Monday, June 6, 2011

Colombia's halting progress on human rights ... - US World News

5th June 2011 Cat: World News with

One dusk during a initial week of May, we had an justification with my husband. We were on a approach to a unit in Bogota, Colombia, in an SUV supposing to him by a Colombian government, as partial of a insurance intrigue that is required since he and his pro bono law organization have prolonged faced threats and danger due to their work. My husband, Rafael Barrios, is a plaintiff?s warn for victims of human rights violations that have been committed over a final 30 years, directly by state agents ? customarily a armed army and a troops ? or by paramilitary army operative in collusion with a State. In 2000, in a face of continual threats and intimidation, a Inter-American Commission of Human Rights systematic a Colombian supervision to pledge his reserve and that of his partners, and for that reason for a final several years he has had a insurance intrigue that consists of an armored car, communications apparatus and a driver.

But on that sold night in May, he was pushing a car, since a driver?s services had been discontinued. His law firm, a Jos? Alvear Restrepo Lawyers Collective, had returned partial of a insurance measures to a supervision ? privately those that had been supposing by a executive dialect of confidence (DAS). Why? Because during a final dual years, a common has collected incontrovertible justification that it was a aim of bootleg notice and other danger strategy undertaken by a DAS, and is now a plaintiff in authorised record opposite a confidence agency.

In other words, a entity charged with safeguarding a organization and a members was indeed espionage on it. For whom? That is not nonetheless totally clear, though it?s value observant that a DAS reports directly to a Colombian president.

So, there we were, on a approach home, carrying a discussion. A few days later, we perceived steady calls to my dungeon phone from numbers we didn?t recognise, and therefore didn?t answer. But one of a callers left a message: a clear-as-day recording of a sell with my husband. Someone had taped us, selected a luscious square of a conversation, and found a approach to play it behind to me, presumably from a pay-by-the-minute dungeon phone in a city several hundred miles away. The recording showed me that we have no remoteness or protection. Not even in a proportions of a armoured automobile could we have a vehement conversation.

We reported a occurrence to a efficient authorities, and were positive that a consummate review would be conducted. As partial of that, a profession general?s bureau systematic an review of a SUV. The day of a inspection, my father was shown a microphone and wire that were found in a vehicle, nonetheless a method of interior has now claimed that these form partial of an outmost orator system, and that no ?electronic component unsuitable with a inlet of a vehicle? was found. Nonetheless, a recording was finished and a summary was left. The central news of a review has not been finished accessible to us.

Colombia has a prolonged and contemptible story of tellurian rights violations, including threats, attacks and assassinations of tellurian rights defenders. The legal record opposite a DAS have demonstrated that a confidence organisation intentionally targeted a lawyers? collective, illegally acid for any and all justification that would couple it with a riotous groups intent in a country?s 50-year-old inner armed conflict. None was found. But a DAS positively disregarded a law, and systematically: children and grandparents were followed, keys to apartments obtained, rubbish searched ? all though probity authorisation; and approach threats opposite a organization were designed and carried out by a DAS. These enclosed promulgation a dismembered, bloodied doll to one of a partners, a mother, with a note to a outcome that she had a poetic daughter and should demeanour out for her.

These strategy did not inhibit a lawyers? common from stability to challenge groundbreaking cases within Colombia and during a general level. Most recently, my father was lead warn in dual cases that resulted in rare prison sentences for troops officers guilty of a forced disappearance of 11 people in 1985. The disappearances occurred after an armed army operation to recover control of a bureaucratic house of justice, that had been forcibly taken over by a M-19 riotous group. The box is infamous, and a officers clearly never expected that they would be brought to probity for ?fulfilling their requirement to urge democracy? ? and they weren?t. The philosophy are for crimes opposite amiability committed after a fact. Be that as it may, troops leaders ? late and differently ? are furious, and it seems expected that their exasperation is associated to a newest try to dominate a collective.

In 2006, a German film The Lives of Others decorated a inhuman and ubiquitous notice practices that were used by a East German supervision during a excellence days of a former comrade regime. Grey-faced bureaucrats, driven by ideology, aspiration and absurdly bad analysis, would confirm that someone was a hazard to state security, and so justified, would go on to invade and in some cases destroy a person?s life. It?s easy currently to reject what was done, and suppose that such practices died with a cold war. But in Colombia, that approach of doing business appears to be alive and well.

The stream supervision of Juan Manuel Santos has sought to stretch itself from justification of a abuse of comprehension services underneath former President Alvaro Uribe. Perhaps, a supervision is not now grouping new bootleg and invasive notice and danger schemes. But has it put an finish to a aged ones? Has it brought a confidence services underneath approved control and authorised those who abuse their powers? Apparently not. Colombia wants to be deliberate a courteous democracy, though during a moment, it continues to act as a troops state. And those dual things are not compatible.


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Source: http://usworldnews.info/colombias-halting-progress-on-human-rights-kimberly-stanton/192/

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