Human Rights (Colombia)

Sandra Osborne Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Sandra Osborne (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Lab)]

I am pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to the debate. I have been to Colombia on two occasions. My first visit was some 10 years ago. I went to the rain forest and met a community of Afro-Colombians who had been displaced from their homes. It was an experience that I will never forget. No one in this Chamber today has anything but the best wishes and best intentions for Colombia and for the Colombian people. We should recognise where progress has been made and the rhetoric has certainly changed with the new president, but, as we have heard quite graphically, the rhetoric does not necessarily match up to the reality. Human Rights Watch has said that there has been virtually no progress in bringing to justice the killers of trade unionists. We want progress now. Fine words have been said far too often in the past.

I want to concentrate on the situation that faces political prisoners in Colombia. Two years ago, I went to the country with my colleagues from Justice for Colombia. I saw the horrors faced by trade unionists, members of the opposition, community leaders and human rights activists. One of my most tragic and heart-wrenching experiences was visiting the women’s prison in Bogota. We visited patio 6, which is where trade unionists and other critics of the regime are locked up simply for defending the rights that we hold dear, including the right to protest, the right to organise and the right to freedom of expression.

Basic human rights are constantly denied and that is repeated in prisons all over the country. Leading activists are arrested and accused of “rebellion”, which is a catch-all charge used to imprison critical voices. They are accused of being guerrilla collaborators simply for exercising their right to criticise and organise. Thousands of political prisoners live a precarious existence in which they are often held for months or years without trial. They are denied due process, medical care and their freedom. Others are simply peasants who have committed the grave crime of living in a region where there is a guerrilla presence. As such, they are rounded up and imprisoned.

Examples of recent detentions include the arrest on 22 August of four members of FENSUAGRO, the Colombian agricultural workers’ union, who were detained in Putumayo. Two more of their colleagues from the region were detained, on 30 June and 7 August. All are accused of “rebellion” and continue to be held in Mocoa prison, Putumayo.

On 2 October, eight social leaders, including trade unionists, human rights defenders, teachers and students, were detained in Neiva and Caqueta. On 16 October, more peasant farmers were detained arbitrarily in the municipality of La Uribe, Meta.

When I visited the prison, I met Liliany Obando, who left a lasting impression on us. She is an academic and trade unionist who, like many MPs and union leaders, was imprisoned for highlighting the killings of trade unionists. Liliany is accused of “rebellion” and has been detained since 8 August 2008 without being convicted of any crime. Her legal process is marred by severe irregularities and arbitrary delays. The supposed evidence against her has been used in numerous cases against members of the opposition and has been ruled “inadmissible” in one of those separate cases. Her defence continues to be denied full access to this “evidence”. Her lawyers have submitted 16 appeals against what were considered unfounded legal decisions, yet all were denied, with no legitimate reason provided.

In June, Liliany was moved to a patio that she now shares with paramilitaries, and she is allowed outside for only one hour per week. The Colombian Government, through their embassy in the UK, have claimed that that action was taken for Liliany’s own safety. She has faced physical abuse from prison guards and been denied many visits in recent months. When I met her she said that

“even though we are imprisoned, we don’t give up our struggle, we retain our principles and our morals. We are women who can change things.”

Those words have been lodged in my memory ever since.

Another example is Professor Miguel Angel Beltran, who is a member of the academics’ trade union and a well known critical thinker. He was accused of “rebellion” and imprisoned from 23 May 2009 until 7 June 2011, when he was finally absolved of the charges against him. Just one day after Miguel’s arrest, the then President, Uribe, publicly accused him of being one of the most dangerous terrorists of the FARC. Of course, President Uribe was famous for describing as a terrorist anyone who suits him. He used a few fine words against me and some of my colleagues during our visit to Colombia.

Despite the fact that Dr Beltran was absolved of any crime, the Office of the Inspector General opened a new disciplinary procedure against him, based on the evidence that has already been disproved at his trial. If Dr Beltran is wrongly convicted, that will yet again prevent him from working and teaching as an academic. Ministers and the mainstream Colombian media have also continued to describe him as a terrorist. For example, in an interview with El Tiempo on 27 June 2011, the Minister of the Interior referred to Dr Beltran as “Cienfuegos”, which is his supposed terrorist alias. That was particularly concerning given that, on paper, that Minister had agreed to provide Dr Beltran with a security scheme because of concerns about his security and threats against his life. That promise is yet to be fulfilled. Instead, since his release Dr Beltran has faced threats and phone interceptions, a USB has been robbed from his apartment and he has learned of plans for his assassination, which state that it will be carried out by either forced disappearance or faked accident.

[Annette Brooke in the Chair]

Those are just a few examples of the many political prisoners in Colombia, whose existence the Colombian Government deny. In meetings held with the Colombian ambassador to the UK, that issue causes the most anger. The ambassador vehemently denies that any political prisoners exist in Colombia. The Colombian Government’s argument is that the judiciary and executive branches of government are separate, and that the Government have no political influence over the judiciary. That is blatantly untrue. Time and again, we have seen instances of political bias in legal cases, impunity for the killers and legal set-ups of the victims. We know that, although Santos does not attack the judiciary as Uribe did, there continues to be a paramilitary influence in many cases.

Colombia’s political prisoners are not mentioned in the international media, unlike political prisoners in Burma or Zimbabwe. The majority of the British public do not know of the tragic scenarios being played out around Colombia, where trade unionists, academics and human rights activists are subjected to indefinite periods of imprisonment. They are kept away from their children and held in terrible conditions.

We do not hear of the beatings of prisoners, the mass hunger strikes or the lack of water. On 2 December last year, a prisoner died after being beaten by prison guards. Earlier this year, hunger strikers in Valledupar prison sewed their mouths up after being denied proper access to water. The response of the authorities was to attack the prisoners.

I will never forget the experience of seeing single mothers and babies being locked up over the mothers’ trade union activities. As we condemn that practice in other countries, so too must we condemn it in Colombia. This is a systematic pattern of action being used to silence critical voices and it shows that, on the ground, Colombia is very far from being the democracy that its leaders claim it is.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—