Orlando Valencia, a friend of CPRC Board Member, Dr. Norma Jackson, and who is running for election to be a legal representative for one of the Afro-descendant communities in the department of Chocó, in the north-west of the country, was reportedly abducted by army-backed paramilitaries on 15 October, and has not been seen since. The army is reported to have threatened Afro-descendant communities in the region, and they too are believed to be in grave danger.

On 15 October Orlando Valencia was heading for the community of Despensa Media, where the elections were to be held for the Curvaradó River Basin community legal representative, an important post whose responsibilities include upholding the Afro-descendant communities' rights to their land. He was traveling with nine members of the Curvaradó River Basin community, as well as a member of the non-governmental human rights organization Comission Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz, Inter-church Justice and Peace Commission, and a member of an international non-governmental organization working with the Curvarado communities.

On their way from the town of Belen de Bajiró, department of Chocó, to the riverside town of Brisas, where they were planning to catch a boat to Despensa Media, their vehicle was reportedly stopped by police. Orlando Valencia and the two NGO members were ordered into a police vehicle, and the other nine people were ordered to follow it to the police station in Belén de Bajira¡.

Witnesses apparently saw three paramilitary gunmen in the area where the police stopped them. At the police station, police officers reportedly accused Orlando of having been a member of the guerrilla group Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), Revolutionary Army Forces of Colombia. By 12.30pm Orlando and the others had all been released, and they went to the house of an acquaintance in Belen de Bajira¡. Orlando Valencia was reportedly stopped outside the house by two paramilitaries traveling on a motorcycle.

The member of Justicia y Paz reportedly tried to intervene to protect Orlando, and the paramilitaries threatened him. They then ordered Orlando to get onto the motorcycle and left on the road leading to the municipality of Chigorodo³, in the neighboring department of Antioquia. Orlando Valencia has not been seen since. Paramilitaries reportedly kept the others in his group under surveillance after he was abducted. [back to top]

What You Can Do

Subject: Urgent Action for Orlando Valencia

Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible, in Spanish or your own language:

- expressing concern for the safety of Orlando Valencia, who was reportedly abducted by paramilitaries backed by the security forces on 15 October;

- urging the authorities to conduct a full and impartial investigation to establish his whereabouts and guarantee his safety and safe release; -expressing concern for the safety of other inhabitants of the communities of the Curvaradó and Jiguiamiandó River Basins, who have recently been threatened with a paramilitary raid, and urging the authorities to take all measures deemed appropriate by the communities themselves to protect them, in line with repeated IACHR resolutions; urging that all those responsible for killings or and disappearances in the area be brought to justice;

- calling for a full and impartial investigation into links between the security forces and paramilitary groups operating in Chocó, urging that the results are made public and those found responsible for supporting and participating in such groups are brought to justice; - urging the authorities to take immediate action to dismantle paramilitary groups, in line with United Nations recommendations.

APPEALS TO:

President of the Republic:
Señor Presidente Ãlvaro Uribe Vélez
Presidente de la República, Palacio de Nariño, Carrera 8 No.7-2, Bogotá, Colombia
Fax: 011 57 1 337 5890
Salutation: Excmo. Sr. Presidente Uribe
Dear President Uribe

Attorney General:
Dr. Mario Germán Iguarán, Fiscal General de la Nación, Fiscalía General de la Nación,
Diagonal 22B 52 01 (Ciudad Salite), Bogotá, Colombia
Fax: 011 57 1 570 2000 (a message in Spanish will ask you to enter extension 2017)

Minister of Foreign Affairs
Dra. María Carolina Barco Isakson,
Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores,
Calle 10 No 5-51,
Palacio de San Carlos, Bogotá, COLOMBIA
Fax: 011 57 1 562 7822
Salutation: Sra Ministra/Dear Minister

COPIES TO:

Non-governmental human rights organization
Comisión Intereclesial Justicia y Paz
Calle 50, No13-19, Oficina 203
Bogota, Colombia

and to diplomatic representatives of Colombia accredited to your country.

Appeal example:

Subject: Urgent Action for Orlando Valencia

I write to express my profound concern regarding the forced disappearance of Mr. ORLANDO VALENCIA yesterday, Saturday, October 15.

He was taken against his will on a motorcycle by persons known to be Self-Defense Forces, in the Curvarado region of the state of Choco, after he was detained for a time by state police in Belen de Bajiro¡. All of these acts were witnessed by a member of the Canadian NGO called PASC, a member of the Interchurch Commission of Justice & Peace, and other members of the Curvarado and Jiguamiando communities.

Thanking you for your prompt attention,

Background Information

Plan Colombia

This two year, $1.6 billion aid package shaped by the Clinton Administration to $1.6, approved with little Congressional or public debate and wide bipartisan support, now inherited by President Bush. This new aid combined with funds already directed toward Colombia will amount to $2.6 billion over the next two years. The majority of the aid will go to the most abusive military in the Western Hemisphere and pull the United States into the quagmire of a counterinsurgency war.

