Former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe arrived in Washington D.C. yesterday and is staying through today to encourage opposition to the Colombian government’s peace talks with the FARC guerrillas. Never mind that they could help end a conflict that has left over 220,000 dead, millions disappeared, tortured and raped, and some 5.3 million displaced.
“This country needs to strengthen its capacity and will to carry out criminal investigations. That is the key to everything,” said an expert on violence in Honduras who had spent years working in justice agencies. In a December 2014 visit to Honduras by the Latin America Working Group Education Fund and the Center for International Policy, we heard the assessment everywhere we turned.
Journalism remains a dangerous profession in Colombia, where the Colombian Federation of Journalists (Fecolper) recorded 146 cases of aggression against reporters last year, more than in 2013. These cases include incidents of assassination, kidnapping, threats, destruction of equipment, illegal wiretapping, and other forms of harassment. Of the victims, 34.2 percent reported assault by strangers; Felcoper asks the government to do more to assure the protection of those who work in the field.
Human rights defenders, members of the LGBT community, and journalists in Honduras continue to face an astounding level of violence. Threats and attacks sharply curtail freedom of expression and association. All of these groups face the same underlying problems:
- The lack of serious investigations and prosecutions of the threats and attacks against them;
- The allegations of participation of local and national governmental officials and/or members of official security forces in some of these threats, intimidations and attacks; and
- The lack of governmental policies to protect them.