The land of legalised death squads
This is namely the decision to give political backing to the Colombian regime for reasons of political expediency at home.
Colombia is routinely referred to as a democracy and the courts’ decision is seen as one which should be respected. Between 1965 and 1989 Colombia’s death squads (more commonly referred to as the paramilitaries) were legal. Their legal status was again revived in the mid-1990s under the guise of the rural security co-operatives, Convivir. These were widely promoted by President Uribe when he was governor of Antioquia.
He has now begun another process of re-legalising the paramilitaries as peasant soldiers. It is a strange democracy that has legalised death squads.
Neither can it be said the judiciary is independent. This is implicitly recognised by the US which has long sought the extradition of drugs traffickers rather than see them stand trial in Colombia.
Even the US State Department reports on Colombia acknowledge the lack of independence of the judiciary.
The quality of the justice meted out in Colombia can be gauged by looking at the case of Fr Bernardo Marin who was charged with murder.
He was able to prove that he was on a speaking tour of Canada at the time he was supposed to have taken part in the murder.
Nevertheless, the Colombian judiciary cited an army intelligence report which placed him at the scene of the murder and left the case open, preventing Fr Martin from returning to Colombia.
He died in exile having been accused of a murder he couldn’t possibly have committed, being thousands of miles away at the time.
For reasons of political point-scoring the Irish media and Irish politicians now seek to support the regime and its courts. The decision made in the case of the Colombia Three was a political one. Some seek to lend credence to court procedures whereby the accused are paraded before the media and declared guilty by high-ranking police officers even before they are formally charged, where witnesses are bought and sold and where high-ranking public officials regularly intervene in court proceedings.
What the Colombia Three have been subjected to is normal in Colombia and herein lies the problem: there are those who for their own purposes wish to say that this is OK and that the country with the hemisphere’s worst human rights record is to be congratulated for handing them a political football.
They do a disservice to all those brave trade unionists and human rights defenders who regularly find themselves before these same courts and subjected to similar shoddy proceedings. They should read the reports on Colombia prepared by the UN High Commissioner’s Office on Human Rights before adding to the tragedy that is Colombia through their own ignorance.
Gearóid Ó Loingsigh
PRO
Latin America Solidarity Centre
5 Merrion Row
Dublin 2
