Colombia: Struggling For Autonomy and Justice in the Face of State Repression

[struggle4progress]

Written by Andrew Willis Garcés
Wednesday, 25 February 2009

Last week over 200 people held a march and rally in the city of Barrancabermeja, Santander department, to demand justice for two imprisoned leaders of the largest campesino association in the region a day before the beginning of their trial.

Andrés Elías Gil and Miguel Gonzáles Huepa went before a judge for the first time since their 2007 arrests, for their leadership of the Campesino Campesino Association of the Cimitarry River Valley (ACVC). Activists from a dozen groups held up banners and placards pledging solidarity, as over a hundred campesino members chanted demanding their release, and sang songs of resistance. They also demanded an end to fumigations, which recently pulverized fields of yucca, banana and plantain outside Puerto Matilde in Antioquia department, and called for continuation of coca eradication by hand instead. They were joined by representatives of student unions, women's groups, human rights defenders CREDHOS and ASORVIM and local oil workers unions SINALTRAINAL and the USO.

The case has also generated international attention; dozens of UK trade union and parliament leaders sent letters to the Colombian president and local judges last year demanding freedom for both men ...

Both activists were captured by state security agents and soldiers in January and September 2007, both times while taking part in community meetings. Four other leaders were also taken into custody during the raids and were released in 2007 for lack of evidence. Orders of capture have been issued for eighteen ACVC leaders total. Fearing the impossibility of a just hearing in this climate, six have gone into exile ...

http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1737/1/

[Judi Lynn]

1. Unbelievable. Certainly have heard this pattern before. When the government

wants people out of the way, it simply brands them as "FARCs," and that's the end of it.

Had to stop before finishing it, as it's so intense. What a shame so little real information ever makes its way out of Colombia about what is happening there at the personal level, face to face.

Both activists were captured by state security agents and soldiers in January and September 2007, both times while taking part in community meetings. Four other leaders were also taken into custody during the raids and were released in 2007 for lack of evidence. Orders of capture have been issued for eighteen ACVC leaders total. Fearing the impossibility of a just hearing in this climate, six have gone into exile.

"This is a political process, not a judicial process," clarified one of the group's leaders in a press conference. "No one is running because they're guilty. ACVC members are being sought because they threaten the political priorities of the government."

The notorious Calibío Batallion of the army's 7th Division carried out the arrests, during which they briefly, mistakenly detained Miguel's son, whose ID card also read "Miguel Gonzáles." A week later, the same batallion killed the younger Miguel and dressed him in the camouflage of a guerrilla fighter. Members of the army unit have been fingered as the culprits of dozens of similar so-called "false positive" extrajudicial executions, the most of the military units operating in the valley.

The persecutions are nothing new for campesinos in the region. In northeastern Antioquia department alone eleven campesinos have been killed during the Uribe administration, and in twelve years of existence six ACVC leaders have been assasinated, with dozens of the group's members also been assassinated by military and paramilitary forces. In addition to arbitrary prosecution the ACVC has been menaced as of late by new paramilitary organizations, including the Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, who also sent threats to Barrancabermeja groups like the oilworkers union (USO) last October.

It just gets nuttier, and more preposterous:

On Wednesday the judges heard from witnesses in each case, all claiming to be "reinserted" former FARC combatants, and all currently on the payroll of the state. In Colombia, it's not necessary to present empirical evidence to secure a conviction, testimony of paid informants is enough. One witness claimed he couldn't remember when or where he'd seen Andres meet with rebels, and another claimed to have seen him with two "blonde, Swiss agents" bringing the FARC millions of dollars. But, once again, couldn't remember when or where. Informants who turn themselves in have in other cases been discovered to be either disgruntled political rivals or simply campesinos looking for a government handout. Leaders of unions in Arauca have been convicted based on similar accounts.

"The authorities weren't looking for evidence here, they already knew who they wanted to go after," said attorney Luis Alfonso Ruiz of the legal corporation Humanidad Vigente, of the prosecution's case. "They tapped the phones of the ACVC office, of Miguel Cifuentes... this was a very focused 'investigation.'"

Miguel only has one witness for the prosecution accusing him of FARC membership, following the renouncement of another state witness, ACVC secretary Álvaro Manzano, who was imprisoned, interrogated and forced to sign an "exit agreement" that, it was later revealed, was written as a confession.

Call for Support

ImageSince they were transferred to the maximum security prison in Palogordo from a jail in Bucaramanga, the two have suffered random attacks of pepper spray and tear gas by guards, and punishment for violations of prison rules committed by cellmates, which include being forced to disrobe and being beaten when they decline. They are housed in a tier with others accused of rebellion, paramilitarism, and common theft - a clear safety risk to both well-known civilian leaders.

Impossibly stupid, and brutal. They are really running some kind of sideshow there, aren't they? Major freaks in charge of their government.

Thanks for sharing this. It's simply overwhelming, and dovetails so capably with the rest of the information which trickles out from the journalists who haven't yet been killed!