COLOMBIA: President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia arrived in London yesterday from Madrid on the fourth day of a European tour to promote investment and international acceptance of his controversial "Justice and Peace" law.
His government has presented the legislation as a way to demobilise irregular forces on the left and right and halt decades of blood-letting which has cost hundreds of thousands of lives since 1948 and made more than two million homeless.
The president took a hard knock last week when the New York Times condemned the planned legislation as "Impunity for Mass Murderers, Terrorists and Major Cocaine Traffickers Law". Echoing calls from Amnesty International and other NGOs, the paper said: "The current law will bring neither justice nor peace." It said right-wing paramilitaries responsible for "the most heinous crimes against humanity", if convicted, may serve no more than 22 months in prison.
The Bush administration's support for President Uribe's law is, said the paper, "giving Washington's endorsement to Colombia's capitulation to a terrorist mafia".
Human rights organisations have for years argued that the "autodefensas" paramilitary terror groups were being favoured by President Uribe and had strong and proven links to the Colombian army and police. The latter have received some $3 billion from the US since 2000.
Amnesty accuses the Uribe government of repeated failure to honour 24 undertakings it gave to the UN on human rights and freeing former paramilitaries with little check on their activities after release. In some cases, it says, paramilitary units are created from one day to another so the government can take credit for demobilising them. In its current annual report Amnesty, which also criticises atrocities by left-wing guerrillas, says: "The government continued to make statements equating the defence of human rights with the promotion of 'terrorism'."
Ireland has pledged aid to a mission from the Washington-based Organisation of American States to observe the demobilisation. But from New York, the Human Rights Watch organisation has asked the Swedish and Dutch governments to withdraw support for the mission which it argues is fraudulent and will "benefit the paramilitaries". The US government is blocking payment of $100 million to Colombia because of human rights violations.
On his European tour President Uribe received a €253 million aid package from Spain and limited political backing.