Truth Commission Receives First Report on Social Leaders

Stressing that the aggression against social leaders present common patterns such as repression by state intelligence entities towards victims, several human rights organizations delivered the first report on this subject yesterday at Truth Commission.

Read also: The files of two social leaders badbadinated

The Collective José Alvear Restrepo, Commission Justice and Peace Inter-Church Yira Castro Law Corporation, We Defenders the Interdisciplinary Group on Human Rights, and the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, were the authors of the report entitled Defend Life.

The document collects ten cases of persons who have suffered threats, follow-ups and murders for their work as human rights protectors in their communities, between 2002 and 2015. Among these cases are those of Ana Teresa Yarce, leader of Comuna 13 in Medellin, murdered on October 6 by paramilitaries; Mario Castro Bueno character in El Castillo (Meta), also murdered by paramilitaries, on November 1, 2002, and Soraya Gutiérrez president of the collective of lawyers José Alvear Restrepo, victim unlawful interception of the SAR and threats.

This report was presented to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in April this year in The Hague and was delivered yesterday to the Commission. of Truth, presided over by the priest Francisco de Roux.

Sebastián Escobar member of the José Alvear Restrepo Collective, one of the organizations that participated in its preparation, presents to us the conclusions of this report and the intention to present it to the Commission.

Why were these ten cases chosen?

The ten cases that this report collects occurred in a period from 2002 to 2015 precisely because the ICC's period of jurisdiction for crimes against humanity began in 2002, after acceptance by the # 39; State. Colombian Statute of Rome. It is the methodological decision to select the ten cases that we end up documenting. From these cases, we have been able to identify at least five types of attacks against human rights defenders, the vast majority of whom still persist.

One of them is the use of intelligence activities and illegal monitoring actions of groups of human rights defenders. One of the cases that illustrates this phenomenon is related to the scandal of the Administrative Department of Security (DAS), although it is not the only one. What they usually did to hinder the work of the defenders was to build intelligence reports with profiles of the victims, their loved ones, and organizations that would be used repeatedly to prosecute the defenders. In other cases, lists were sent to paramilitary groups to badbadinate defenders. The cases that illustrate this trend are the homicide of a trade unionist in Barranquilla, Adá Pacheco, and that of Soraya Gutiérrez, president of the José Alvear Restrepo collective of lawyers.

Another pattern is that of extrajudicial executions, known publicly as "false positives". This summit peaked between 2002 and 2088, which was first attributed to people with some form of social leadership in regions forming part of the democratic security policy. Then it became an indiscriminate practice. The cases are those of Luis Miguel Porto, a farmer from the Montes de María region and Miguel Ángel González, a campesino chef from northeastern Antioquia.

What was the ICC's response to the report?

The ICC prosecutor's office is in the preliminary study. In Colombia, there is still no investigation as such. What the Court told us at the time, is that they are still very aware of the situation in Colombia, they continue to receive information from civil society. We have a dialogue with the Office of the Prosecutor of the Court presenting our arguments, following the situation of implementation of the agreements, but in a particular way to the point of Justice. In this sense, we continue to provide information against this preliminary badysis. Until now, he has not made the decision to open an official investigation in Colombia.

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How important is this report to the Truth Commission?

We have two goals. The first is that in Colombia, since the signing of peace agreements, violence has been mentioned in the context of the conflict and encompbading all the phenomena of the same category. What we have proposed to the Commission, in principle, is that it identifies these patterns under socio-political violence, which is not limited to the logic of conflict which is a confrontation between two camps organized in the purpose of having military benefits, but a unilateral aggression on the part of state agents or paramilitaries who acted in a manner sponsored or tolerated by at least these state actors. This is also due to a vision of the state's counter-insurgency policy in which defenders are identified as those who carry out a political or legal war against the state security forces.

The second thing is also to contribute to the mandate of the Truth Commission and to make a complete narrative that takes into account all these causes, motivations, practices, modus operandi and patterns that we have identified in the report in the construction of this historical truth that Colombia expects.

Beyond these two objectives, what answer do you expect from the Commission?

For us, the recommendations of the Truth Commission, which from our point of view should be focused on guarantees of non-repetition of these events, are extremely important. We propose to support human rights organizations and victims of a high-level commission with non-repetition guarantees and adopt them through a subcommittee which, according to us, should be mixed and incorporating the victims. from other political, economic and even the same people who, in a way, were responsible for these events.

See: The Persecution of Faith Sectors in the Armed Conflict, an Unfinished Truth

We also make recommendations on security and defense sector reforms, as a public force for peace. human rights platforms, which adapts to new demands of the post-conflict era.

What is the contribution of this report to the badysis of the current killing of social leaders in this scenario of peace agreement after the war?

It is a phenomenon that continues, even increasing dramatically. What can contribute is precisely to conceptualize which models continue to work and through which defenders are attacked on the basis of what has been identified as being able to function more effectively. These are also proposals for measures to prevent aggression, which we consider effective in dealing with this phenomenon.