Ledaren för Colombias Nationella Rörelse för Offren för Statliga Brott, själv son till en mördad politiker, har skrivit artikeln i colombiansk press. Ivan Cepeda skriver om ett besök till staden Monteria, huvudstad i departamentet Cordoba i nordvästra Colombia. Regionen har länge varit högkvarter för Colombias paramilitära dödsskvadroner. Artikeln provocerade president Alvaro Uribe till att attackera människorättsorganisationer i allmänhet och Ivan Cepeda i synnerhet, se nedan även utdrag från Uribes tal samt video. Cepedas artikel publicerades först på Spanska i den colombianska tidingen El Espectador och publicerades senare på Engelska på den amerikanska Center for International Policys hemsida, som även översatte Uribes tal.

This Week I Visited Monteria,

by Ivan Cepeda

This week I visited Monteria for the first time. I did so by invitation of the Union of University Workers and Employees, SINTRAUNICOL. The airport is near the city and adjoins the "El Uberrimo" ranch, which is the property of President Alvaro Uribe.

My companions spoke to me of the lawyer Jose Corena, who has been in charge of the President's land business, and that of his cousin Mario Uribe [a Senator, now in jail awaiting trial for collaboration with rightwing paramilitary death squads]. In the same region the Castanos, Mancuso and alias "Don Berna" [the principle paramilitary commanders] have lands. A few kilometres away are the sumptuous neighbourhoods of the region's cattlemen and large landowners: El Recreo and La Castellana. In the latter, the Mancuso family has a large mansion. In the city are commercial properties which, everyone knows, belong to the paramilitary chief [Salvatore Mancuso is the national paramilitary commander].

When I ask whether any authority has ordered the seizure of these lands and businesses, those accompanying me laugh. In that same zone are the social club and the open-air restaurants where the local high society meets. They tell me that at the parties one would frequently see the former prosecutor-general, Luis Camlio Osorio. We passed by the La Vittoriana restaurant, property of the brothers Jaime and José Maroso, partners and testaferros [property-holding front men] of Mancuso. This government named José to two diplomatic posts: one in Italy, the other in Switzerland. Now the paramilitary groups are led by Domenico Mancuso, cousin of Salvatore.

In the shadow of the bridge that President Uribe ordered to be built, and which goes to his ranch, on the banks of the Sinu River, thousands of displaced people live in misery. They come from places like Tierralta and Valencia. The Civil Victims' Committee of the department of Córdoba, Comfavic, is made up of 7,800 families. Many have more than one member murdered or disappeared by the paramilitaries. It is obvious that for anyone who lives in, or visits, the city or its nearby ranches, it must be impossible to ignore the reality of these crimes. How can they not know that thousands of killings are being perpetrated, or not see the displaced people? How can they ignore who Mancuso and the Castano clan were in a city in which everything is known and is commented on in whispers?

Finally, we arrived at the University of Cordoba. The employees and students have begun a movement to demand the resignation of the current president, Claudio Sanchez Parra. They also demand truth and justice. Since 1995, 19 people belonging to the university have been murdered. On February 18, 2003, Mancuso called professors and employees to Santa Fe de Ralito [where the paramilitary leaders were gathered for talks with the government], and warned them that if they did not attend they should be prepared for the consequences. Present at the meeting was a delegate from the government, Felix Manssur Jattin. After reading the CVs of the professors, which had been taken from the University's files, Mancuso introduced them to Sanchez Parra and said to them, "This person here by my side is my friend, and in the University I must have men that I trust." The new university president put Mancuso's relatives in posts in the University leadership. Even though the Prosecutor-General's Office and the Attorney-General's office are carrying out investigations against him, he remains in the presidency. This week the Victims' Movement will lead a petition of the government and will carry out an international campaign calling for his immediate firing.

Perhaps there are photos, witnesses or recordings of the meetings of the landholders, politicians and soldiers with Mancuso, while thousands of people were being killed or displaced. But beyond these elements of hard evidence, the whole social order, the nearness of the large ranches and the centres of Montería's high society show the reality of a criminal power: the city itself is the proof.

Excerpt from “Words of President Álvaro Uribe during the inauguration of the Montería Transportation Terminal“
Presidency of Colombia, May 6, 2008

Från http://www.cipcol.org/?p=594 

Let me touch on another issue. There are people in Colombia, like Doctor Iván Cepeda. They dress themselves up in the protection of victims.

And the protection of victims serves them as a way to have NGOs that ask for money from the international community.

The protection of victims serves them as a way to instigate the violation of the human rights of those people who do not share their ideas. And nothing happens to them.

The protection of victims serves them as a way to go overseas to discredit the Colombian government and to discredit Colombian institutions.

The protection of victims serves them as a way to say that Montería is a criminal city, without giving the people the right to respond.

The protection of victims serves them as a way to try to recover, in the University of Córdoba, the den of criminality that existed in the past, which we will not allow to be re-established.

The protection of victims serves them as a way to discredit Colombia.

To say to their friends in the international community that the FTA [U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement] must not be approved, that human rights are not respected here, that while we live every day trying to make Democratic Security more effective and transparent, they have no limitations when it comes to violating the human rights of those compatriots who do not share their way of acting and their way of disqualifying those who dissent from them.

So let’s look at this issue. These señores, like Iván Cepeda, have the right to mistreat the honor of, to endanger any Colombian.

And if attention is called to them, if they are disagreed with, if they are contradicted, they immediately go out, in cowardly fashion, to say that the government is putting them in danger. That they have to go into foreign exile. That they are going to speak with some senators to tell them not to approve the FTA, or to send a letter from the international community scolding the President.

…

Now, I ask those in the international community who always second them, that before taking pity on the crocodile tears of these human rights frauds, they should come and see what is really happening in Colombia: a country that is resolutely making progress toward pluralism, transparency, security and investor confidence.