GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The kidnapping of a 10-year-old girl in Colombia three weeks ago outraged the country and when Nohora Valentina Munoz was released near the Venezuelan border Monday evening 17 October, the country’s president gave effusive thanks to the Geneva-based International Red Cross (ICRC), which negotiated the child’s freedom.
She and her mother were kidnapped 29 September, en route to the girl’s school. Her mother, the wife of Jorge Enrique Munoz, mayor of the town of Fortul in Arauca, was released the morning of the kidnapping.
It is not clear who took the pair, nor have any of the conditions for the child’s release been given. The ICRC in Geneva does not release details of such negotiations in which it is involved.
El Tempo (Spa) newspaper, which has covered the case heavily reported earlier that 1,800 police set up several search and rescue operations for the girl but that these were called off at the request of the ICRC, in order to allow negotiations to begin.
Landmine removal in Tirana, 2009 (photo, Cartagena Summit)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Landmine groups meeting in Cambodia this week are calling for more countries to sign the 1997 Landmine Ban Treaty. They are marking International Mine Awareness Day 4 April by drawing attention to the case of Cambodia, one of the world’s most heavily affected countries, with 44,000 survivors.
States Parties the convention, as well as the 2008 Cluster Munitions Treaty, “need to improve efficiency in clearance, including by more precisely identifying affected areas. For example, Cambodia is currently conducting a new baseline survey to better understand the extent of its contamination,” says ICBL, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.
“Both conventions also require victim assistance to support landmine and cluster munition survivors’ efforts to achieve social acceptance, gain meaningful employment and ensure their rights are respected. In addition to enduring physical pain, survivors report that they are faced with a lack of services and job opportunities, limited capacity-building programs and, most importantly, insufficient financial and technical resources for victim assistance.”
ICBL says that Cambodia needs to fully implement its National Plan of Action for Persons with Disabilities, “which has faltered so far”, to ensure that “survivors receive the support they need to lead dignified lives.”
Two EPFL students use electromagnetic currents to explode mines remotely
Piedad Córdoba, a Colombian politican, and the ICRC helped negotiate the releases - Photo Ricardo Bello
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Two hostages were released Friday 11 February by Farc rebels in Colombia. They released another hostage earlier in the week and have said they intend to free two more Sunday.
The International Red Cross (ICRC) based in Geneva, and a former Colombian senator, Piedad Cordoba, have mediated the releases.
Farc is known to be holding at least 15 other hostages.
The two men were released in separate locations near the jungle in Caqueta, a department in the south of the country.
Michael Kramer, deputy head of the ICRC’s Colombian delegation, says that Marcos Baquero, a municipal councillor, who was freed on Wednesday, 9 February, was the first of the group. Kramer details how what happens when a hostage is freed.
“When we receive them, we talk to them for a while at the place of the handover in order to prepare them for a return to their usual environment.” In Baquero’s case, “We are waiting until the ICRC doctor has examined him and has talked to him about his captivity, his family and his expectations. What is striking is the feeling of time loss experienced by people who have been in the hands of an armed group, not to mention the psychological after-effects and the exhaustion caused by captivity.”
Exclusive to GenevaLunch
Judge and family fled death threats after exposing military
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Alexander Cortes, a Colombian military judge who left his country because of death threats against him and his family, was granted asylum by the Swiss government Wednesday 12 January. Cortes and his wife, Maria Elvira, who is also a judge, left Colombia with assistance from the Swiss embassy there in November 2010 after he was asked to resign from his job and following repeated threats in Bogotá.
Military faked combat casualties
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Cortes, a former captain in the Colombian army who went on to study law, was assigned to the military district of Urabá, Antioquia Department in March 2007 where he was asked to review 55 cases involving the deaths of young men allegedly killed in gun battles with the Colombian army during its counter-insurgency operations. He quickly concluded that none of the dead had actually died in combat and that the army had falsified evidence in order to make them look like legitimate casualties. At the same time some families approached him asking the whereabouts of their disappeared sons.
Cortes told GenevaLunch that he put two and two together and realized that the Colombian army was following a policy of abducting young men from poorer neighborhoods, killing them and dressing them up as “enemy combatants killed in action”.
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Over 90 movies from Central and South America and the Caribbean will be shown this year. Colombia, guest of honor with 23 movies. Additional screenings in Lausanne, Bienne, Bern, Neuchatel and Sion and in neighbouring France.
