John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I bid good afternoon to the ambassador, Ms Cortés Oztiz and the presidential counsellor, Mr. Archila Peñalosa and thank them for their opening statements. I want to home in on three areas in respect of which I have specific questions for both witnesses. They relate to the ongoing protests urgently taking place across Colombia, human rights in general and the peace protest. We saw major mobilisations commence on 28 April right across Colombia. That was initially to reject the proposed tax reforms that ordinary Colombians would have said disproportionately increased living costs for the lower and middle classes. The protests also focused on long-running demands in response to increasing poverty, corruption, the murder of social activists and the failed implementation of the peace process. Since the commencement of the national strike we have seen gross violations of human rights, arbitrary murders and killings of protestors. Video evidence has been widely circulated on social media showing that the police are guilty. I have seen it as have many other people, including those in human rights organisations. It shows the shooting of live ammunition and the firing of gas canisters at people’s faces right into their eyes. That is a practice borrowed from Chile. We have seen where there have been arbitrary arrests, sexual assaults and young people committing suicide as a result of sexual assaults being perpetrated on them by state players. We have also seen many videos of people being shot at by people wearing civilian clothes and these are protesters. In one incident we have seen several men exit from a truck and open fire at civilians, protestors, and later police IDs and jackets were found in that vehicle. It has been widely established by human rights organisations such as Temblores that between 28 April and 21 May it is estimated there have been more than 2,900 cases of police abuse, more than 43 apparent killings by state forces and 39 reported cases of eye injuries mainly as a direct result of the purposeful firing of gas canisters into protestors’ eyes. There have been more than 1,200 arbitrary arrests and more than 21 cases of sexual assault. Also, worryingly, there have been reports of hundreds of protestors who have gone missing, having been taken into police custody and whose whereabouts is unknown. There is considerable video evidence online of people who had been taken into police custody having been summarily executed and their bodies having been dumped in rivers by state forces, which is concerning.

I wish to make some specific points regarding that. Only last week the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms Michelle Bachelet, asked for an independent investigation into what is happening in Colombia regarding the state crack down on protestors. Will Colombia support an independent investigation into what is happening there? I listened intently to what the ambassador said. She did not explicitly condemn any human rights abuses against the protestors, including the killings and firing of projectiles into people’s faces, but she might take the opportunity to do so. There has been a massive international response to these atrocities. It is not something that happened without being looked upon in horror by the world, hence the welcome statements from the UN High Commissioner. Will the details of all the people who have been taken into police be made public? There is great concern that people who have been taken into police custody have subsequently been found dead on roadsides and in rivers. It is crucially important that full information is made available on people who have been officially arrested and subsequently released and those who are still missing.

I wish to express my solidarity and support for the national strike committee on the need for meaningful negotiations to take place between the Colombian authorities and the committee. I support the national strike committee's principal demand, namely, to stop all violence.

I wish to focus on the issue of human rights in general. With the protests commencing earlier this year Colombia has unfortunately been in the international eye for gross human rights violations over many years. According to the UN verification mission, 133 human rights defenders were killed in 2020, 117 were killed in 2019, 115 were killed in 2018 and 105 were killed in 2017. Unfortunately, more human rights defenders are being murdered on an annual basis and those figures are growing. That is a major concern. There needs to be full engagement with the National Commission on Security Guarantees and participating organisations to ensure the definition and implementation of a public policy to dismantle parliamentary successor groups, which must take place. I look forward to hearing the response to that. There is a need for total reform of the police services. People have called for moving responsibility for the police from the ministry of defence to a civilian department, disbanding the anti-riot force and other measures. Can the witnesses advise if there will be any reform of the police services within Colombia?

I also wish to raise the issue of the peace process. Since the commencement of the peace process in Colombian some positive strides have been made but there are areas of serious concern. The implementation of the peace agreement has been slow in many areas and some opposition politicians in Colombia are concerned about the gross underfunding of the process. Human rights organisations and opposition politicians suggest a different picture compared to that portrayed by the Colombian authorities and they single out the areas where slowest progress is being made, which are the chapters focused on the root causes of the armed conflict, namely, the rural issue and land reform. There is also concern about the number of former FARC combatants who have been assassinated to date. It is estimated more than 270 FARC members have been assassinated since the commencement of the peace process in 2016. That is deeply concerning.

We need to see the full implementation of peace and renewed efforts by government to bring an end to attacks on former members of FARC and on the peace process in general. There needs to be maximum protection for former members of FARC and increased attention to the legalisation of land titles, provision of land to peasant farmers and measures to provide former FARC combatants with access to land to facilitate development of socioeconomic projects.

I will touch on the prioritisation of the mutually agreed coca substitution. I listened intently to the figures given there but more needs to be done in terms of programmes, financial payments, access to alternative economic projects and an end to the forced eradication programmes in communities where manual substitution has been agreed.

There are many points there but, to sum up, I ask about human rights, the protests and the huge concerns around the peace process.