Sir, - Last December you reported on the death squad activities on the Bellacruz ranch in Colombia and the concern expressed at the time by the Tanaiste, Dick Spring. It may interest your readers to know that since then the death squads have stepped up their activity, not only in Bellacruz but right across Colombia.
Only last Tuesday week, March 25th, death squads shot dead Margarita Guzman, a young woman; who had housed us when we were working in Colombia. We can report this because we had such close contact with this woman. However, every day right wing death squads kill at least seven people per day in Colombia and nearly all of these deaths go unreported in the international press.
Colombia's human rights record. is comparable to any of the worst regimes on the planet, yet it does not come under much scrutiny from the press. Its formally "democratic" facade and its vast reserves of gold, emeralds and oil ensure that nobody takes too much interest. The reality is that Latin America's oldest, most stable "democracy" maintains its stability through very dubious methods. It is time the international community put the Colombian government in its place alongside the Indonesian regime in East Timor and the SLORC in Burma. If this is done the killers of the thousands of Margarita. Guzmans that Colombia produces each year will no longer be able to hide behind the thin veneer of democracy that protects them, nor will they be able to claim that their dirty work shores up Latin America's oldest "democracy".
Yours, etc.
Mountjoy Square,
Dublin 1.