Official: Colombia to arrest ex-lawmaker (Uribe re-election vote)

[Judi Lynn]

Official: Colombia to arrest ex-lawmaker
By CARLOS GONZALEZ – 1 hour ago

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombia's Supreme Court ordered the arrest of an ex-congresswoman who says she reversed her position on a vote years ago in return for political favors from associates of President Alvaro Uribe, a government official said.

The official in the chief prosecutor's office spoke Friday on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to make the disclosure. Judicial police employed by the prosecutor's office execute the Supreme Court's arrest warrants.

Leading Colombian paper El Tiempo and several other news outlets also reported that an arrest warrant was issued for former lawmaker Yidis Medina.

In an interview broadcast last weekend but recorded nearly four years ago, Medina said she switched her vote on a bill that ultimately allowed Uribe to run for re-election in 2006. She was the swing vote on the measure, which passed 18 to 16.

She said Uribe called her afterward to thank her and to confirm that "what was agreed upon would be done."
(snip)

In a magazine column last weekend, Coronell said he decided to make the video public after Medina told him recently that the Uribe administration hadn't held up its part of the deal.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5goIddYDyi_9i4kRDkyKVddprvsQAD909C90O0

[Judi Lynn]

1. How "quaint" our own corporate media refuses to share news of torture,murder of women union workers

in Colombia. You'd think the shocking barbarity of this practise of it all would make it a priority, wouldn't you? But then, you do remember they told us "bupkis" about _Bush ally, Islam Karimov, and his practise of boiling his political prisoners alive, right?

Found this statment concerning Colombia's women union workers as victims of the death squads. It's an eye-opener:

Colombia is the most dangerous place in the world to be a woman trade unionist. In the past year it has become even more so, with a dramatic increase in the number of abuses committed against women. Those responsible for the vast majority of the attacks are paramilitary death squads that work with the Colombian Army.

Since the rightwing president, Alvaro Uribe Velez, took power in August 2002 there has been a 600 per cent increase in human rights violations perpetrated against women trade unionists and 68 female trade unionists have been assassinated. The facts speak for themselves. Last year 70 trade unionists were killed, 260 received death threats and three have disappeared.

Many of those targeted were also tortured and mutilated by the paramilitaries. Some of the women were killed in front of their children. In other cases the paramilitaries threatened the children in an effort to force their mothers to abandon their union activities.

Women are targeted for a number of reasons – to sow terror within communities, to force people to flee their homes and to dissuade others from getting involved in trade unions.

To make matters even worse, the army are increasingly using sexual violence against women. According to Amnesty International rape and sexual mutilation are frequently used by the security forces and their paramilitary allies as part of their terror tactics.

Colombia’s prisons currently hold approximately 320 female political prisoners. Many of them are trade unionists.

The conditions in Colombia’s jails are dire and inhumane. There is inadequate medical care, over-crowding, insufficient sanitation facilities, and prisoners are denied access to educational and reading materials.

Some prisoners (we currently know of 28 cases) have had their infants imprisoned alongside them. These children are not recognized by the prison authorities as separate inmates, so mothers are forced to share the already scarce food rations with their children, leading to malnutrition and other health problems.
(snip)

“The woman who initially acted as leader for the group of prisoners I sat with was a teacher and union member. They created a false case against her and she has been in prison for nine months accused of rebellion. She knows that there is no evidence against her but there has been no progress on her case.

“Many of the prisoners have been here for four years without trial and 70 per cent on this patio have not been convicted. There are nearly 80 prisoners and most are accused of rebellion – all are accused of crimes they have not committed.

"Half of the women are here simply because they live in areas where paramilitaries operate and control. They told us of whole communities being arrested. They told us of massacres where those that are left alive are arrested and put in prison.

“They told of Uribe’s policy to pays informers. Ex-guerrillas and paramilitaries are encouraged to inform on five other people, accuse them of being guerrillas (without any evidence) and then to have impunity from arrest themselves.

“The poor sell themselves to the state with false information but the authorities don’t care as Uribe has to produce ‘results’ to show the Pentagon how his policy of fighting the terrorists is working. He can say that they have arrested and imprisoned x number of guerrillas when in fact they are innocent people, and Uribe will continue to receive the US military aid.

“Over 40 per cent of the women here are heads of household are many are denied visits from their children as they cannot afford to travel to see them. Some women haven’t seen their children in for five years.

“We were told that torture, both physical and psychological, was a regular feature, particularly in the period between arrest and being put in prison and included ripping out finger nails, semi-drownings and being beaten. They believe there is a lot of drug abuse among the armed forces and many seem crazy on drugs when carrying out these crimes.

“One woman said she had a bag put over her head to asphyxiate her until she passed out, they then revived her and repeated the process five times until she confessed to something she hadn’t done.

“Torture is commonplace and if you do get to trial and you say you confessed under torture the authorities say that’s what all the guerrillas say, therefore you must be a guerrilla.

“We heard from another woman who had been beaten and tortured when she had been locked up for five days with no legal help. She hid the scars over her back from the beatings from the authorities and demanded medical help. If they knew she had injuries that could be seen they wouldn’t allow her to see a doctor. Prisoners are forced to sign that they are treated well.

“There were so many tragic personal testimonies that the women gave. It seems a place where no-one can be trusted. A woman was taken from her home by police after being informed on by a 16 year old boy who had been living in her house. This, once very poor young man, is now known to be studying at university – having been paid for informing.

“Being informed on after personal dispute, especially after a fall-out between lovers is commonplace. There were two women who had six-year sentences after their lovers had informed on them.”

More:
http://www.amicustheunion.org/default.aspx?page=3768