Location: Geneva
Link out: http://www.filmaramlat.ch/programmation.aspx#
Start date: 5 Nov 2010
End date: 21 Nov 2010
Gontard case friction easing with Swiss, Colombian cooperation; $27 billion victim compensation programme high on Colombian gov’t agenda
Vice President Angelino Garzon listens to questions during a sit-down meeting with the press in Geneva
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) – “Our goal is that in 15 years, lands can be given back to the farmers exiled from their homes and that social programmes will be in place to help them,” Vice-president Angelino Garzon of Colombia told GenevaLunch during a visit to Geneva Thursday 14 October.
The second highest representative of the new Colombian government elected earlier this year, was in Geneva furthering his government’s agenda with the Swiss government, the United Nations and international organizations.
One of the most-talked about topics on his agenda was the “victim compensation programme” that seeks to give land back to the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by violence in Colombia. The UNHCR estimates that over 3 million people have been internally displaced, which is why land restitution is a top priority for the government.
The $27 billion dollar programme has already put 200,000 hectares in the State’s hands. “We are seeking to confiscate an additional 600,000 hectares from armed groups operating illegally in the country,” he added.
Although the long-awaited plan may still be far in the future, Garzon believes that in Colombia the “political will to make this a priority is on everyone’s agenda.”
Implementing a broad land restitution programme with deep pockets may be viewed with distrust in a country where government agricultural subsidies that were geared to fostering peasant land productivity became linked, in some cases, to shady deals for the rich.
Garzon thinks things will be different now. “The government is counting on additional laws to ensure that [once approved] the programme works well,” he says.
“Priority will be given to women who are heads of households, orphans, people with disabilities and the elderly.”
Colombia to “respect the judicial system” over Gontard affair, bilateral talks to start in January Read more…
Victor Julio Suarez Rojas, known as Mono Jojoy, has been killed in a military operation at his headquarters in central Colombia by Colombian military forces, it was announced 23 September. Suarez was the top military strategist in Colombia’s armed rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and one of the most influential commanders.
Government officials said that the killing was a severe blow to the FARC and predicted a wave of desertions. The killing is the last in a line of high-profile successes the government has scored against Latin America’s longest-running insurgency.
Links to other sites: Christian Science Monitor, El Tiempo (Spa), Xinhua
A list of young people making the rounds on social networking site Facebook has authorities in southern Colombia worried after two young people were shot and killed 16 August in the southern department of Putumayo. Both young men were on the list, which has now increased to more than 100 names.
Desperate parents are trying to get their children out of the town of Puerto Asis, Putumayo, and municipal authorities have asked for help from the central government in Bogota.
Municipal authorities are saying that the list is a bad joke that got out of hand, compounded by bad luck. The two teenagers were shot while they were on their way on a motorcycle to another town. A few hours later, a list of nine people started to circulate giving those on the list three days to leave town. The two youths’ names were on this list.
The region is wracked by leftist guerrillas, who often target youths who refuse to join their ranks, and a criminal gang, called the Rastrojos.
One person died in the crash of a Colombian airliner that was carrying 131 people, but 124 are injured, with several of them in critical condition. The plane was split in two as it landed on San Andres island at 01:42 Monday morning 16 August. Bad weather was listed as the cause by some officials, while others reported that the plane was hit by lightning.
Colombia and Venezuela have re-established diplomatic relations with leaders from both countries agreeing to do more to ease each other’s worries.
The Colombian government, through prickly relations with its predecessor Alvaro Uribe, has been accusing Venezuela of harboring dangerous guerrillas in its territory.
Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez has accused Colombia of planning an invasion and – Uribe in particular – of trying to stir up a war in his last days of office.
The new Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, sworn in Saturday, was previously Uribe’s defense minister.
Former Geneva UN representative suffers heart attack after taking office
Angelino Garzon
Hours after being sworn in, Vice President Angelino Garzon suffered a heart attack.
Doctors say Garzon, 63, will return to work in a month, after undergoing a four-hour emergency heart bypass this week.
Garzon who worked as the Colombian representative before the UN in Geneva, left Switzerland at the beginning of 2010 to join the presidential campaign.
Under Colombian law, there is no mechanism to replace a vice president in the case of temporary absence. In case of permanent vacancy the Constitution only provides for a stand-in.
