By Aslan Abashidze
GENEVA, Jun 8 2015 (IPS)

The “U.N. Report on the human rights situation in Ukraine”, which was referred to in an Inter Press Service (IPS) article of Jun. 2, does not, in my view, reflect many salient points.

How the lawful Government of Ukraine was overthrown is now well known. The new Kiev regime immediately announced the prohibition of the Russian language in the eastern regions of the country, inhabited mostly by the Russian speaking population.Though more than 6,500 people have died and millions displaced, no one clarifies why the numbers are growing. No one admits that these regions face a humanitarian catastrophe.

As the U.N. report confirms, those who committed numerous murders on Maidan Square and in Odessa have not been prosecuted.

Combat aircraft of the Ukrainian Air Force, armed with a full complement of missiles, bombed the centre of Donetsk in broad daylight. These events forced the creation of militia groups to defend their interests and territory.

That is how the military confrontation between the new regime in Kiev and eastern regions of Ukraine was created – thus causing 6,500 deaths, and over a million Ukrainian refugees now living inside Russia.

The fulfillment of all provisions of the Minsk agreements (ceasefire, withdrawal of heavy weapons, delivery of aid to the needy, local elections, formation of local authorities, constitutional reforms, etc.) signed by President Petro Poroshenko would no doubt preserve the territorial integrity of the Donetsk People’s Republic (Donetsk) and Luhansk People’s Republic (Luhansk) regions by obtaining acceptable status within the Ukrainian State.

Instead, what are we facing in fact?

The shelling of civilian areas in the eastern regions continues unabated. The observers of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) report violations of the Minsk agreements on the side of Kiev. They probably cannot witness the Ukrainian Military incursions into East Ukraine which undoubtedly spark retaliation.

Civilians in Donetsk, including children, are dying. Various military units wearing fascist symbols act independent of the Kiev authorities, claiming they do not have to abide by Minsk Agreements.

Against this background, Poroshenko publicly states that his goal is to reclaim all areas by military force. To achieve that objective, Poroshenko mobilises the military, equips armies and recruits Private Security Companies from the U.S. and NATO Member States as well as others such as Georgia. Also, he continuously requests aid from Western countries — not only billions of dollars, but also heavy military equipment, including lethal weapons.

What for? To make peace or wage war?

Recently, the Ukraine Parliament – on the pretext of “anti-terrorist operations” – adopted an Act on the non-respect of human rights in Donetsk and Luhansk. But no one, including the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), reminded the Ukrainian authorities that it is a violation of Article 4 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In doing so, the Ukrainian authorities ignored the basic human right of the right to life.

It is also required that before passing such drastic laws, the country should declare a state of emergency, and clarify the need and duration of such a regime.

To declare a state of emergency, the Kiev authorities have to first recognise that an internal armed conflict exists in their territory, and secondly, they have to adhere to Article 3 that is common to four Geneva Conventions for the Protection of Victims of War of 1949 and Protocol II Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 1977.

In such a scenario, Kiev may not have access to loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and others, and it would not ethical to keep draconian restrictions of a socio-economic nature at the expense of the poor segment of the population while doing nothing against the high-level of corruption in government sectors.

Furthermore, the Kiev authorities have arbitrarily cancelled the benefits of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster victims, as well as child allowances. The U.N. human rights laws prohibit such retrogressive measures that worsen the situation of vulnerable groups.

Blatantly ignoring its social and economic obligations, the Kiev authorities have stopped supplying most needed medications; stopped paying pensions and benefits to people in those regions; and have blocked all food and essential items supply routes to these beleaguered regions.

What is also not acknowledged is the fact that since the beginning of this disaster, the Russian Federation has voluntarily sent 29 convoys of humanitarian aid to these regions, and that Russia provided natural gas after Kiev cut gas supplies to these regions in the height of the winter.

On Jun. 4, Poroshenko told the Parliament they will withdraw the economic blockade against Donetsk and Luhansk only if these regions came under their total control.

To achieve this, the Kiev authorities declared a total mobilisation of reservists and strengthened the bombing of the territory by large-scale artillery shells.

The selective approach of human rights organisations in relation to certain events raises concerns. Though more than 6,500 people have died and millions displaced, no one clarifies why the numbers are growing. No one admits that these regions face a humanitarian catastrophe.

