Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Colombia launched a plan to protect land devolucin

On Tuesday of last week, a gunman shot at close range against Gloria Gaona Constanza, judge of Saravena, a town in the Colombian department of Arauca troubled northeast of Bogota. Oil is a heavily militarized area and scope of the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National Liberation Army (ELN), as well as heirs of the paramilitary groups.

The judge had complicated criminal cases. The most serious, the murder of three children, including a 12-year-raped previously, which is charged with a second lieutenant in the Army. Gaona, 39, had alleged that attorneys for the Defense Integrated Military had spun tales to delay the process.

On Wednesday, David Góez, 70, was killed in a commercial area of Medellin, the second largest town. Representing 120 families who claim 20,000 hectares in the area of Uraba, the Caribbean, where the paramilitaries have successfully implemented their model of political control, economic and military.

March has been a black month for human rights in Colombia, with Góez are three community leaders who worked for the restitution of land killed this month. The list also includes a leader of the government program Families in Action, riddled front of her husband and children. In addition, we must add the death this Saturday, Yhiel, the troubled rapper Medellin Comuna XIII.

It is the fifth shot young artist who died in this sprawling district, preached replace bullets for music. These murders are added to the death threats against journalists and human rights defenders signed by the Aguilas Negras, a new paramilitary group to which the Government calls BACRIM: criminal gangs of drug trafficking.

Several NGOs called on Monday before the Commission on Human Rights, meeting in the Washington headquarters of the Organization of American States (OAS), which make a visit to Colombia to monitor the situation. Reported, among other things, a decline in the transfer of military justice cases to the ordinary, which leads to crimes committed by the security forces remain unpunished.

Who is behind these crimes and threats? Iván Cepeda, a congressman of the Democratic Pole and defender of victims of violence, has a thesis: after the false demobilization of paramilitary groups has come to light that many demobilized did not belong to the organization, there was the simple interest of inflating statistics.

"It was a plan to stop in the shade structures to defend what is obtained by means of the slaughter and displacement." To Cepeda, the paramilitary structures BACRIM are designed to control territories and prevent the return of lands, political flag of the president Juan Manuel Santos. Already been reported that some of them with the complicity of members of the security forces.

It is estimated that nationwide the paramilitaries robbed farmers of more than five million hectares. Since 2002, 42 people who fought for the return of his own have been killed. Since Santos came to power and there are seven victims. On Monday, the government announced a security plan to protect these people.

Earlier, Christian Salazar, representative in Colombia of the office of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, had called for a "thorough review" of policies to protect vulnerable people. Will the security plan? Cepeda is not optimistic: "While the diagnosis is wrong is difficult [this] is the solution." The congressman believes that a successful strategy must be based on a correct definition of what constitutes the BACRIM.

At a special meeting held on Monday, Vice President and Defense Minister of the Interior and Agriculture said almost in unison that the land restitution policy is no turning back. "This is not going to cross the criminals," they said. "The government must move from words and good intentions into action," said Cepeda, who recognizes the change of tone compared to the previous current Executive: Do not demonize NGOs or human rights defenders.

Stop the massacre against the displaced is the only way forward for the restitution of land, vital to the peace initiative in Colombia. As it is vital to have faultless military forces to rebuild the path marked by violence.

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