Additional details: Colombia Reports in English and SurTitulares in Spanish
Colombians celebrate their independence day at the Paradise de Tina, a Colombian restaurant in the St Jean neighborhood of Geneva.
A two-day celebration with music and food on Rue du Beulet.
Location: St.-Jean, Geneva
Start date: 24 Jul 2010
End date: 25 Jul 2010
In an emotional interview on Caracol television from New York, former hostage Ingrid Betancourt defended her $7.5 million claim for compensation from the Colombian government for her six years as a hostage of the FARC rebels. She was released in a spectacular government rescue operation in July 2008. Her claims have unleashed astonishment and indignation in Colombia, where many feel it was Betancourt’s irresponsible behaviour as a presdidential candidate in 2002 that led to her kidnapping by the FARC rebels.
Betancourt says that her claim is “symbolic”, and that she was not irresponsible. She said she would not sue the government if the claim was rejected. Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos said her claim wins “the world prize for ingratitude”, according to Reuters.
Colombia is suffering severe storms with heavy rains, particularly in Cali and Barraquilla. Several thousand people have been evacuated from their homes and material damage appears to be extensive.
Link to Columbia News
Reuters video
Manuel Noriega, 72, former Panamanian dictator, finished 20 years in a US prison only to be extradited to France, where his trial opens today on several charges, including money laundering. He is accused of using three French banks to launder money for a Colombian drug cartel. His lawyers have reportedly taken his case to the International Red Cross (ICRC), pleading that he should be released but that in any event La Sante, the prison in Paris where he is held, is “too dirty and dilapidated” for him. He faces up to 10 years in prison in France if found guity.
Links to others sites: Irish Times, Le Monde (Fre)
Columbia’s President Alvaro Uribe interrupted a televised news conference Sunday 13 June to take a phone call from his top general announcing that the military had just rescued two of the country’s top police officers who had been held by Farc guerillas for 12 years. The two, Luis Mendieta and Col. Enrique Murillo, were taken by the military in the jungle in the eastern province of of Guaviare, where combat broke out with Farc. Mendieto, the highest-ranking official held by Farc, turned 53 this week.
Burma trade unionists - Photo ITUC
[Video] Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The number of trade unionists murdered in 2009 increased a staggering 30 percent, to 101, worldwide.
According to the International Confederation of Trade Unions (ITUC)’s report, Latin America has become the deadliest region in the world for trade union rights. The report was issued to coincide with the International Labor Organization (ILO) conference taking place in Geneva.
Of the 101 murdered, 48 – including five women – were killed in Colombia, making it the deadliest place in the world for union leaders. Another 40 union workers were killed in Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Brazil and the Dominican Republic.
2010 Amnesty International report is out
[Video] Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The 2010 Amnesty International report is out, and Switzerland, and many powerful countries including China and the United States, do not fare well.
The report which compiles reported abuses in over 150 nations, criticizes some parts of Europe and Central Asia where “space for independent voices and civil society have shrunk.” It also considers xenopobia, intolerance and racism to be on the rise in Europe.
Switzerland’s initiative to ban the construction of new minarets is heavily criticized in the report, as is police violence. The report calls for the Swiss confederation to do more to prevent police-sponsored abuses.
The 2010 report also points to higher levels of what it calls “unlawful killings” in Brazil, Colombia, Jamaica and Mexico, and criticizes the United States for its persisting “violations related to counter-terrorism.”
The governor of Caqueta province in southern Colombia was killed Tuesday by rebels who kidnapped him Monday at his home, in what the BBC calls the highest-profile kidnapping since 2002. President Alvaro Uribe ascribes the murder to Farc rebels, saying they apparently slit Luis Francisco Cuellar’s throat to keep him from making noise as they fled security forces. The governor had been kidnapped several times.
Links to other sites: BBC, Miami Herald
Princess Astrid and Prince Leopold from Belgium visit the REI Foundation in Cartagena (photo, Jared Bloch)
Cartagena, Colombia (Geneva Lunch) - Princess Astrid of Belgium, a longtime advocate of mine survivors rights, has made a strong plea to other world leaders to fully support landmine survivors. Her appeal, in her role as head of the Belgian delegation, came at the Cartagena Summit on a Mine-Free World in Colombia, which has just ended.
