Speech by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Massachusetts), July 23, 2003

Speech by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Massachusetts), September 10, 2003

HOUSE FLOOR STATEMENT OF U.S. REP. JIM MCGOVERN ON U.S. POLICY IN COLOMBIA
Contact: Michael Mershon
(202) 225-6101

September 10, 2003

Colombian President Uribe Attacks Human Rights Defenders

Mr. Speaker, over the past three years, I have raised many questions regarding U.S. policy in Colombia.

In July, working with my good colleague from Missouri, Congressman Ike Skelton, the Ranking Member on the House Armed Services Committee, I offered an amendment that would have made a modest reduction in U.S. military aid to the Colombian Armed Forces as a signal of grave concern about the rapidly deteriorating human rights situation in Colombia and the continuing ties between the Colombian military and paramilitary forces.

That measure was defeated, in part, because Members of Congress were reassured by Secretary of State Colin Powell and the Colombian government that President Uribe is a strong supporter of human rights and an ally in the fight against terrorism.

Unfortunately, throughout the month of August and the first ten days of September, the human rights situation in Colombia has deteriorated even further.

Scores of trade union and human rights leaders have been detained by official government forces in Arauca - one of President Uribe's highly-militarized showcase provinces and where nearly 300 U.S. military personnel are active in the counter-insurgency war. And what was their crime? Quite simply, they denounced the links between government security forces and paramilitary groups in the region.

According to Amnesty International, the detentions "appear to be part of an on-going coordinated campaign to undermine the work of trade unionists and human rights activists and to expose those sectors to increased attack from army-backed paramilitaries."

Also in August, the Commander in Chief of the Colombian Armed Forces, General Jorge Enrique Mora Rangel, held a press conference in which it was alleged that a village of resettled refugees, who were trying to protect themselves from armed actors by putting barbed wire around their village, somehow instead was a "FARC-controlled concentration camp," a remark that puts these refugees and the humanitarian organizations that serve them, including the U.N. High Commission for Refugees, at further risk.

These accusations were made shortly after the Colombian Constitutional Court issued a decision allowing some of these organizations to proceed with a lawsuit against General Rito Alejo del Rio, for human rights abuses carried out when he was Commander of the 17th Brigade in northwestern Colombia.

Over the past few months, one public attack after another against human rights defenders and organizations has been made by the very highest-ranking members of Colombia's government and military, culminating this week in statements by President Uribe himself.

On Monday, September 8th, President Uribe, in a speech to Colombian military personnel, attacked human rights organizations as "politickers at the service of terrorism." President Uribe stated that human rights groups in Colombia are "terrorist agents and cowards who hide their political ideas behind human rights."

These highly inflammatory and dangerous remarks came on the same day as some 80 human rights groups released a report critical of some of President Uribe's security measures, which in their view have increased repression against the civilian population. The report was issued by some of Colombia's most respected human rights groups, including the Colombian Commission of Jurists, the Consultancy for Human Rights, and the Jesuit-affiliated Center for Popular Education and Investigation.

Equally disturbing, in President Uribe's speech to the military, the word "terrorist" is used only in reference to left-wing guerrilla forces; the paramilitary forces are referred to as "private justice groups," even though it is the paramilitary forces that are responsible for 70 percent of human rights violations committed against the civilian population and nearly all attacks against labor leaders and human rights defenders - and are on the U.S. State Department's list of terrorist organizations.

All of us in Congress have seen this pattern before.

We know that when high government and military officials start labeling civilian leaders and organizations as "terrorists" or "sympathizers," their deaths soon follow.

When President Uribe made such statements, he knowingly and deliberately placed these democratic actors at great risk.

The right to criticize, to disagree with official doctrine is a cornerstone of democracy.

Let me be clear: Colombia is not threatened by national and international human rights organizations, UN officials, judges, or Colombian government officials whose responsibility it is to protect and promote human rights.

Indeed, the most important step President Uribe could take to end terrorism within Colombia's borders is to investigate, prosecute, and punish all those responsible for violations of human rights and international humanitarian law - including the paramilitaries and their military allies.

It is impunity, not human rights defenders, that is eroding any prospect for peace, democracy and the rule of law in Colombia.

Sadly, U.S. policy is complicit in aiding and abetting this serious state of affairs in Colombia.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I yield back the balance of my time.

As of September 12, 2003, this document was also available online at http://www.house.gov/mcgovern/floor091003Colombia.htm