Amnesty International: Colombia conflict worrisome (Urges U.S. to halt military aid)

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Miami Herald

Posted on Tuesday, 10.28.08
Amnesty International: Colombia conflict worrisome

By FRANK BAJAK
Associated Press Writer

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Amnesty International urged the United States and other nations Tuesday to halt military aid to Colombia until it stems a rise in killings of noncombatants by security forces and heeds other U.N. prescriptions for ending its long-running internal conflict.

In a 94-page report, the international human rights group questions President Alvaro Uribe's claims that Colombia "is experiencing an irreversible renaissance of relative peace" and "rapidly falling levels of violence."

Amnesty acknowledges that kidnappings and conflict-related killings of civilians have decreased since Uribe first took office in 2002, and some major cities are safer. But the report says that's only part of the picture.

"Colombia remains a country where millions of civilians, especially outside the big cities and in the countryside, continue to bear the brunt of this violent and protracted conflict," the report says, adding that "impunity remains the norm in most cases of human rights abuses."




Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/AP/story/744778.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Amnesty: More face abuse and death as Colombia's government denies human rights situation

More face abuse and death as Colombia's government denies human rights situation

28 October 2008

The Colombian government is in denial about the country's human rights situation, according to a new Amnesty International report.

Leave us in peace! Targeting civilians in Colombia's internal armed conflict says that despite increasing reports of forced internal displacement, attacks against social and human rights activists and killings by security forces, Colombian authorities are attempting to paint a positive picture.

The authorities even refuse to admit there's an armed conflict in their country. "It's impossible to solve a problem without admitting there is one," says Marcelo Pollack, Colombia researcher at Amnesty International. "Denial only condemns more people to abuse and death."

The most comprehensive up-to-date study on the state of human rights in Colombia, the report is the culmination of in situ research between 2006 and 2008. It recounts the stories of those individuals and communities hardest hit by the conflict, including members of afro-descendant, indigenous and campesino (rural small-scale farming) communities killed or displaced from their homes.

The report also documents the stories of victims of kidnappings; women and girls raped; children recruited by paramilitary and guerrilla groups or maimed by landmines; communities taking an active stand to defend their right not to be drawn into the conflict; and human rights defenders and trade unionists whose work in defence of human rights has cost them their lives.

At least 1,400 civilians were killed in 2007. This figure is up from 1,300 in 2006. Of the cases where the perpetrator is known, the security forces were responsible for at least 330 of these, the paramilitaries for around 300 and guerrillas for about 260.

As many as 305,000 Colombians were displaced in 2007, compared with 220,000 in 2006. At least 190 people were victims of either enforced disappearances by the security forces and paramilitaries or missing following abductions by guerrilla groups in 2007. This figure was up from around 180 in 2006.

The report shows that while some human rights indicators – such as kidnappings and the security situation in some cities – have improved in recent years, many others have deteriorated.

It also debunks statements repeated by the Colombian government, such as paramilitary groups no longer operate, human rights abusers are held to account and the work of social activists and trade unionists is being fully respected.

"For over 40 years, Colombians have been trapped in one of the worst, forgotten conflicts in the world, attacked by the security forces, paramilitaries and guerrilla groups, while the government fails to take any meaningful action to protect them," said Marcelo Pollack.

"To reverse Colombia's tragic reality the government and guerrilla groups must once and for all remove the civilian population from the conflict."

Colombia's internal armed conflict has pitted the security forces and paramilitaries against guerrilla groups since the mid-1960s. It has been marked by extraordinary levels of human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law (IHL), with civilians by far the principal victims - tens of thousands have been killed, with thousands more subjected to enforced disappearance by the security forces, paramilitaries or guerrilla groups.

The effect of such abuses has been to create one of the world's greatest crises of displaced people; between 3 and 4 million Colombians are thought to have fled their homes to escape the violence. These crimes bear witness to the disregard shown by all parties to the conflict for international human rights and humanitarian law.

Amnesty International is calling on all parties to the Colombian conflict to demonstrate the political will to end human rights abuses. The organization also urges the international community to make greater efforts to ensure that both sides of the conflict respect the human rights of Colombians.

Date Published: 28 October 2008

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/news/colombias-government-denies-human-rights-situation-20081028

[Judi Lynn]

2. Human Rights Abuses Rising in Colombia, Contrary to Government Assertions, Says New Amnesty Interna

Human Rights Abuses Rising in Colombia, Contrary to Government Assertions, Says New Amnesty International Report
Last update: 10:45 a.m. EDT Oct. 28, 2008

MADRID, Spain, Oct 28, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- The Colombian government is painting a false picture of the state of human rights in Colombia, when in fact the situation is deteriorating, including increasing reports of forced internal displacement, attacks against social and human rights activists, and killings by security forces, said Amnesty International in a new report released today.

