Spanish judge to advise OAS mission in Colombia

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Colombia Reports

Spanish judge to advise OAS mission in Colombia
Friday, 25 March 2011 10:12
Edward Fox

Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon will travel to Colombia to work as an advisor to the Organization of American States (OAS) on human rights issues in the country and to monitor the paramilitary demobilization process, El Tiempo reported Thursday.

No date has been set for his arrival though his presence and the continued monitoring work of the OAS in Colombia has been approved by President Santos' government.

~snip~
Garzon most recently worked as an advisor for the International Criminal Court (ICC) after being suspended from the Spanish High Court in May 2010 for investigating crimes under Spain's Franco regime that fell under a legal amnesty.

Last August, Garzon publicly stated that Colombia would face intervention from the ICC if it fails in its obligations to provide justice for victims of the country's internal conflict.

Read more: http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/15141-spanish-judge-to-advise-oas-mission-in-colombia.html

[rabs]

1. U.N. calls for protection of activists, judges in Colombia

Funeral of Gloria Constanza Gaona, judge in the vile case of three siblings, 14, 9, 6, murdered this past Oct. by by army soldiers. The 14-year-old girl was raped by an army officer, now under arrest. The judge was assassinated on Tuesday.

Today the United National High Commissioner for Human Rights asked the Santos government to protect human rights workers, judges, social activists from the widespread violence against them.

The call for protection came after -- in addition to the assassination of the judge -- the killings in recent days of David Gómez Rodríguez, a land activist in Turbo; Ever Verbel Rocha, a member of the Movement for Victims of State Crimes in Sucre; and Bernardo Ríos Londoño, a member of the Community for Peace in San José de Apartadó.

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The legacy of Uribe continues under Santos. And the U.S. keeps pouring millions in taxpayers' money into Colombia for the military.

Spanish:

http://www.eltiempo.com/politica/proteccion-a-defensores-de-los-derechos-humanos-en-colombia_9068722-4

[Judi Lynn]

2. It should move US citizens to question why the US is still dumping billions of their tax dollars

into a situation as destructive as this toward its citizens.

The violence involved in the rape of a little girl, the murder of her and her siblings, and the assassination of the judge who was to preside over the trial of the defendant charged with the rape and murders cries OUT for awareness, not willful decisions to look the other way.

This is only a symptom, sadly, of a vast wrong being perpetrated against Colombians by a small group of elites over so many, MANY painful years.

How, on one hand, can we lament the rape, and murder of a young woman in Iraq, and the murder of her family, and NOT acknowledge fiendish crimes like this, allowed by a government receiving billions of dollars from the US citizens through their required taxes?