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Colombia
Uribe accused of obstructing paramilitaries investigation
Article published on the 2008-10-17 Latest update 2008-10-17 14:53 TU
José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch
(Photo: Reuters)
US-based campaign Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Thursday accused Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's government of sabotaging investigations into politicians' alleged links with paramilitaries. The Colombian administration immediately dismissed the report as "ridiculous" and "full of lies".
"The government of President Uribe, in our opinion, has become an obstacle for the advancement of justice," said HRW's Americas director José Miguel Vivanco at a press conference presenting the organisation's annual report on Colombia.
The campaign's report, Breaking the Grip? Obstacles to Justice for Paramilitary Mafias in Colombia, focused on probes into past activities of the recently demobilised United Self-Defense Group of Colombia (AUC) and its alleged links to officials in the Uribe administration and legislators in the ruling coalition.
It accuses Uribe of undermining the Supreme Court's investigation of accusations against members of the Colombian Congress.
More than 60 members have been under investigation, almost all from Uribe's coalition.
Human Rights Watch says Uribe has repeatedly tried to discredit the Supreme Court through public attacks on the court and its members and attempts to remove the "parapolitics" probes from its jurisdiction.
Uribe in May extradited to the United States 13 AUC heads whose testimony is considered key to the investigations.
HRW urged the US to give Colombian investigators any information it obtains from the 13 AUC leaders and to offer imprisoned AUC members legal incentives to confess the truth about their crimes.
The Colombian vice-presidential office released a statement dismissing the HRW report as "ridiculous" and "full of lies", calling for "a quick and full clarification of the circumstances surrounding the violence all armed groups have perpetrated against (government) institutions and the people".
The government’s reaction to the report is an attempt to discredit it, Ivan Cepeda, director of the Movement for Victims of State Crime, told RFI’s Latin American service.
Local campaigners agree with many of the report’s conclusions, according to Alvaro Villarrago of the Assembly for Peace and the Foundation for Democratic Culture, who added that “the human rights crisis has not been solved”.
HRW also urged the American Congress to withhold approval of a free trade agreement between the US and Colombia, finalised in 2006, until the probes into paramilitary activities and the past murders of several union leaders in Colombia are completed.
United Nations human rights commissioner Navi Pillay has chosen Colombia as the first country to visit since taking up her post in June, her office said in a statement Friday. Pillay will be in Colombia from 27 October to 1 November.