You may ask: What else can we do “to stop armed activities in the eastern part of Ukraine”, even though it is the paramount condition spelled out in the Minsk agreements signed by the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France, and supported by the U.S.?

First, of course, is to ensure that the Ukrainian authorities unreservedly honour the ceasefire. Secondly, if Kiev does not control certain military groups in territories under its control, then they should be disarmed by the OSCE peacekeepers.

Unfortunately, the structures of international organisations, including U.N. human rights structures, are subject to political influence from the United States and its NATO allies, which has led to a sharp decline in credibility of these establishments.

As we know, the U.S. continues its attempts to control world affairs – including world football. If this trend continues, the principles and norms of international law enshrined in the U.N. Charter will cease to operate – paving the way for military commanders to solve world problems. Any child understands that it would lead to the death of our civilisation.

The U.N. Charter states that “All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.”

There is no dispute in the world that cannot be resolved by peaceful negotiations. Figuratively speaking, we live in an “armed peace”, and in conditions of increasing threats and challenges.

What we need is the political will of world leaders to decide what kind of a world we want to live in – and for generations to come.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, the new United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, speaks at the opening of the 27th session of the Human Rights Council on Sep. 8, 2014 in Geneva, Switzerland. Credit: UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 16 2014 (IPS)

After six weeks in office, the new U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein of Jordan launched a blistering attack on member states for insufficient funding, thereby forcing operations in his office to the breaking point “in a world that seems to be lurching from crisis to ever-more dangerous crisis.”

“I am already having to look at making cuts because of our current financial situation,” he told reporters Thursday, pointing out while some U.N. agencies have budgets of over a billion dollars, the office of the UNHCHR has a relatively measly budget of 87 million dollars per year for 2014 and 2015."I have been asked to use a boat and a bucket to cope with a flood." -- U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein

“I have been asked to use a boat and a bucket to cope with a flood,” he said, even as the Human Rights Council and the Security Council saddles the cash-strapped office with new fact-finding missions and commissions of inquiry – with six currently underway and a seventh “possibly round the corner.”

Jens Martens, director of the Global Policy Forum (GPF) in Bonn, told IPS that governments treat the United Nations like firefighters.

“They call them to a fire but don’t give them the water to extinguish the fire and then blame the firefighters for their failure,” he said.

Martens welcomed the “the powerful statement” by the UNHCHR, describing it as a wake-up call for governments to take responsibility and finally provide the necessary funding for the United Nations.

Martens said for many years, Western governments, led by the United States, have insisted on a zero-growth doctrine for U.N. core budget.

“They bear major responsibility for the chronic weakness of the U.N. to respond to global challenges and crises,” he added.

The Office of the UNHCHR depends on voluntary contributions from member states to cover almost all of its field activities worldwide, as well as essential support work at its headquarters in Geneva.

“Despite strong backing from many donors, the level of contributions is not keeping pace with the constantly expanding demands of my Office,” Zeid said.

Peggy Hicks, global advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, told IPS the dramatic gap between the demands on the U.N. human rights office and the resources it has available is unsustainable.

“It’s time for states to match their commitment to human rights by providing the resources needed for the High Commissioner and his team to do their jobs,” she said.

Renzo Pomi, Amnesty International’s representative at the United Nations, told IPS it is wrong that the office of the UNHCHR’s core and mandated activities are not fully funded from the U.N.’s regular budget.

This, despite the fact, – as the High Commissioner himself points out – human rights are regularly described as one of the three pillars of the United Nations (along with development and peace and security).

Pomi said the office receives just over three percent of the U.N.’s regular budget.

“That makes for a short pillar and a badly aligned roof. U.N. member states should make sure that its core and mandated activities are properly funded,” he added.

Singling out the cash-crisis in the World Health Organisation (WHO), Martens told IPS a recent example is the weakness of WHO in responding to the Ebola pandemic.

Due to budget constraints WHO had to cut the funding for its outbreak and crisis response programme by more than 50 percent in the last two years.

It’s a scandal that the fraction of the regular budget allocation for human rights is less than 100 million dollars per year, and that the Office of the High Commissioner is mainly dependent on voluntary contributions.

