International delegation to investigate Patriotic Union murders

[Judi Lynn]

International delegation to investigate Patriotic Union murders
Wednesday, 06 October 2010 15:11 Teresa Welsh

A delegation from the Inter-Parliamentary Union (UIP) will visit Colombia to investigate the murders of representatives from the FARC-linked Patriotic Union party between 1986 and 1994.

The delegation will be led by Mexican Senator Rosario Green, president of the UIP's Human Rights Commission. The team will visit Colombia from October 9-12 to investigate the murders of six members of Colombia's Congress and Senate; Pedro Nel Jimenez, Leonardo Posada, Octavio Vargas, Pedro Luis Valencia, Bernardo Jaramillo, and Manuel Cepeda, as well as threats which forced Hernan Motta into exile in 1997.

"The committee considers the the current political situation in Colombia favorable to the opportunity to advance the investigations of the different and complex cases that we're examining in this country," Green said.

The senator explained that in Bogota the delegation will meet with the authorities, as well as with victims and their families, and investigate the protection offered to those involved in the investigation who have received threats. Green called on Colombian authorities to collaborate in order to ensure justice for the victims.

The Patriotic Union (UP) was a Colombian political party formed in 1985 by the FARC guerrilla group, along with other left-wing organizations. Some 3,000 of the party's members were murdered over the next few years, including congress members and the UP's presidential candidate, and the party had ceased to exist by 2002.

The murders were blamed on drug traffickers and paramilitaries, who were allegedly aided by members of the security forces.

More:
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/12233-human-rights-delegation-visit-colombia-investigate-20-year-old-murders.html

[Peace Patriot]

1. I'm bookmarking this one. This is WHY the leftist guerrillas are reluctant to disarm.

They know they will all be killed. There is thus NO SOLUTION to Colombia's 70 year civil war--at least in the current situation of U.S. $7 BILLION support, in military aid, for the murderous fascists running Colombia, and Pentagon use of Colombia for its "southern strategy" ("full spectrum" military operations in "the Southern Cone").

However, it is quite interesting that the UIP feels that there is an "opening" on this very issue--the wanton murder of political leftists and its connection to the unsolvability of the civil war. I hope they are right, and I also hope that they are sincere, and not just "playing games" (as to the increasingly clear U.S. intention to slap democracy cosmetics on Colombia, as it did on Honduras, in furtherance of "free trade for the rich"). I don't know much about this human rights commission, but it is a hopeful sign that they are starting with the massacre of FARC candidates back in the 1990s. That is the certainly the heart of the problem, as to internal solutions. The other part is, of course, heavy duty U.S. government/Pentagon interference in Colombia, for their own ends (or rather, those of our transglobal corporate and war profiteer rulers).

[Judi Lynn]

2. Those of us just starting to learn about Colombia have been completely unaware

of what has been going on there, and just how deep and savage the roots of this conflict are.

I hope to get a chance to find out more about this, also, when time is available. I have heard they've tried time after time to field candidates only to have them assassinated before they ever got desperate enough to start carrying arms.