Articles by CCAJAR

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  The AFL-CIO Union Coalition Presents Award to Yessika Hoyos, Daughter of a Murdered Colombian Trade Unionist

  15 September 2009, by Prensa - Colectivo

  On September 17, 2009, the AFL – CIO formally presented the 2008 George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award to Yessika Hoyos Morales for her work as a leader and founding member of the Movement, Sons and Daughters for Memory and against Impunity, for her fight to clarify the murder of her father, trade union leader Jorge Darío Hoyos Franco, and for her work as a human rights defender with the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective.

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  The Colombian State Employs the Administrative Department of Security –DAS- against Human Rights Organisations

  7 July 2009, by Prensa - Colectivo

  The non-governmental organisation Colectivo de Abogados “José Alvear Restrepo”, CAJAR, José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective, presents before the national and international community the recent discoveries relating to the illegal intelligence activities carried out against human rights organisations by the Administrative Department of Security (DAS by its initials in the Spanish language), which is the Colombian State’s most important security and intelligence agency.

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  Colombian SOA Graduate Arrested for His Participation in Massacre

  23 May 2009, by Press Office - Lawyers Collective

  A preventive measure of detention was issued against the former commander of the Palacé Battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Jorge Alberto Amor Páez, by the specialized human rights prosecutor in the city of Calí, Juan Carlos Oliveros Corrales. This warrant confirmed Amor Páez’s participation in the massacre of 24 peasant farmers, which took place in the rural communities of Alaska, Tres Esquinas and La Habana, in the municipality of Buga in the department of Valle del Cauca, on October 10, 2001.

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  Called to Trial

  13 May 2009, by Prensa - Colectivo

  Jorge Noguera, former DAS director and the president’s right hand, has been called to trial for the homicides of trade unionists, human rights defenders, and politicians who denounced the pact between paramilitarism and the political class in Colombia.

• Ongoing Nightmare at the DAS

  6 May 2009, by Prensa - Colectivo

  It was recently learned that over the last years the Administrative Department of Security (DAS) has been illegally intercepting communications (wiretapping), carrying out surveillance, and gathering information on persons and organizations this institution considers to be “enemies” of the government. For instance, its scrutinizing eye has been set upon the magistrates of the Supreme Court of Justice, members of the opposition, trade unionists, and human rights defenders, among other unfortunate “chosen ones.”

• The New Procurator General and his first 70 days of Impunity

  29 March 2009, by Prensa - Colectivo

  The Office of the Procurator General (Procuraduría General de la Nación) was established as an institution with the mission of fighting against corruption, defending, guaranteeing and protecting human rights, and safeguarding the rights and interests of citizens and public assets. It was also invested with functions to prevent, investigate and punish public servants engaging in disciplinary breaches. Nonetheless, the first 70 days of office of the new Procurator General, Alejandro Ordóñez Maldonado, could not present a more discouraging panorama with respect to human rights and the fight against impunity.

• IACHR will analyze the critical situation of freedom of expression in Colombia

  19 March 2009, by Prensa - Colectivo

  This Monday March 23, as part of the hearings scheduled during the 134th period of sessions of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, a public hearing, requested the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective and the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission, will be held in the OAS General Secretariat Building in the city of Washington.

• IACHR meets privately with the ACIN to follow up on the case of the ‘El Nilo’ massacre

  28 October 2008, by Press Office - Lawyers Collective

  With the framework of a work meeting convened yesterday by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to follow up on the IACHR ruling concerning the ‘El Nilo’ Massacre, the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca (ACIN by its initials in the Spanish language) and the Jose Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective elaborated several requests for the Colombian State, including an action to review the decisions adopted in military criminal jurisdiction, progress in implicating the intellectual authors of the ‘El Nilo’ massacre, support for the life plans of the communities to resolve part of the unsatisfied basic needs of the communities, and compliance with the ‘El Nilo’ Agreements.

• THE IMPUNITY OF CHIQUITA BRANDS INTERNATIONAL: FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES

  21 October 2008, by Prensa - Colectivo

  After the factual proffer was filed in the case against Chiquita Brands International before the US District Court of the District of Columbia on March 14, 2008, in which it was verified Chiquita Brands International, through its subsidiary in Colombia, Banadex S.A., made monthly payments for over six years to the paramilitary structures in the regions of Urabá and Santa Marta, the president of Colombia, Álvaro Uribe Vélez, declared before the mass media that he did not foresee any inconvenience for the Colombian justice system to request the extradition of this company’s board of directors. “Extraditions should be from here to there [USA] and from there to here [Colombia] [...] The decision [to request the extradition] is in the hands of the Attorney General’s Office," the president asserted at the time.

• CHIQUITA BOARD MEMBERS: TOTAL IDENTIFICATION

  23 July 2008, by Prensa - Colectivo

  For over six years, from 1997 to February 2004, Chiquita Brands International, through its subsidiary in Colombia, Banadex S.A., made monthly payments to the paramilitary structures in the regions of Urabá and Santa Marta, which resulted in more than 100 payments for more than $1.7 million dollars. Chiquita Brands began to make these payments in 1997, following a meeting between then paramilitary chief Carlos Castaño and the then Banadex general manager. This financing, which turns Chiquita Brands into one of the most important financial sponsors of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC by its initials in the Spanish language), propelled the massive commission of crimes against humanity and grave human rights violations committed by paramilitary organizations in these two regions, including forced displacement, homicide, torture, and forced disappearance, among other crimes.

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José Alvear Restrepo

Afiliado a la Federación Internacional de Derechos Humanos
y la Organización Mundial contra la Tortura
Estatus Consultivo en la OEA