[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 124 (Wednesday, September 10, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H8192-H8193]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT URIBE ATTACKS HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, over the past 3 years, I have raised many 
questions regarding U.S. policy in Colombia. In July, working with my 
good colleague from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), the ranking member of the 
House Committee on Armed Service, 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 on terrorism.
  Unfortunately, throughout the month of August and the first 10 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 the paramilitary groups in the region.
  According to Amnesty International, the detentions ``appear to be 
part of an ongoing 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 the armed actors by putting barbed wire around 
their village were somehow instead ``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 the 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 statement by President Uribe himself.
  On Monday, September 8, 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 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 only used 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 the 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 terror organizations.
  All of us in Congress have seen this pattern before.
  We know that when high government and military officials start 
labelling leaders and organizations as ``terrorists'' or 
``sympathizers,'' their death 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, U.N. officials, judges, or 
Colombian government officials whose responsibility it is to protect 
and promote human rights.

[[Page H8193]]

  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 right 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.

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