On May 19 WOLA hosted a 2-hour discussion of new revelations that Colombian Army intelligence had been spying on journalists, judges, opposition politicians, human rights defenders, and other military officers. The nine speakers included several victims of the spying and some U.S.-based analysts.
The discussion’s video feed is below. The first is presented in the languages the speakers used, and the second is dubbed with a full English translation.
The FARC formally requests protective measures from the OAS Inter-American Human Rights Commission, citing attacks on former guerrillas around the country, with a death toll approaching 200. “We want to avoid a genocide,” says FARC representative Diego Martínez.
A Defense Ministry resolution fires another nine Army officers. Though no motive is named, press coverage notes that the firings come after revelations of intelligence abuse and corruption earlier in the month.
A statement from the Gulf Clan neo-paramilitary group rejects the government’s decree offering favorable terms for those who demobilize, denying that any commander has been in contact with the government.
Senators Iván Cepeda, Gustavo Bolívar, and Antonio Sanguino, who were targeted in the Army’s most recent espionage scandal, say they will present evidence to the U.S. Congress and NATO.
“An anti-personnel mine that placed at risk 15 people in Alto Londres hamlet in the municipality of Puerto Rico, Caquetá, was destroyed by Army engineers of the 1st Humanitarian Demining Battalion.”
Colombia’s Prosecutor-General’s Office (Fiscalía) issues arrest warrants for 10 mayors, alleging corruption in COVID-19-related contracting. The Comptroller’s office announces that it has detected US$110 million in likely contracting cost overruns, mainly for medical equipment, food, and related coronavirus services.
“In Catatumbo, we have a program together with the Howard Buffett Foundation, integrating crop substitution together with productive projects, along with the improvement of tertiary roads.”
Aerial photo of an unidentified former Territorial Space for Training and Reincorporation (ETCR), where many former FARC combatants continue to reside.
“Ricardo Palomino is an ex-combatant who has turned to agriculture together with his companions in the former La Variante ETCR in Tumaco. There are many campesinos like them who continue to work so that those sheltering at home may have food on their tables.”
Ariolfo Sánchez Ruiz, a campesino opposing an Army-led eradication operation in Anorí, Antioquia, is detained and killed by soldiers, according to local campesino organizations.
Citing information from the Prosecutor-General’s Office (Fiscalía), Interior Minister Alicia Arango claims that between Januay 1 and May 15, 2020, only 25 social leaders had been killed in Colombia, a drop from 41 during the same period of 2018 and 46 during the same period of 2019. The 25 is the number of “verified” cases; Arango does not state how many 2020 homicides remain to be verified.
Following an online meeting with Cauca indigenous leaders, Interior Ministry officials unintentionally leave their microphones on. “How about those motherf******s, I don’t give an a** about them at this moment,” one can be heard saying. “They’re never going to change and they’re going to be miserable and stupid their whole lives. …I hate those sons of b*****s.”
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Massachusetts), the co-chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in the U.S. Congress, is a longtime advocate of human rights, worldwide and in Latin America.
McGovern joins WOLA in this episode for a conversation about Colombia, a country to which he has traveled several times, and where he was one of the House of Representatives’ leading advocates for the negotiations that ended with a peace accord in 2016.
We’re talking weeks after new revelations that U.S.-aided Colombian military intelligence units had been spying on human rights defenders, journalists, judges, politicians, and even fellow officers. The Congressman calls for a suspension of U.S. military assistance to Colombia while the U.S. government undertakes a top-to-bottom, “penny by penny” review of the aid program. “If there’s not a consequence, there’s no incentive to change,” he explains.
He calls for the Colombian government and the international community to do far more to protect the country’s beleaguered human rights defenders, to change course on an unsuccessful drug policy, and to fulfill the peace accords’ commitments. Human rights, Rep. McGovern concludes, should be at the center of the U.S.-Colombia bilateral relationship.
The Interior Ministry names 30-year-old Jorge Tovar, son of top ex-paramilitary leader “Jorge 40,” to coordinate its Internal Coordination Group for Armed Conflict Victims Policy. Though Tovar is not accused of any of his father’s crimes and has participated in reconciliation efforts, the nomination is highly controversial. In past tweets, Tovar has called his father—currently imprisoned in the United States on drug charges—a “political prisoner” and a “hero,” and has attacked leftist politicians. The Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE) strongly opposes the nomination, as do Colombia’s national platforms of human rights groups.
On May 20, maximum FARC party leader Rodrigo Londoño angers many within his party by defending the Interior Ministry’s hiring of Tovar. Londoño calls Tovar “a person who seems committed to supporting peace and reconciliation processes.”
A discussion of new revelations that Colombian Army intelligence has been spying on journalists, judges, opposition politicians, human rights defenders, and other officers, with several victims of the spying and some U.S.-based analysts.
A discussion of the challenges of implementing the peace accord during the COVID-19 emergency, with Emilio Archila, presidential advisor for Stabilization and Consolidation; Niels Annen, vice-minister of foreign relations of Germany; Francisco de Roux, president of the Truth Commission; Stefan Peters, director of the Instituto Colombo-Alemán para la Paz; and Laura Barrios of the Universidad del Rosario.
Colleagues remember Mario Calderón and Elsa Alvarado, two human rights defenders at CINEP who were murdered by paramilitaries, in their Bogotá home, on May 19, 1997.
The Inspector-General’s Office (Procuraduría) initiates disciplinary proceedings against 13 Army officers, including 3 retired generals, for their role in misuse of intelligence against civilians.
The U.S. embassy’s International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL) section announces a donation of 288 bulletproof vests and other riot control and security equipment to Colombia’s prison system. INL officer director Brian Harris says the donation is a response to the wave of prison riots that occurred on March 21, as coronavirus fears began to spread.
