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AFTER
PRESIDENT ÁLVARO URIBE VÉLEZ MADE UNSUBSTANTIATED CLAIMS AGAINST
SOCIAL, POLITICAL AND HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS,THREATS HAVE INCREASED
 Two
days after President Álvaro Uribe Vélez accused politicians who had
demobilized from M-19 as “terrorists dressed in civilian clothes”,
several social, labor, university and alternative press organizations
received an email with a threat supposedly signed by paramilitary
fronts, which call themselves New Generation Black Eagles (Nueva
Generación Águilas Negras). The president made these slanderous
references in a speech he gave at a community council in Tierra Alta
(Department of Córdoba). Later, he reaffirmed his unsubstantiated
claims in several interviews with the mass media.
In this regard, it should be mentioned that in a communiqué
issued on February 5 by Salvatore Mancuso, who is currently being held
in the Itagui Prison (Department of Antioquia), even he accepted that
“…the rearmament of the self-defense forces is a crude reality that we
cannot avoid or minimize…”
However, it is obvious that it is not about rearmament of
paramilitary organizations, rather that the so-called process of
“negotiation” and “demobilization” did not lead to the real
dismantlement of their structures. These paramilitary organizations
have remained intact until the present day.
This threat was directed against the Movimiento Nacional de
Víctimas de Crímenes de Estado (National Movement of Victims of
State-Sponsored Crimes) and social, political, union and human rights
organizations that openly lead denunciations concerning the cloak of
impunity concealed behind the “negotiation process” with the
paramilitary groups, and that have requested for there to be a thorough
investigation on the responsibility of politicians from traditional
parties, public servants and economic sectors in the commission of
crimes against humanity. This threatening email comes just days after
Senator Gustavo Petro announced plans to hold a debate in the national
congress on the links between politicians, businessmen, and other
sectors with paramilitarism in Antioquia (and after he confirmed that
Santiago Uribe, brother of President Uribe, has been criminally
investigated for links with paramilitaries, and especially for
belonging to the group “The Twelve Apostles”).
In addition to these acts, there are also the murders of social
leaders and leaders of victims´ organizations, such as YOLANDA
IZQUIERDO and FREDDY ABEL ESPITIA, representatives of internally
displaced persons in the processes being carried out against the heads
of paramilitary groups. Likewise, threats and attacks have been made
against different organizations, including the Liga de Mujeres
Desplazadas de Bolívar (League of Internally Displaced Women from
Bolívar), whose community center in Ciudadela de la Paz (Turbaco,
Department of Bolívar) was set on fire, the threats against the members
of the Movement of Victims of State-Sponsored Crimes from the
municipalities of San Onofre and Montes de Maria, as well as what
occurred last January 23 to the Asamblea Permanente de la Sociedad
Civil por la Paz (Permanent Assembly of the Civil Society for Peace),
which was once again the victim of the theft of databases and
photographs of several members of organizations belonging to this
coalition. The Permanent Assembly has repeatedly requested for security
measures from the Human Rights Office of the Ministry of Interior;
nevertheless it has yet to be attended.
We call upon the national and international community to demand that Colombian authorities:
1. Guarantee the physical and psychological integrity of all and
every one of the members belonging to the social, union, indigenous,
university and human rights organizations that received this
threatening email;
2. Guarantee the free exercise of human rights defense –as well as the
freedom of expression, thought, dissent, and political participation-
without suffering from any form of persecution;
3. Investigate, try, and punish with the appropriate legal force those
responsible for the acts of persecution presently denounced;
4. Guarantee the immediate and effective dismantlement of the military,
political and economic structures of paramilitarism, since these
structures are presently being institutionalized and re-engineered;
5. Guarantee that victims of grave human rights violations may carry out their rights; and respect their organizations.
Additionally, we hold the national government directly responsible for
any act against the members of the organizations that have received
these threats. We also demand effective guarantees to continue in the
fight against impunity and for truth, justice, and reparation.
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