Major components of Clinton's aid package include:

• helping the Colombian government push into the coca growing regions of southern Colombia, the very same areas where Colombia is battling the counterinsurgency war
• training new special counter narcotics battalions to clear the Southern area of insurgency
• purchasing 18 Blackhawk and 32 Huey helicopters (actual number in final package)
• upgrading Colombian capability to aggressively interdict cocaine and cocaine traffickers as well as support radar, aircraft and airfield upgrades, and improved anti-narcotics intelligence gathering
• increasing coca crop eradication through questionable aerial fumigation tactics that have failed to reduce the amount of coca production in the past and damage the environment

A History of Conflict

Colombia's tumultuous history stems from a rural civil war fought between Colombia 's Liberal and Conservative parties for political control from 1948 to 1953. During this period, referred to as "La Violencia," groups of armed men paid by political bosses from both sides of the conflict, often with assistance from the police, would attack villages, scalping and decapitating peasants.Massive human rights abuses continue to this day. The conflict is driven by a complex system of economic and land related needs, and age old divides between rich and poor and accompanying social inequities.

Parties to the modern conflict include:

Guerrillas: Approximately 20,000 combatants compose the two largest guerilla groups, the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and ELN (National Liberation Army). The former exerts territorial control in key coca growing regions in southern Colombia, taxing coca cultivation and cocaine production to fund its war effort. The latter maintains a strategic base in key oil producing areas in the northeastern part of the country. Each is responsible for widespread violations of international humanitarian law. Guerrilla forces are responsible for the majority of kidnappings for profit. FARC guerrillas killed 3 U.S. indigenous rights activists in 1999.

Paramilitaries: Paramilitary groups have been united since 1996 under the AUC (United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia). Violent attacks by these groups against unarmed civilians escalated in 1999 as they fought for territorial control, access to key drug trafficking routes, and a seat at the negotiating table. Paramilitaries are responsible for 70% of human rights violations.

Army: Security forces engage in both counterinsurgency and counter drug operations. The Colombian army is one of the most abusive in the hemisphere. Often linked to paramilitaries and their abuses, it also harbors a number of human rights violators.

Parties to Colombia's conflict rarely fight one another, and instead attack their enemies' alleged sympathizers - most often unarmed civilians. The impact of this violence is staggering. Over 30,000 Colombians have lost their lives in the conflict. More than 385 massacres were recorded in 1997 alone. Two-and-a-half million internal refugees have been forced from their homes by violence. Human rights monitors, labor unionists, peace leaders, humanitarian workers, Afro-Colombians, and indigenous peoples are increasingly threatened, displaced by violence, disappeared and murdered.

U.S. Military Assistance Every day, at least 550 to 600 U.S. military personnel and advisors counsel, train, and share intelligence with Colombia's security forces in ways that support counterinsurgency efforts. Our government has already funded the creation of a 950-troop counternarcotics battalion that is being trained to operate in Southern Colombia in a territory under dispute between Colombia's leftwing guerrillas and rightwing paramilitaries. Two more battalions are in the works.

Colombia has sent more troops to train at the SOA than any other Latin American country, with chilling results. The 1993 human rights report State Terrorism in Colombia cites 247 Colombian officers for human rights violations. Fully one half of those cited were SOA graduates. Some were even featured as SOA guest speakers or instructors or included in the "Hall of Fame" after their involvement in such crimes. For example, General Farouk Yanini Diaz was a guest speaker at the school in 1990 and 1991 after his involvement in the 1988 Uraba massacre of 20 banana workers, the assassination of the mayor of Sabana de Torres, and the massacre of 19 businessmen. According to a U.S. State Department Report, he was also accused of "establishing and expanding paramilitary death squads, as well as ordering dozens of disappearances, and the killing of judges and court personnel sent to investigate previous crimes."

A 1998 U.S. State Department Report states that Colombia's 20th military brigade was disbanded for its involvement in human rights abuses, including the targeted killing of civilians. The commander of that brigade was SOA graduate Paucelino Latorre Gamboa. The report also links SOA graduates to an illegal raid on the offices of a nongovernmental human rights group, and implicates an SOA graduate for his complicity in a 1997 massacre.

Alternatives to Plan Colombia
Plan Colombia has made the United States a major actor in Colombia's three-decade old internal conflict. The U.S. Government claims that this aid package is directed at counter narcotics operations and will not further involve us in Colombia's dirty counter insurgency war. They claim increased assistance will only support positive investment in Colombia's economic development and future. In reality, only a small portion of the aid package provides for nonmilitary aid in an attempt to support peace, human rights and economic assistance.

Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA) returned from Colombia at the end of February calling for steps that must be taken to before Colombia receives additional U.S. aid. These steps include:

• The Colombian Military must sever all ties with paramilitary groups, pursue and prosecute outstanding warrants against paramilitary actors.
• Ensure that U.S. military aid be subject to human rights conditions that are strictly enforced. These conditions must not be subjected to any waiver.
• Invest more in Colombian civilian institutions, particularly the office of the Attorney General. Funds for that office should be released immediately.
• Bring an end to the illegal coca cultivation through manual eradication and crop substitution, rather than indiscriminate and dangerous aerial spraying.
• Support and protect organization working to bring peace and justice to Colombia, including the UN High Commission for Refugees, The UN Human Rights office, the World Food Program, and non-governmental organizations.

Civilians in Colombia have overwhelmingly voted for and marched in favor of peace. Massive infusions of military aid will not only increase the displacement and suffering of the Colombian people, being perpetrated by all the armed groups, but will also strengthen hard-liners in Colombia who oppose the peace process.

Increased funding to enable farmers to shift from coca production to other crops not aerial defoliation, for drug addiction programs in the United States , for economic development, and for human rights work is needed - not more weapons for military training.