Gloria Gómez, national coordinator for the Association of Family Members of the Detained and Disappeared, with Belgian volunteer Catiane Vander Kelen in Popayán
Article published in the special Newsletter '15 years of PBI', October 2009
Julia Wältring, volunteer from Germany (2007-9)
After years of intense surveillance, ASFADDES asks PBI for accompaniment in 1994.
Gloria Luz Gómez, national coordinator of the Association of Family Members of the Detained and Disappeared (ASFADDES) and Esperanza Merchán, general secretary, are currently working tirelessly, along with many other family members, for the ratification by the Colombian government of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, adopted by the United Nations in 2006. There is, however, much more to ASFADDES’ work: the association also accompanies relatives in the search for the disappeared. It provides moral and physical support to the relatives and also promotes legal and political mechanisms to bring about measures against those materially and intellectually responsible, and for the ethical, moral and integral reparation of the families. It also promotes and supports grassroots organisation of the family members of the detained or disappeared, providing opportunities for training and education.
ASFADDES was one of the organisations that requested accompaniment from PBI in 1994, a very difficult time for Colombia.
«At that time there were massacres and assassinations every day. We used to wonder whether we would wake up the next morning. We were constantly being followed, our office was being watched and we began to receive more direct telephone threats», remembers Gloria.
The disappearance of the lawyer, Alirio Pedraza, in 1990 was one of the events which confirmed that the Association’s members could be attacked as human rights defenders. En the end, intense surveillance and harassment during a march by ASFADDES in 1993 led them to take the definitive decision to ask PBI for accompaniment. The presence of PBI could not completely remedy this situation of harassment and persecution, but the relationship with the international community helped during this highly traumatic period.
During the nineties when the defamation and accusations against human rights defenders, and the devaluation of their work, were on the rise, the fact that the international community had turned its gaze towards Colombia and was a constant presence, contributed to the strengthening of non-governmental organisations.
In spite of all its problems, ASFADDES managed to raise awareness amongst Colombian society because according to Gloria: «nowadays the media talk about forced disappearance; six years ago nobody talked about it». Furthermore, the classification of forced disappearance as a crime under Law 589 of 2000, with mechanisms to search for disappeared persons, was the fruit of the tireless efforts of ASFADDES. According to Gloria, another very specific advance is that «a language has been generated specific to the relatives of the disappeared and there is education for family members that is based on our own experience