By Deborah Gyapong
Canadian Catholic News

OTTAWA -- Last year, members of a Colombian paramilitary entered Yolanda Becerra Vega's apartment and threatened her at gunpoint.

They gave her and her family eight hours to leave the city, and she relocated. But the leader of a grassroots women's movement based in Barrancabermeja said in an interview that she has since received a second death threat.

"As a women's organization we have denounced the human rights situation in Colombia," she said in Spanish February 12. "As a result, three of our members have been assassinated."

Becerra Vega was in Ottawa as part of a delegation of leaders of national social movements who came to Ottawa to persuade Canada not to implement the already-ratified free trade agreement (FTA) with Colombia.

Sponsored by KAIROS: Ecumenical Justice Initiatives, Amnesty International and the Canadian Council for International Cooperation, the delegation also included a Franciscan brother representing the churches, a union leader, and an indigenous leader.

They are part of a coalition of eight national groups that include about two million Colombians, said KAIROS' Latin American program coordinator Rachel Warden, who provided translation. Their visit to Canada, slated for February 9 - 20, has included scheduled visits to a number of cities, including Toronto, Hamilton, Halifax, Montreal and Vancouver.

Canada ratified the Colombian free trade agreement last November. The delegation does not want it to be implemented until there is a full investigation and assessment of human rights abuses.

Though the Colombian government declares its peace process a success in quelling a 60-year civil war, and denies using paramilitaries, Becerra said they continue to have control.

"The government denies a lot of stuff," she said. "They say we are in a post-conflict situation. This situation is particularly difficult for women, because it is women who have to go and find and collect the dead. They are left widowed or orphaned and left to look after the well-being of their families."

She also noted the rights to health care and education are being eroded. Dissent is criminalized. "We do not have the right to organize ourselves," she said.

"We urge the Canadian government to recognize that any investment in Colombia is in many ways a kind of support," said Brother Omar Fernandez Obregon, co-founder of the Franciscan Commission of Justice, Peace and Reverence with Creation, and a member of the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance.

Fernandez said the FTA might exacerbate the human rights abuses in Colombia, as foreign companies, including Canadian companies, have already been implicated in violating the rights of indigenous peoples.

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Though he was asking the Canadian government to make sure human rights will be respected and to help Colombians overcome armed conflict, Fernandez said he was against the FTA in principle because of its effects on workers, the environment, and the health care system.

National president of the Colombian health workers' union Maria del Carmen Sanchez Burgos pointed out that 85 union leaders have been assassinated in the past two years. "Colombia is the most dangerous place to be a union leader," she said. They face threats, arbitrary detention and assassination, she said. "There's no guarantee of labor rights."

The state has privatized hospitals and social services, displacing the unionized workers. The private cooperatives now running the hospitals do not pay a living wage, she said.

German Casama Gindrama, of the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC), said the rights of indigenous peoples and their lands are not respected. Though Colombia is one of the most advanced countries in the world in legally codifying indigenous rights, none of the laws are respected or implemented, he said.

The only tactic they have is to mobilize and demonstrate, he said. "Legislators legislate for themselves," he said, noting that the rights of the elite are privileged and paramilitary groups help select candidates.

Indigenous leaders have also been assassinated, and companies from abroad doing business in Colombia have not respect for indigenous rights of free, prior, informed consent, he said. "Our struggle is for the defense of Mother Earth."

Accompanied in Ottawa by Warden and KAIROS' global economic justice coordinator Rusa Jeremic, the team met with MPs from all parties, including the foreign affairs secretary of state Peter Kent and international trade minister Stockwell Day.

"We were very interested in hearing what they had to say. We're always glad to hear from members of civil society," said Eleanore Johnstone, Kent's communications assistant who participated in the meeting.

In a phone interview February 16, she said Kent acknowledged there was room for improvement on the human rights front, but that he believes the present Colombian government has made good progress.

Kent also pointed out that Canada made side agreements on labor and the environment that are the strongest of any FTA's Canada is involved in, she said.

These agreements give Canada a stronger role in helping promote improved labor conditions in Colombia, because they have a complaints process, she said.

"This gives us more of an official inroad in assisting them in the human rights situation," she said.

-- Courtesy of Canadian Catholic News. Please do not reprint without permission.

February 19/2009