Pubdate: Wed, 03 Aug 2005
Source: Miami Herald (FL)
Copyright: 2005 The Miami Herald
Contact:  http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/262
Author: Pablo Bachelet

U.S. CERTIFIES COLOMBIA ON RIGHTS

After a long delay, the State Department decided to certify Colombia on 
human rights, allowing the country to obtain about $70 million in aid. The 
move drew complaints from rights activists.

WASHINGTON - The State Department has issued a long-delayed human- rights 
certification for Colombia, freeing about $70 million in aid despite 
complaints that its government is soft on security forces accused of 
abuses, human-rights activists said Tuesday.

The department was expected to issue a formal statement today, one day 
before President Bush is to meet with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe - - 
a top U.S. ally in the war on drugs -- at his Texas ranch.

As a condition of U.S. aid, the State Department must certify every six 
months that Colombia's government is investigating and prosecuting security 
force members alleged to have committed human-rights abuses. The last 
certification was due at the end of last year but was not issued until now 
because of U.S. concerns about recent charges of abuses.

Plan Colombia, a massive U.S.-funded antidrug program launched in 2000, has 
helped Colombia's police and armed forces get training and equipment to 
fight drug traffickers, guerrillas and paramilitaries.

But for the first time since the plan's money began flowing, the State 
Department late last year delayed the rights certification because of 
concerns that Uribe's government had not moved strongly enough in some 
cases of alleged abuses.

Uribe was elected in 2002 on a promise to return security to a country 
almost torn apart by leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries. 
Security forces have long been accused of cooperating with the 
paramilitaries, which regularly execute suspected guerrilla sympathizers.

Eric Olson, Americas director for Amnesty International, said U.S. 
officials did not cite specific instances of progress at a briefing Tuesday 
on recertification, noting only a Bogota "strong commitment to do more."

"This decision is a major blow to the promotion of human rights in Colombia 
and is based on only the narrowest reading of the law and the thinnest of 
evidence," said Dr. William F. Schulz, executive director of Amnesty 
International USA.

Lisa Haugaard, executive director for the Latin America Working Group, a 
Washington-based advocacy group usually critical of U.S. policies, said the 
U.S. government was sending a "very weak message" to Colombia.

She said the certification delay had led to progress on a few high- profile 
cases monitored by the U.S. embassy, but that other cases were "moving with 
agonizing slowness."

Last month, Colombia charged three soldiers and an informant in the 2003 
deaths of three labor union leaders in the province of Arauca.

Prosecutors also have ordered the arrest of six soldiers in the killing of 
a family last year in a rebel stronghold.
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