Human Rights cannot be promoted and protected on a mere voluntary basis.

He said voluntary, and particularly earmarked, contributions are often not the solution but part of the problem.

Earmarking tends to turn U.N. agencies, funds and programmes into contractors for bilateral or public-private projects, eroding the multilateral character of the system and undermining democratic governance, said Martens.

“In order to provide global public goods, we need sufficient global public funds,” he said.

Therefore, member states must overcome their austerity policy towards the United Nations.

For many years Global Policy Forum has been calling for sufficient and predictable U.N. funding from governments, said Martens. In light of current global challenges and crises this call is more urgent than ever before, he added.

Zeid told reporters human rights are currently under greater pressure than they have been in a long while. “Our front pages and TV and computer screens are filled with a constant stream of presidents and ministers talking of conflict and human rights violations, and the global unease about the proliferating crises is palpable.”

He said the U.N. human rights system is asked to intervene in those crises, to investigate allegations of abuses, to press for accountability and to teach and encourage, so as to prevent further violations.

But time and time again “we have been instructed to do these and other major extra activities within existing resources,” said Zeid, a former Permanent Representative of Jordan to the United Nations.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

Equatoguinean President Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has sidestepped accusations of human rights violations and won his country membership in the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP). Credit: Embassy of Equatorial Guinea/CC-BY-ND-2.0

By Mario Queiroz
LISBON, Jul 25 2014 (IPS)

Evidently, oil talked louder. By unanimous resolution, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) admitted Equatorial Guinea as a full member, in spite of the CPLP’s ban on dictatorial regimes and the death penalty.

At the two-day summit of heads of state and government that concluded on Wednesday Jul. 23 in Dili, the capital of East Timor, Portugal was the last nation to hold out against the inclusion of the new entrant. Portuguese prime minister, conservative Pedro Passos Coelho, finally yielded to pressure from Brazil and Angola, the countries most interested in sharing in the benefits of Equatorial Guinea’s oil wealth.

The CPLP is made up of Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, East Timor, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, and São Tomé and Príncipe.

“Obiang never thought entry to the CPLP would be possible, but in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, all the president’s goals are possible." -- Ponciano Nvó, a lawyer and distinguished defender of human rights
Between its independence in 1968 and the onset of oil exploration, Equatorial Guinea was stigmatised as a ferocious dictatorship.

But when the U.S. company Mobil began drilling for oil in 1996, the dictatorship of President Teodoro Obiang, in power since 1979, was afforded the relief of powerful countries “looking the other way.”

Gradually, the importance of oil took precedence over human rights and countries with decision-making power over the region and the world became interested in sharing in crude oil extraction. Oil production in Equatorial Guinea has multiplied 10-fold in recent years, ranking it in third place in sub-Saharan Africa behind Angola and Nigeria.

“The kleptocratic oligarchy of Equatorial Guinea is becoming one of the world’s richest dynasties. The country is becoming known as the ‘Kuwait of Africa’ and the global oil majors – ExxonMobil, Total, Repsol – are moving in,” said the Lisbon weekly Visão.

Visão said this former Spanish colony has a per capita GDP of 24,035 dollars, 4,000 dollars more than Portugal’s, but 78 percent of its 1.8 million people subsist on less than a dollar a day.

In the view of some members of the international community, “Since 1968 there have been two Equatorial Guineas, those before and after the oil,” Ponciano Nvó, a lawyer and distinguished defender of human rights in his country, told IPS during a three-day visit to Portugal at the invitation of Amnesty International.

In spite of average economic growth of 33 percent in the last decade, the enormous wealth of Equatorial Guinea has not brought better economic conditions for its people, although it has lent a certain international “legitimacy” to the regime, crowned now with the accolade of membership in the CPLP.

Since Equatorial Guinea’s first application in 2006, the CPLP adopted an ambiguous stance, restricting it to associate membership and setting conditions – like the elimination of the death penalty and making Portuguese an official language – that had to be met before full membership could be considered.

“Portugal should not accept within the community a regime that commits human rights violations; it would be a political mistake,” and also a mistake for the CPLP, Andrés Eso Ondo said in a declaration on Tuesday Jul. 22.