The summit served as the second review of progress made by the Mine Ban Convention to ban the production, use and stockpiling of anti-personnel land mines. The Princess commended the efforts undertaken by the Colombian Government in support of the Summit, and also noted that “there still remains much to be done on behalf of survivors everywhere.”
The princess and her husband, Prince Leopold, joined other summit participants in visiting the Fundation REI, a Colombian rehabilitation centre that works closely with landmine survivors and others with disabilities.
The foundation provides several services: advocacy for the rights of the disabled, physical and psycho-social theraputic services, pre-vocational training and professional reintegration, and production of prosthetic devices for disabled individuals.
Several landmine survivors and patients at the clinic described for summit guests how Fundation REI has empowered them to recover their lives in the wake of their accidents.
Albert, 22, holding his one-month-old daughter, Adriana, wanted to be a physician, but had to start working at a construction site because his mother needed medical care as a result of the displacement (photo: ©2009 Zalmai/UNHCR).
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Half of the world’s 10.5 million official refugees now live in cities, according to the United Nation’s High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), António Guterres. And twice as many internally displaced persons and “returnees” who have come home from abroad following conflicts, are living in urban areas. Guterres’s statement was made ahead of the 9 December UNHCR annual meeting called the High Commissioner’s Dialogue, which this year will focus on “protection challenges in the context of urbanization.” The meeting is designed to underscore that while the rest of the world tends to think of refugees in terms of camps, the reality for many is very different.
The movement to cities of refugees and people displaced internally by conflict is in parallel with a general movement towards urban areas throughout the world, but it puts added strains on resources that are often already in short supply. Most live in overcrowded shantytowns with little or no health care or social services, the UNHCR says its experience on the ground shows. They are often reluctant to register and try to remain invisible for fear of deportation, and they get by as part of the informal economy, which leaves them open to exploitation, the Geneva-based organization says.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The United States provided the first clue to its unchanged landmine treaty policy Tuesday 1 December in Cartagena, Colombia, saying its ongoing review of the policy will take time. The US baffled the world a week ago by first saying it had decided not to sign the Ottawa Convention, then two days later saying the matter was still under review. No explanation was given at the time. The Ottawa Convention, signed by 156 countries and in force since 1999, is also known as the international Mine Ban treaty. The Cartagena Summit in Colombia this week is the second five-year review of the progress made under the treaty.
The US issued a brief statement at the conference, saying that “the Administration’s decision to attend this Review Conference is the result of an on-going comprehensive review of US landmine policy initiated at the direction of President Obama.
Juanes, Cuban Peace Without Borders Concert (image: 4VFnet)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Colombian superstar, 17-time Grammy award winning musician Juanes, is giving his voice to the Cartagena Summit on a Mine-free World that takes place in Cartagena, Colombia 29 November-4 December. Juanes, who has sold more than 9 million albums worldwide, in 2006 became the first musician ever to perform in the European Parliament’s debating chamber, as part of the European Union’s commitment to eradicate landmines. He organized the Peace Without Borders concert in September 2009 in Cuba, which Entertainment Daily called “the largest open air gig since the 1959 Revolution”, with half a million people attending.
North and South Korea navy ships have exchanged fire along the countries’ disputed Western maritime border. The Northern vessel was reportedly hit by gunfire, and one North Korean was killed, and three injured, after it crossed a demaracation line Tuesday, 10 November, say several reports in Seoul, South Korea. CNN, Los Angeles Times.
Colombia may make a complaint to the United Nations and the Organization of American States, following Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’ call Sunday, 8 November for his country to prepare for war, and prepare the people for war. Chavez has been irritated by Colombia’s newly signed bases agreement with the USA, which will allow a US military presence in Colombia. Chavez says that this is a preparation for an invasion of Venezuela. CNN, Reuters India.
