December 14, 2009
Dear Editor,
Peace Brigades International would like to express our deep concern regarding the contents of the article “The FARC and the Peace Community” (Wall Street Journal, December 13, 2009). Peace Brigades International emphatically rejects the article’s assertion that the leaders of the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartadó are collaborators of the guerilla organization known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). We find it especially troubling and irresponsible that the only evidence for this accusation, despite its profound implications for the safety of members of the Peace Community, are statements made by Daniel Sierra Martinez, alias “Samir,” a demobilized member of the FARC.
The Peace Community of San Jose de Apartadó was founded in 1997 as an effort to resist violence from all sides of the internal armed conflict and to prevent forced internal displacement. Peace Brigades International (PBI) is an NGO that has worked in Colombia since 1994, and since 1997 and has offered protective international accompaniment to the Peace Community and to the Inter-church Justice and Peace Commission (a beneficiary of precautionary measures since 2003, this organization is incorrectly cited in your article as Intercongregational Justicia y Paz). PBI accompanies 14 other human rights organizations and displaced communities in the process of return to their lands with four regional offices in Colombia.
Both national and international courts have repeatedly recognized not only the legality and legitimacy of the community, but also the need to protect its members. The Peace Community of San Jose de Apartadó has been a beneficiary of provisionary measures granted by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights since 2000, which were ratified in February 2008. The Colombian state is also required to respect the human rights of members of the Peace Community and guarantee their protection, through the National Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office as ruled by the Colombian Constitutional Court in 2007. Last February the Ombudsman’s Office published a Risk Report about the security conditions of people living in the hamlet of San José de Apartadó. This report specifically points out the potential risk of forced displacement caused by the activities of illegal armed groups.
Throughout the years, PBI has facilitated numerous diplomatic missions to the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó. In all of these visits, diplomats met with Community members, army officials and other institutional representatives. Embassies participating in these visits have closely followed the Community’s security conditions.
We respect that Ms. O’Grady has every right to interview “Samir” and to publish her accusations, but we must point out that her story is one-sided and unverified. We would emphasize that the Peace Community has been subject to multiple aggressions by all armed actors in the Colombian conflict. In February 2005, five adults and three children (at the time two, six, and eleven years-old) pertaining to the Peace Community were brutally massacred by state and paramilitary forces. This week in Medellín, court proceedings began against ten members of the Colombian Army’s 17th Brigade implicated in these horrendous acts. The soldiers are charged with homicide of a protected person, acts of barbarity, and conspiracy to commit a crime. PBI also accompanies Jorge Molano, the human rights lawyer representing the Peace Community, who has himself recently suffered harassment and intimidation in connection with this and other cases he represents.
Perpetrators of the massacre have since testified that they based their actions, at least in part, on accusations that the Peace Community’s members were collaborators of the guerilla. Given this context, we believe that a minimum of journalistic responsibility would include corroborating information before making accusations that have been known to endanger the lives of community members. We would like to note Colombia’s High Commissioner for Peace, the state entity under which “Samir” currently participates as part of a Peace Solicitor Program, is compelled to implement the Constitutional Court sentence mentioned above, as well as the provisionary measures granted by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, to adequately protect the Peace Community. As such, this entity should refrain from promoting or diffusing information that has not been corroborated, such as that information provided by “Samir” as part of this program.
We hope that future coverage of this issue will contemplate the implications that accusations of links to guerilla organizations have in Colombia—the claim is not only unfounded but highly dangerous.
Sincerely,
Emily Nelson
Communications & Outreach Officer
Peace Brigades International - Colombia Project
Published in The Wall Street Journal:
online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703523504574604451039816192.html