He is the leader of Convergencia para la Democracia Social, the only permitted opposition party, which has one seat in parliament. The other 99 seats are held by the ruling Partido Democrático de Guinea Ecuatorial.

In Portugal, reactions were indignant. The president himself, conservative Aníbal Cavaco Silva, remained wooden-faced in his seat in Dili while the other heads of state welcomed Obiang to the CPLP with a standing ovation. Meanwhile, in Lisbon, prominent politicians were heavily critical of the government’s accommodating attitude.

Socialist lawmaker João Soares said allowing Equatorial Guinea to join the CPLP is “shameful for Portugal and a monumental error,” while Ana Gomes, a member of the European Parliament for the same party, said it was unacceptable that the community should admit “a dictatorial and criminal regime that is facing lawsuits in the United States and France for economic and financial crimes.”

“The dead are not only those who have been sentenced to death in a court of law, some 50 persons executed by firing squad after being convicted; we should multiply that number by 100 to reach the figure for the people who have disappeared,” and who were victims of repression, Nvó told IPS.

In the 46 years since independence, “during the first government of Francisco Macías Nguema, all the opposition leaders were murdered in prison, without trial, having been accused of attempts against the president. The ‘work’ was carried out by the current president, when he was director of prisons and carried out a cleansing, before overthrowing his uncle,” he said.

Before oil was discovered, “Obiang never thought entry to the CPLP would be possible, but in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, all the president’s goals are possible,” he complained.

In Nvó’s view, joining the CPLP “is another step in Obiang’s strategy of belonging to as many international bodies as possible for the sake of laundering his image. He used to belong to the community of Hispanic nations, but then he came to believe that he would never get anywhere with Spain; then he joined La Francophonie, but that did not last because of his son’s troubles with the French courts.”

Now, however, the CPLP has been satisfied with a moratorium on the death penalty, which remains on the statute books. Its enforcement depends only on the fiat of the head of state. “It’s an intellectual hoax,” Nvó said.

The Equatoguinean foreign minister, Agapito Mba Mokuy, told the Portuguese news agency Lusa on Tuesday that his country “was colonised for a longer period by Portugal than by Spain (307 years under Portugal compared to 190 under Spain), so that the ties to Portuguese-speaking countries are historically very strong.”

“Joining the CPLP today is simply coming home,” he said.

In a telephone interview with IPS, former president of East Timor José Ramos-Horta said, “I agree with the forceful criticisms denouncing the death penalty and serious human rights violations that are committed in that country.” In his view the denunciations of the regime made by international organisations are to be credited.

However, Ramos-Horta believes that “concerted, intelligent, prudent and persistent action by the CPLP upon the regime in Equatorial Guinea will achieve the first improvements after some time.”

In exchange for admission, Ramos-Horta recommended the CPLP should establish an agenda to force Obiang to eliminate the death penalty, torture, arbitrary detentions and forcible disappearances.

It should also include, he said, improved facilities and treatment for prisoners; access to inmates by the International Red Cross; and later on, the opening of an office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Malabo.

One of the most critical voices raised against the events in Dili was that of political sciences professor José Filipe Pinto, who asserted that a sort of “chequebook diplomacy” had prevailed there, with Malabo offering to make investments in CPLP countries, relying on its resource wealth.

In his opinion, “an organisation must have interests and principles,” and he regretted that “some elites and the crisis conspired to exempt the latter.”

(END)

A woman shouts slogans against United Nations human rights chief Navi Pillay outside the U.N. office in Colombo. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS.

By Amantha Perera
COLOMBO, Sep 3 2013 (IPS)

That it would be a visit fraught with diplomatic tension was undoubted. Navanetham ‘Navi’ Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, was into the third day of her week-long visit from Aug. 25 to Aug. 31 to Sri Lanka when her entourage broke into animated discussion. 

They were in the heart of Mullaittivu district in Sri Lanka’s Northern Province (NP), where some of the bloodiest battles in the last chapter of the war between Sri Lanka and separatist rebel group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were fought in the summer of 2009, ending a conflict that had lasted almost 30 years.

