He also stressed the need for the parties involved “to submit themselves to the decisions reached by international bodies.”

Although the OAS did not condemn Colombia for the attack, it declared it responsible for violating Ecuadorean territory.

President Uribe (2002-2010) publicly apologised to Ecuador and said there would be no repeat.

According to Carreño, “That is an admission of responsibility.”

In the next stage of the case, “each state — Ecuador and Colombia — will be required to provide evidence to substantiate their arguments. For that to be made public at the international level is appropriate and suitable, we believe, in order to prevent a repeat of this kind of situation,” the Colombian lawyer stated.

Salvador noted that “Ecuador claims Aisalla was captured alive and then killed by the Colombian armed forces. Proving that will be a tough task, but it is important for the issue to be debated.”

After the bombing raid, Colombia erroneously identified Aisalla’s body as that of Colombian insurgent Julián Conrado, and later, as Ecuadorean citizen Franklin Ponelia. The Uribe administration reported that he was killed as a result of an explosion.

An October 2008 report by Colombia’s forensic medicine institute attributed Aisalla’s death to “wounds caused by explosive fragments that penetrated and severely damaged” the skull, the brain and the abdominal cavity.

But the Ecuadorean government says he was a victim of extrajudicial killing, by a number of blows to the head. A forensic report by the Ecuadorean police found that the body had multiple skull fractures, as well as three wounds to the thorax.

“The Commission can recommend actions to be taken, but if the case continues, it could lead to a sentence by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights,” said Ecuadorean Attorney General Diego Garcia, who filed the complaint.

“I personally hope that the process will not be drawn out and that we can settle this before the case goes all the way to the Court,” he said.

“The right to life is protected under any circumstance,” García added, when asked whether the IACHR decision ruled out the argument presented by Colombia that Aisalla was an insurgent in a guerrilla camp.

“Colombia was mistaken in trying to base its argument on what this individual was doing in that place on that day,” García said. “No matter what he might have done, that person had a right to life and to be tried according to national and international laws.”

Ecuador wants Colombia to acknowledge what happened that day: “That after Operation Phoenix (the cross-border bombing) was carried out, the Colombian armed forces took control of a section of Ecuadorean territory and that, while in the area, the Colombian army summarily executed Ecuadorean citizen Aisalla,” the attorney general said.

The Nov. 18 meeting between the foreign ministers is precisely aimed at clarifying the circumstances of Aisalla’s death, but in the sphere of bilateral relations, not the Inter-American system.

By bringing the case before the IACHR, the government of Ecuador also wants to make sure that Colombia will not make any more incursions into Ecuadorean territory, and that it will pay reparations to Aisalla’s parents.

“This is a setback for Colombia, which has systematically denied the jurisdiction of the IACHR, even abruptly leaving the hearing (called to discuss Aisalla’s death) in March 2010,” Salvador said.

* With reporting by Constanza Viera in Bogotá.

 
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