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Targeted for defending human rights
Lawyers in Colombia seek international solidarity
Berta Joubert-Ceci / Thursday 28 August 2008
 

Colombia is the most dangerous country in the world for labor leaders. However, very little is known about the judicial system and the lawyers who defend the victims of human rights abuses. Once a lawyer takes a case of violation by paramilitaries or by the state, he or she becomes a target for threats and even assassination.

This not only puts in peril the lives of lawyers and their families but is a de facto denial of access to legal representation for victims, at a time when massacres by paramilitaries with state support are being uncovered but remain in complete impunity.

New laws and reforms are being proposed by President Álvaro Uribe with the full support and encouragement of the U.S. government. This transformation of the Colombian judicial system will make it even easier to condemn social and human rights activists who oppose the genocidal policies of Plan Colombia and the paramilitary Colombian state.

The Colombian Association of Lawyers Defending Human Rights has organized a conference called the Caravan because the delegation will visit and meet people not only in Bogotá but also in regional centers.

The International Action Center sent the following message of solidarity to the conference:


Message to the International Caravan of Jurists

From the United States we send greetings to the organizers and participants of the International Caravan of Jurists that takes place on Aug. 25 through 29. Unfortunately, we are unable to be present in this very important undertaking, which is so crucial at this time to expose the dangerous situation that Colombian lawyers face, particularly those committed to the exercise of defending human and labor rights in your country.

However, once the information gathered by the Caravan is available, we will make sure that it gets disseminated as widely as possible in the U.S.

We observe in horror, from written and audiovisual reports, how human rights are being abused under the guise of a policy called “Democratic Security,” which preserves the rights of the perpetrators more than those of the victims. How laws have been enacted, like the one euphemistically called Justice and Peace, which has brought no justice and no peace for the majority of the Colombian people, but rather impunity for the deadly paramilitaries responsible for countless massacres.

How, according to the testimony of lawyer Jorge Enrique Gómez, former ombudsman (defensor del pueblo) in Magdalena Medio, many riverbeds in Colombia are covered with the bodies of those who to this day are part of the millions “disappeared,” victims of paramilitary and state terror.

Disappearances, displacements, false positives, selective assassinations, illegal arrests, and so many more injustices and violations have not been investigated, nor the perpetrator punished. This is actually a denial of justice.

We point the finger not only at the administration of Colombian President Álvaro Uribe Vélez—who, in violation of the Basic Principles of the Function of a Lawyer, on numerous occasions has publicly accused human rights advocates of serving the cause of terrorism—but at the government of the U.S., which for decades, under Plan Colombia, has waged a war against the people of Colombia with the excuse of waging a war against drugs.

We again salute, above all, the organizers of this Caravan, who, with great risk to their and their families’ lives, have taken on this task on behalf of the peoples of Colombia.

In solidarity,

Ramsey Clark
Hon. Claudia H. Morcom, retired Wayne Cnty. Circuit Crt. Judge, member IADL, Detroit, Mich.
Vanessa Ramos, Pres., American Jurists Assoc. (Asociación Americana de Juristas)
Heidi Boghosian, Ex. Dir., Nat’l Lawyers Guild
Jitendra Charma, Pres, Int’l Assoc. of Democratic Lawyers (IADL)
Jeanne Mirer, Secretary General, IADL
Julie Fry, Alternate Vice President of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, UAW Local 2325
Jerome D. Goldberg, Esq., Detroit, Mich.
Joaquina Rodriguez, Texas attorney
American Association of Jurists (Asociación Americana de Juristas)
Int’l Association of Democratic Lawyers