The discussion was about media access. Several representatives of international media organisations in capital Colombo had followed Pillay 390 km to the north. At least two had trailed her right up to Mullaittivu, the second leg of her visit after a morning spent in NP capital Jaffna, 117 km to the north. “We encourage people to come and see for themselves rather than be guided by propaganda.” -- Sri Lankan foreign minister Gamini Lakshman Peiris

While Pillay’s staff from the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva was willing to allow the media, especially international correspondents, access to her meetings with war-displaced returnees and kin of the missing, officials of the U.N. country team were nervous.

And rightly so, as it turned out when Pillay ended her visit in Colombo four days later.

According to the Sri Lankan government, the U.N. office in Colombo had instructed the media not to follow the high commissioner during her visit to Mullaittivu. Yet they did so, presumably on the invitation of her spokesperson, Rupert Colville, to witness Pillay paying floral tributes to those who had perished in the final battle at Nanthikadal Lagoon in Mullaittivu.

As a Sri Lanka government media communiqué put it, “It was pointed out by the Sri Lankan side to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ delegation that if such a gesture needed to be made, it should be done at a venue common to all victims of the 30-year terrorist conflict and not on the grounds where the leader [of the Tamil Tigers, Velupillai Prabhakaran] met his death.”

As it happened, Pillay never made that floral tribute. She later said she honoured those who died in conflict in every country she visited, and it was not meant as a unique gesture for Sri Lanka.

The visit concluded with no further incident or diplomatic discord. But by the time Pillay left Sri Lanka, the tensions were out in the open. In the five-and-a-half page parting statement she read out to the media just before her departure, Pillay, while lauding the Sri Lankan government for the development work it had initiated in the former LTTE strongholds, also called it to account for the continuing human rights abuse, the persecution of religious minorities and the militarisation of the north, among other things.

Pillay’s Sri Lankan visit was a follow-up on the recommendations of the crucial Mar. 21 U.N. resolution, seeking action from the government on lingering allegations of human rights abuse. And her assessment was scathing. “I am deeply concerned that Sri Lanka, despite the opportunity provided by the end of the war to construct a new vibrant, all-embracing state, is showing signs of heading in an increasingly authoritarian direction.”

The government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa dismissed it as a political statement on her part, something which transgressed her mandate and the basic norms “a discerning” international civil servant should observe.

“The judgment on the leadership of the country is better left for the people of Sri Lanka to decide, than being caricatured by external entities influenced by vested interests,” the government said in a counter-statement to the media.

“She has her own agenda,” said Ithakandhe Sadathissa, a Buddhist monk and head of the National Organisation of Ravana Power, a nationalist group that held protests outside the U.N. compound on two occasions during her visit. “She has come here to gather facts so that she can go back and criticise the country, the government,” he told IPS.

Others like housing and engineering services minister Wimal Weeravansha and government spokesperson and media minister Keheliya Rambukwella too accused Pillay of having a pre-set agenda.

“We encourage people to come and see for themselves rather than be guided by propaganda,” Sri Lankan foreign minister Gamini Lakshman Peiris had said during a visit to Indian capital New Delhi a few days before Pillay arrived. “We want the world to see what is happening in Sri Lanka.”

In the run-up to that visit, the government had set up a new presidential commission to look into forced disappearances and commenced work on bringing in stricter legislation against it.

The longest of her visits to 60 countries so far, Pillay managed to interact with a wide range of representatives, something she thanked the Sri Lankan government for.

In Jaffna, she met a group of 15 representatives from the 300-odd relatives of missing persons demonstrating outside the Jaffna Public Library. “It has been four years since the end of the war, people need answers to what happened to their loved ones,” said Rev Father Emmanuel Sebamalai, a Catholic priest from the northwestern Mannar district, who was among the demonstrators.

“They came to meet her because they felt that she could give them some redress,” he told IPS.

Apart from her field visits, Pillay also participated in an event commemorating the Day of the Disappeared in Colombo on Aug. 31. “The high commissioner has promised to help us,” Sandya Ekanaligoda, wife of cartoonist Prageeth Ekanaligoda, missing since January 2010, told IPS. “I will continue the search for my husband,” she said.

The concerns Pillay raised prior to her departure are likely to figure in the oral submission she will make to the UNHRC towards September-end. She is also likely to bring up allegations that police and military officials have visited civilians and activists she met and spoke with.

