US Lawyers to Defend Victims of Paramilitaries

[AlphaCentauri]

BOGOTA, Jul 25 (IPS) - Two human rights lawyers from the United States announced in the Colombian capital that they will defend the victims of paramilitary chiefs who were recently extradited to the United States.

Roxanna Altholz and her colleague Almudena Bernabeu told a press conference in Bogotá Thursday that they would represent victims of seven of the 14 paramilitary leaders extradited on May 13.

The heads of the far-right United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC),who took part in a controversial demobilisation process negotiated with the rightwing government of Álvaro Uribe, are facing drug trafficking and money laundering charges in the United States.

The paramilitary leaders complained that the extradition ordered by Uribe was a betrayal. The surprise move followed public statements by one of the most prominent leaders, Salvatore Mancuso, who boasted that 35 percent of the members of Congress were controlled by the groups, which he said had permeated all areas of the state in Colombia.

That claim is backed up by experts and non-governmental organisations like the Corporación Nuevo Arco Iris, which stated in a report that "in a major expansionist wave, the paramilitaries won various wars, and in that process managed to substantially modify the political map in twelve provinces, partially transform others, establish a large bloc in parliament, influence the presidential elections, gain political power in different regions of the country and engage in negotiations with the state."

Human rights groups saw the extradition of the paramilitary chiefs as cutting short the victims’ search for justice, because the leaders will be tried for drug trafficking, but not for the crimes against humanity that have affected more than three million victims of forced displacement in Colombia and numerous others who have lost loved ones to paramilitary massacres.

"Analysing U.S. legislation, we want to outline a strategy that would allow us to take legal steps to enable the victims to participate in the prosecutions against the extradited paramilitary chiefs," said Colombia-born Altholz, who is associate director of the International Human Rights Law Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.

One argument they intend to use is that, as the paramilitaries themselves have publicly acknowledged, 70 percent of the massacres and other operations that led to forced displacement were carried out using money from drug trafficking.

"If drug trafficking financed these crimes, the victims have rights that must be recognised and fulfilled," said Bernabeu, an international attorney from Spain who works with the San Francisco-based Centre for Justice and Accountability.

"We want to give the victims a hand," said Bernabeu. "So ever since the extradition of (Carlos Mario Jiménez), aka ‘Macaco’, we have been closely studying U.S. legislation, a process that we have stepped up since the extradition of the other 14 paramilitaries."

So far, the lawyers have arranged to represent 12 victims of seven of the paramilitaries who were sent to the United States in May. But they said they expected that number to expand in the near future, even though the total number of people they will defend "will unfortunately be small compared to the huge number of victims in Colombia," said Bernabeu.

The aim is for the victims and their legal representatives to be able to participate in the public court hearings in the United States, have their testimony be heard, and be kept informed of the progress of the trials.

Colombian human rights lawyer Iván Cepeda, head of the Movement of Victims of Crimes of the State, welcomed the efforts of his colleagues from the U.S., which are in addition to other actions in favour of victims of the paramilitaries at the local and international levels.

Cepeda said human rights groups had repeatedly asked the Colombian government not to extradite the imprisoned paramilitary chiefs.

But because their demand was ignored, the alternative was to design a strategy to bring to light, at the international level, the crimes committed by the extradited paramilitary leaders, he said.

"We are telling people that each one of them is comparable to a (former Chilean dictator) Augusto Pinochet," said Cepeda. "People need to know about the appalling crimes they have committed, and about the huge debt they owe to Colombia and to millions of Colombians, so that they aren't just depicted as mere drug traffickers."

The activists’ plans include visits to the United States, the publication of a statement signed by 20 U.S. legislators calling for the defence of human rights in Colombia, and lobbying efforts to get a draft law on victims’ rights approved by the Colombian Congress without amendments that would dilute it.

In Colombia, Altholz and Bernabeu are meeting with representatives of the Supreme Court, the Attorney General’s Office, human rights groups, social organisations, and victims’ associations.

"We cannot expect immediate results, but we are completely dedicated to this and will continue working," said Altholz.


http://insidecostarica.com/special_reports/2008-07/colombia_us_lawyers.htm

[Judi Lynn]

1. Sure hope this is going to work, and that the people involved will somehow be protected.

These people are brave: so much braver than the scum who sent the whores/murderers to terrorize, torture, and slaughter their fellow men/women/children/old people in great numbers, or simply drive them away from the only homes they've ever known forever, then steal their homes.

So much braver than the scum who infest the Colombian legislature who hire these whores/murderers to slaughter their political opposition.

[Peace Patriot]

2. So glad to hear this! The Bushites extradited as a cover-up; the victims won't allow

that to work out as planned. What courage, stamina and passion for justice these victims, victims' families and their lawyers have shown! They are heroes and role models for facing every kind of hardship--in this case, the particularly ugly, nefarious, devious, brutal pain devised by the Colombian rightwing and their Bushite colluders.

These extraditions were also a favor by the Bush Junta to their preferred kind of foreign government leaders--assassins, torturers and criminal traffickers. We have our own house to clean up, don't we now?