China says it has executed nine people involved in the deadly rioting in Urumqi, in China’s Xinjiang province last July. The US urged China to ensure that detentions and judicial processes be handled “in a transparent manner”, according to US State Department spokesman, Ian Kelly. AFP, New York Times
Europe’s rising demand for cocaine and other illegal drugs has opened up new territories on Africa’s west coast to Latin American drugs cartels, which see higher margins in Europe and an easier time with the law in West African countries. The US Drugs Enforcement Agency (DEA) reports that it is seeing the same gangs it fights in Mexico and Colombia appearing in countries like Guinea-Bissau, dubbed Africa’s first “narco-state.” Rising demand from Europe and a strong Euro have fueled the supply, according to a report from George Mason University in Virginia, USA. West African countries are a trans-shipment area of choice to Europe because of its proximity and because poverty, years of war, and endemic corruption have weakened institutions that could combat drugs crime. BBC, CNN
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced on his weekly radio show Sunday 13 September that his government was buying 92 Russian T-72 tanks and several Russian S-300 surface-to-air (SAM) missile systems. Chavez was in Moscow, Russia a week ago. Venezuela views neighbouring Colombia’s efforts to upgrade its military relationship with the US, including a standing US military presence in Colombia, as potentially a first step in a US intervention in Venezuela.
The S-300 system is considered one of the best in the world and has been deployed in several countries. The US bought one for evaluation.
He said Russia was lending the government $2.2. billion to make the purchase. A consortium of Russian oil companies has paid Venezuela $1b for access to Venezuela’s Orinoco oil fields, the Venezuelan oil company PdVSA announced. BBC, El Nacional, El Tiempo
The leaders of the world are not being spared swine flu: Alvaro Uribe, president of Colombia, has been diagnosed with swine flu after attending a meeting of the Union of South American Nations in Argentina last week. BBC
Two army soldiers and four armed rebels died in an ambush in a remote mountain area in the Peruvian department of Junin, east of Lima. The Peruvian army is fighting remnants of Peru’s Maoist Shining Path rebel group who have allied with drug traffickers in the Apurimac river vally, one of Peru’s most important coca growing areas, the BBC reports. In Colombia twelve native Americans were massacred in their houses by armed men wearing uniforms in Nariño department, southern Colombia. The area is also a drug-growing area and leftist rebels of the Farc movement and right-wing paramilitaries are contesting the area. BBC, El Comercio (Spa), El Tiempo (Spa)
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced economic sanctions against neighbouring Colombia which last week asked the Venezuelan government to explain the presence of arms traced to Venezuela found in rebel Farc arms depots. Venezuela has halted the import of 10,000 vehicles and canceled the participation of a Colombian oil company in an oil auction in Venezuela’s oil-rich Orinoco region. Trade between the two countries is worth about $7 billion. Venezuela imports almost all its food from Colombia.
The Colombian government announced last week that Swedish-made arms captured from the rebel group Farc had been traced to Venezuela. Chavez said 5 August that the arms had been stolen from a Venezuelan naval post in 1995. Tensions between the two countries remain high, with Colombia and the US negotiating a military bases treaty that would see US troops on Colombian soil to aid in the fight against drugs trafficking and the 40 year-old conflict with Farc, accused of involvement in the drug trade. Venezuela opposes the presence of foreign troops in Latin America. BBC, CNN, El Tiempo (Spa)
The government of Colombia said 27 July that it was investigating how Swedish-made weapons supplied to Venezuela were found in the possession of the rebel narco-terrorist group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc). Colombia’s Vice-president Francisco Santos said “In several operations we have been able to capture arsenals of the Farc. We have found heavy weapons, including anti-tank weapons” that were purchased in Europe.
Jan-Erik Lovgren of the Swedish Inspectorate for Strategic Products, says that, based on the serial numbers, it appears that the weapons were sold to Venezuela in the 1980s. He told Swedish radio that arms sales to Venezuela had stopped in 2006 and that Sweden had never authorized arms sales to Colombia. The Venezuelan government, already embarrassed by findings linking it to Farc when Colombian troops overran a Farc camp in Ecuador in 2008, has rejected the claims. Venezuelan Justice and Interior Minister Tarreck El Aissami said it was a “media show” and “an aggression against our people, our government and our institutions”. BBC, CNN, El Nacional (Spa), Reuters.
Shadu, age 3, has lost his mother, DR Congo (image: ICRC June 2009, P Yazdi)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – More than half of the civilians directly touched by the world’s eight major conflicts have been displaced, and half say they have lost contact with a family member. One in five have lost their livelihood.
These are some of the findings of a statistical and interview set of surveys ordered by the International Red Cross (ICRC), based in Geneva, to ascertain the extent to which civilians today are affected by major conflicts.
The greatest fears mentioned by people surveyed:
