March 6th: Day of Action for Colombia

international | rights, freedoms and repression | event notice Monday March 03, 2008 11:35 by Grupo de Raices - Grupo de Raices

Demonstration at the GPO, O'Connell Street, 6th March 2008 at 18:00

Today we want to highlight thise victims who never made it to the news, those victims who remain shamefully ignored because they were peasants, workers, poor or belonged to ethnic minorities. We are showing in this demonstration the names and photos of only some, but who are representative of the 70,000 people murdered for political reasons in Colombia since the late 1980's. Our emphasis is, however, placed in the process of building a sustainable peace in Colombia which will require a huge effort from parties to the conflict. We urgently require some form of Humanitarian Agreement to humanise the war and to alleviate the suffering of the civilian victims. Also, we urge the actors in the conflict to take the necessary steps to negociate a political solution to the conflict that addresses its origins and causes.

March 6th: Day of Action for Colombia

In tribute to the Victims of the armed social conflict:

For the disappeared; for the displaced; for the massacred; for the executed; for the kidnapped.

The Colombian National Movement of Victims of Crimes of the State have called for a national mobilisation on the 6th March 2008 to remember the victims of paramilitarism and State terrorism. In addition, this call has been taken up by all organisations of of victims of the conflict and human rights associations in Colombia. Internationally we are proud to support this initative which aims at highlighting the serious situation of human rights abuses in the country after decades of an armed civil conflict that has inflicted a deadly toll of civilian casulties, who have been the victims of the various armed actors involved.

During the first period of the government of Alvaro Uribe (2002-2006) the conflict has hurled out the following statistics: 1,591 victims (25% of the total of all victims in that period) were the responsibility of guerrilla forces, principally the FARC-EP; the paramilitaries were responsible for 3,907 victims (61%) and the armed forces of the State were responsible for 908 victims (14%). It is worth mentioning that numerous investigations of both Colombian and international independent organisations have demonstrated the systematic relation between paramilitaries and armed State forces. Indeed, the scandal of para-politics has brought to public attention that around 35% of the Colombian parliament have been controlled by right-wing paramilitary forces.

Around 4 million people have been displaced in Colombia, principally poor farmers, indigenous and afro-decendents. This phenomenon has been caused, in the vast majority of cases, due to the actions of paramilitary forces, although State forces and the guerrilla insurgents have contributed as well. Although there is no information for the last years, it is known that this phenomenon is still present and growing at an increasing percentage on the part of the State forces and worse still, without any real solution in sight.

One of the consequences of displacement has been the plundering of 6 million hectares of land belonging to the farmers, indigenous and afro-descendents, that has been appropriated for agro-industrial cultivations, like palm-oil for example, on the part of national and foreign economic groups or directly the for the paramilitary structures themselves to undertake a bit of agro-industry or to 'clear' the lands for mega-projects.

It is estimated that around 15,000 people have been 'disappeared' in Colombia since the end of the 1980's. The corspes of these victims have appeared in common graves and others simply thrown into rivers. According to Amnesty International, 90% of the disappeared are the responsibility of illegal right-wing groups.

Studies of human-rights show that have of thise kidnapped in Colombia are being held by the guerrillas of FARC-EP, amounting to some 700 people. In addition, it has been confirmed that since 1991, more than 1,700 indigenous have been assassinated, along with 2,550 trade-unionists and around 5,000 members of Patriotic Union, the majority of whom by Paramilitary members, who also have perpetrated some 3,500 massacres (where a massacre is defined as 5 or more murdered defenceless victims) between 1982 and 2005. In the case of the Indigenous, the most vunerable sector in Colombian society, 92% of the murders were the responsibility of the armed forces of the State.
Since 2002 and their supposed 'demobilisation', the paramilitaries, now called "Black Eagles", continue to assassinate on average 600 people each year. In January 2008 alone, the paramilitaries have perpetrated 2 massacres, 9 disappearances and 8 homicides. And yet, they insist that paramilitaries have demobilised.

For their part, in January alone of this year, the Colombian National Army have committed 16 extra-judical executions. And since the election of Uribe in 2002, the National Army have committed more than 950 executions, the majority presented as positive killings of guerrillas in combat, when the reality is that they were assassinations of civilians, a phenomenon labelled commonly as 'mistaken identity'. This is an alarming number and and is the direct result of of the application of Plan Colombia, financed by the US and the EU (USD5 Billion since 1999)

It is important to mention that Colombian guerrillas have committed several violations of Humanitarian International Law through kidnappings, forced disappearances and the assassinations of civilians, as well as being responsible for attacks using indiscriminate and disproportionate violence degenerating in the deaths of numerous civilians.

In synthesis, according to Amnesty International, "All of the parties in the conflict have systematically violated human rights and the charter of International Human Rights, but right-wing paramilitaries, with the complicity of the Army, are responsible for the majority of homicides, the cases of the disappeared and cases of torture over the last years."

Today we want to highlight thise victims who never made it to the news, those victims who remain shamefully ignored because they were peasants, workers, poor or belonged to ethnic minorities. We are showing in this demonstration the names and photos of only some, but who are representative of the 70,000 people murdered for political reasons in Colombia since the late 1980's. Our emphasis is, however, placed in the process of building a sustainable peace in Colombia which will require a huge effort from parties to the conflict. We urgently require some form of Humanitarian Agreement to humanise the war and to alleviate the suffering of the civilian victims. Also, we urge the actors in the conflict to take the necessary steps to negociate a political solution to the conflict that addresses its origins and causes.

We demand the armed actors to negociate a Humanitarian Accord to alleviate the suffering of the victims! We demand the negociation of a political agreement to end the conflict! For the sake of peace and social justice!

Demonstration at the GPO, O'Connell Street, 6th March 2008 at 18:00