Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Anatomy of an Investigation: The Colombian State’s War Against Civil Society

Here is the latest article from our friends at Colombia Journal. I thought I'd share it with you to draw attention once again to the profound contradictions of Colombia's Democratic Security Strategy.

Anatomy of an Investigation: The Colombian State’s War Against Civil Society

by Garry Leech

Aidee Moreno Ibagué recently learned that the Colombian government is investigating her for the crime of rebellion. But Moreno Ibagué has not taken up arms against the state. She does not plant bombs in Colombia’s cities. Nor does she carry an AK-47 assault rifle in the jungles of rural Colombia where leftist guerrillas have been fighting to overthrow the government for more than four decades. She is a lawyer who lives in the capital Bogotá. More specifically, she is a human rights lawyer for the country’s largest peasant union federation Fensuagro (The National Federation of Agricultural Farming Unions). She is also an outspoken critic of the government’s security and economic policies and the dirty war it is waging against those who struggle for social justice. According to Moreno Ibagué, it is her work and her political views that have made her a target of the state. “I will not be silent when there are so many atrocities,” she declares emphatically. “They have not been able to assassinate me, so now they want to put me in prison.”

Read the full article at: http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia303.htm

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