“Pillay’s visit will help keep Sri Lanka on UNHRC’s agenda,” Ruki Fernando, a local rights activist, told IPS.

“Her report to the council will indicate whether the changes taking place in Sri Lanka are superficial or genuine,” Ming Yu, a researcher with Amnesty International, Australia, told IPS.

Death threats are hardly uncommon in Colombia. In fact, if you are a human rights activist, they are practically guaranteed.

Photo courtesy of Diego Martinez.

Just ask Diego Martinez, executive secretary of the Permanent Committee for the Defence of Human Rights, a non-governmental organisation founded in 1979 during the Forum for the Defence of Human Rights and Democratic Freedom.

According to a six-year study by the National Centre for Historical Memory, Colombia’s conflict has claimed the lives of 220,000 people between 1958 and 2013, most of them civilians. And it remains one of the most dangerous places in the world for those would speak out against abuses.

Just last month, on Jul. 6, Martinez and his colleague, Jeison Paba Reyes, received a death threat via e-mail by an unidentified author. It was not the first.

In an interview with IPS correspondent Alexander Chaves, Martinez discussed the incident, and expressed concern about President Juan Manuel Santos’ recent claim that he would shut down the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia.

Q: Who might have been the author(s) of the e-mails, and is the incident under investigation?

A: There are various investigations brought by us because of the threats. We also have precautionary measures from the Inter-American Human Rights Commission issued recently, but in regard to the authorship generally, the previous threats have always been signed by paramilitary groups.

The last one occurred on the fourth of July in 2012 where 11 defenders across the country were threatened by a self-proclaimed anti-restitution army and they were signed by them. However, in this instance the authors that delivered this threat on Jul. 6, 2013 did not identify themselves.

We think that these threats come from sectors of the Colombian establishment and from groups of power interested in muzzling our legal actions in favour of the victims and over all of the communities that we serve and accompany.

Q: What would it mean if President Santos closed the U.N. office on human rights?

A: In our opinion, unfortunately, President Santos has given a type of ultimatum to the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights in Colombia. In the framework of the visit of [OHCHR chief] Navi Pillay, the president literally said that he does not need an office of human rights because Colombia has advanced in regards to human rights.

We believe that the shutting down of the office constitutes serious step backward in matters of democratic liberties. If you look in terms of numbers, Colombia has approximately 1,579 investigations into extrajudicial executions and only in 16 have [the perpetrators] received sentences. This means that only one percent of the cases have received justice.

Q: Why is President Santos so eager to close the office?

A: In my opinion there is an imbalanced reaction, if you will, in the exercise of powers by President Santos. It may be related to the outcry regarding an area in the northeastern part of the country, the region of Catatumbo, a forgotten area where the country folk are asking for land and alternative plans for rural development.

The government intervention has left, to date, more than 100 people seriously injured, more than 10 people in legal proceedings and four people killed by rifle shots. Clearly, according to reports that we have obtained in visits to the region, these shots came from the area where army snipers and the national police were found.

So, we think that the country is in a kind of silent abduction by the military forces, and we have to recognise that has to do with the effectiveness of the judicial and executive power.

Q: What are the future endeavours of the Permanent Committee for the Defence of Human Rights?

A: Today we are betting on bringing great initiatives. The Committee, since 1979, has been calling for an event to articulate matters on human rights. This year we have decided to assemble for Oct. 25 and 26, the 12th National Forum of Human Rights that has been held since 1979, more than 35 years.

The Committee’s priorities for this year are related to positive education, dialogue with the authorities, and strengthening our regional committees.

Q: What inspired you to become a human rights defender?

A: My inspiration came from a defender killed in Cucuta about eight years ago, Mr. Carlos Bernal, in a region devastated by the paramilitary phenomenon. His murder is still unsolved. Since that moment, I decided to work in favour of improving the conditions in which a lot of people live.

I want to say that in each journey that we take, and I travel to many rural areas, I was impressed by the high capacity that the humble people, the country people, the people who do not have many resources, who sometimes do not have a cell phone or do not have money to make a telephone call, as they face with total honesty and with a spirit of humility and sacrifice and plain conviction in freedom and human rights, to confront the crimes of power and crimes that are systematic. It seems to me that THAT was the major inspiration that we all receive.