by Lisa Haugaard
on July 01, 2010
Over two thousand civilians intentionally killed by army soldiers
seeking to beef up their body counts and score days off. A massive
illegal wiretapping operation by the president’s intelligence agency
targeting Supreme Court judges, journalists, opposition politicians and
human rights defenders. Seven human rights defenders and leaders of
displaced communities killed in May alone, in a nation where threats and
attacks against defenders are rarely effectively investigated and
government officials’ denunciations of them place them in danger. In
which authoritarian country opposed to the United States did these
abuses take place? In none other than Colombia, often called “the
United States’ best ally in the Western Hemisphere.” And we, the U.S.
taxpayers, bankrolled this friendship to the tune of more than $6
billion.
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by Vanessa Kritzer
on May 28, 2010
Death threats, attacks and assassinations. Human rights defenders and indigenous, afro-descendant, and IDP leaders in Colombia often face these terrors, but lately there has been a major spike in these actions—and we’re worried. This past week, LAWGEF and our partners released a public statement to the Colombian and U.S. governments, calling on the Colombian government to take action now to investigate and prosecute these threats and attacks, protect the people at risk, and make it publicly clear that human rights defenders’ work is legitimate and important.
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by Lisa Haugaard
on June 17, 2010
The year was 2004. I was contacted by Colombian human rights activists. Would I please come to Colombia to join them in a book launch of the second edition of The Authoritarian Spell? They were worried that the book, a collectively written critique of what they saw as authoritarian tendencies by the administration of President Alvaro Uribe, would provoke a reaction, and wanted international accompaniment. I said yes, and went to one of the book launches in Medellín, where a professor at the local university spoke and introduced me and several of the book’s coauthors, and we had a genteel, scholarly discussion of current events, in an auditorium filled mainly with students and professors.
Little did we know that the book, criticized by the government as exaggerated, was in fact far too light a critique of the government’s authoritarian tendencies.
by Lisa Haugaard
on May 25, 2010
As I listened to mothers and sisters and sons describe how they found their loved one in the morgue of a Colombian army base, dressed up in a guerrilla uniform when they knew he was a civilian, I was not only saddened, I was stunned by the striking similarity of the cases. From Casanare, Meta, Cauca, the facts were so similar. Witnesses saw the person being taken prisoner by a group of army soldiers. They went looking for him, thinking he’d be detained on the army base. Then they were shown a photo or the body of their relative, dead and claimed by the army as killed in combat.
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by Lisa Haugaard
on June 11, 2010
Colombia’s outgoing President has launched an assault against his country’s courts for taking some initial steps to bring high-ranking military and government officials to justice for their role in murder, illegal wiretapping, disappearances and torture. This is no abstract political debate. When the President takes to the airwaves to denounce those working for justice, the judges, lawyers, witnesses and victims’ families know that death threats, and sometimes murder, often follow. The threats and attacks usually appear to be from paramilitary groups. Colombia’s Supreme Court made a call for help: “We make an appeal to the international community to accompany and show solidarity with the Colombian judicial system which is being assaulted for carrying out its duties.”
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by Lisa Haugaard
on May 12, 2010
As Colombians go to the polls May 30th, they will elect a president who
will have a historic opportunity to change the lives of millions of
Colombians affected in profound and tragic ways by the country’s
enduring armed conflict. The Latin America Working Group and partner
organizations have sent an open letter to Colombia’s presidential and
vice presidential candidates to ask them how they will lead the nation
in building a more just and inclusive society that promotes and respects
the rights of all its citizens.
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