"The Colombian authorities are in absolute denial, even refusing to admit there's an armed conflict in their country, but people are telling us a very different story," said Marcelo Pollack, Colombia researcher at Amnesty International. "It's impossible to solve a problem without admitting there is one. Denial only condemns more people to abuse and death."

Amnesty International's report is the most comprehensive, up-to-date study on the state of human rights in this South American country. It shows that while some human rights indicators - such as kidnappings and the security situation in some cities - have improved over the years, many others have deteriorated.

The study also debunks statements repeated by the Colombian government that paint a positive picture of the human rights situation in the country: for example, that paramilitary groups no longer operate, that human rights abusers are held to account, and that the work of social activists and trade unionists is being fully respected.

More:
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Human-Rights-Abuses-Rising-Colombia/story.aspx?guid=%7B83C53A23%2D9061%2D4489%2D84FA%2DE0EAF40229CA%7D

[Peace Patriot]

3. What do we expect from a country propped up by the Bush Junta with $6 BILLION in military aid

ostensibly for the "war on drugs"?

The Bushwhacks spread murder, plunder and drugs/weapons trafficking wherever they go.

There is a solution to this problem--one half of which AI recommends:

1. Stop all military funding to this rogue, terrorist, murderous government (AI); and

2. Legalize drug use, which will remove inflated profit and gangs/drug lords from the picture, and end the corrupt, failed, militaristic U.S. "war on drugs" (me).

What you have left, then, is a fascist government that will be compelled to end its 40+ year war on the poor--and will be helped and encouraged to do so by the overwhelmingly leftist, democratic, and "Common Market"-minded governments in South America. Take the U.S., and its "war on drugs" horror, and its global corporate predators, out of the picture, and you have the conditions for peace.

Short of ending the "war on drugs"--which may not possible any time soon in the U.S., since it is a police state boondoggle--ending the U.S. "war on drugs" that has been inflicted on other countries, in violation of their sovereignty, as the price for other aid, will be the beginning of the end of this last "war on the poor" in Latin America. I know that our global corporate predators (Chiquita, Monsanto, Occidental Petroleum, et al) count on the rightwing death squads in Colombia to handle their "labor problem," and I know that our war profiteers (Dyncorp, Blackwater, Big Chem et al) count on the Colombian civil war and the "war on drugs" for fat federal contracts to keep them afloat, but they'll just have to "bite the bullet," so to speak, "tighten their loin cloths," and subsist on the Forever War as its moves to Afghanistan/Pakistan and other places. And, really, South America has pretty much had it with U.S. dictation of policy and the U.S. military presence (spying and trouble-making) on their soil. If we don't end it--in a grand gesture of good will--they are going to. That is the trend.

As the new president of Guatemala, Alvaro Colom, has said, the solution is ending poverty. And as Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, avers, the U.S. "war on drugs"--with its insane failure to distinguish between the indigenous medicine of coca leaf tea and chewing, and cocaine, and its funding of rightwing groups--is dangerously meddlesome, and as both he and Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, have said to the U.S., "Get the fuck out!" (in so many words).

They are the future. Colombia is the past--a dinosauric conflict that would have ended long ago, but for U.S. interference. Stop propping up the death squads in Colombia, and South Americans will solve these problems by themselves. That's what they want to do. And without the "war on drugs," we might have a few pesos to spare to help end the poverty that our Corpos have done so much to create.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Reuters: Amnesty Int'l urges halt to Colombian military aid

Amnesty Int'l urges halt to Colombian military aid
28 Oct 2008 20:19:26 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Hugh Bronstein

BOGOTA, Oct 28 (Reuters) - The United States and other countries should halt military aid to Colombia until its army ends abuses such as executing civilians and passing them off as rebels killed in combat, a rights group said on Tuesday.

Extra-judicial executions by state security forces are on the rise in this Andean country torn by decades of guerrilla war, says a report from London-based Amnesty International.

The government says, however, it is cracking down on officers who try to artificially improve their combat statistics by ordering the deaths of innocent civilians, dressing their bodies in guerrilla fatigues and counting them as combat deaths.

More:
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N28403534.htm

[AlphaCentauri]

5. K & R