Colombian Campesino Union Leader Huber Ballesteros Freed
Colombian Campesino Union Leader Huber Ballesteros Freed
Huber Ballesteros, center, at agrarian march, Colombia. | Photo: teleSUR
Published 13 January 2017 (7 hours 8 minutes ago)
Huber Ballesteros spent 40 months in jail under trumped-up charges.
Huber Ballesteros, a renowned campesino union leader and political prisoner in Colombia, was freed on Friday as part of the peace process after 40 months behind bars.
Ballesteros is a leader of the Patriotic March, a political movement that unites much of the left in Colombia, and survived what was described as "political genocide" against members of the Patriotic Union in the 1980’s. He is accused of crimes of rebellion and terrorist financing — meaning supporting the FARC — but his lawyer found that the case was based on false testimonies and manipulated evidence.
“I believe our struggle is just, our ideas are reasonable and our objective is the best for humanity,” Ballesteros told teleSUR in an interview last year. He praised the peace process, which he said would allow prisoners like him to return to their organizing “to work in the implementation of the agreements that will lead to stable and durable peace.”
While Ballesteros is among many who are being released as part of the historic peace deal signed Nov. 30, he told teleSUR that it “does present security guarantees for us union leaders and defenders of human rights. One cannot be completely sure of this, since there’s still a threat of a small, but very important ultra right-wing, led by big landowners—reactionary and violent—that (former president and current senator) Alvaro Uribe Velez represents.”
More:
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Colombian-Campesino-Union-Leader-Huber-Ballesteros-Freed-20170113-0020.html
