Originally published in Confidencial Colombia.
Foreign Minister and Vice President Martha Lucía Ramírez generated great confusion in Washinton, regarding the request of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, IACHR, to carry out a working visit to Colombia, to monitor the crisis in the country as a result of the strike and protests that have been going on for more than a month.
The IACHR, together with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, are the organs of the Inter-American Human Rights System, IAHRS, of the Organization of American States, OAS, of which Colombia is a member. The function of the IACHR is to analyze and follow up on situations of human rights violations in the continent. For this reason, since the beginning of the strike, it has been monitoring what is happening in the country and the complaints received in this context.
The Chancellor’s trip began on May 24 with the purpose of improving the Government’s image regarding the protests and the strike and to maintain good relations with its international allies. Thus, she sought to move from the radical discourse shown by President Duque in the self-interview at the Nariño Palace, to a moderate one that showed an image of reasonableness. While in Washington, she met, among others, with congressmen, members of NGOs and the IACHR. On May 7, the IACHR asked Colombia for a working visit to verify the large number of complaints of police abuse and brutality that have reached the IACHR. In requesting the visit, the IACHR was also responding to a request made by the human rights movement in Colombia and an online petition signed by thousands of people, which is also supported by opposition parties in Colombia and members of the Paro Committee negotiating with the government. Prior to the Chancellor’s trip, the impression left by the government was that the visit would be denied.
The Government had just led a letter together with three right-wing countries of the region to weaken the IACHR, and with harsh criticism launched through the media by Camilo Gómez, Director of the National Agency for the Legal Defense of the State, and against the Inter-American Court when the latter, in an unprecedented event, withdrew from the March 2021 public hearing in the case of journalist Jineth Bedoya, kidnapped and raped by paramilitaries 20 years ago when she was doing her work in the Model Prison of Bogota.
For this reason, the decision of Martha Lucía Ramírez, such a high-level official with a double position in the Government, to go to the IACHR offices the first day she was in Washington seemed to be a positive gesture towards the Inter-American System. It contrasted with the attitude of Mr. Camilo Gómez and Mr. Alejandro Ordoñez, Ambassador of Colombia to the OAS, who maintain a hostile behavior towards the IACHR.
But rather, the meeting between the Foreign Minister and the IACHR led to a confusion about the possibility of the working visit that can only be understood today as intentional. During the meeting, as stated in a communiqué issued by the IACHR, Ramirez said that the visit could take place after June 29, the date previously set for a hearing on the human rights situation in Colombia. The hearing in question is part of the regular monitoring by the IACHR and had been convened before the start of the protests and the visit of the foreign minister.
The following day, Tuesday 25, after his meeting with Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the OAS, Ramirez said that the Government was willing to allow the visit when the Colombian control agencies finish their investigations. The next day, on June 26, the high official issued another statement saying that it was the IACHR that set the date of the visit for after June 29, and that if they want to come to Colombia tomorrow there is no problem. This position was qualified again in the letters to Almagro and the IACHR on Thursday night, June 27 “as we agreed in our meeting the visit will be subsequent to the public hearing. And if the IACHR decides to move the hearing forward, the Government of Colombia will be attentive to the format of the visit and in the best disposition to agree with you on the date.”
This is all a smokescreen. Despite what the Chancellor says, the IACHR did not set the date after the June 29 hearing. To say this is to lie to the country and to the international community. Postponing the working visit until after the hearing may seem reasonable to some, given that the Government, the Ombudsman’s Office, the Attorney General’s Office, the Prosecutor General’s Office and civil society organizations will participate there and, surely, the progress or lack thereof in the clarification of the allegations of human rights abuses and violations, in addition to the acts of vandalism and blockades in the context of the national strike, will be discussed. In reality this is a way of delaying a process. In order for a working visit by the IACHR to be effective and timely, and to contribute to reducing the tensions so evident in the country, it should be authorized now. What the Chancellor is looking for with the proposal that it be after June 29 is to gain time and give the impression that she has said yes when this is not the case.
The problem for Dr. Martha Lucia, as you are aware, is that she must send an official letter to the IACHR accepting the visit -which she has not done so far-. Then the terms of the working visit are negotiated, including the date, the number of members, the criteria, the places in the country to be visited, and the State entities and organizations of the society to be interviewed, among others. All this takes time.
What the Chancellor evidenced in her visit to Washington is that she had a double strategy: on the one hand, to open roads and build bridges to the IACHR, insisting publicly that they were welcome, and at the same time, to delay their arrival to the country as much as possible. It is a strategy similar to the one followed here in the country with the National Strike Committee, of talking without negotiating or signing anything and delaying.
It is well known that the right to social protest is an essential element for the existence and consolidation of democratic societies. It is connected to the rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association; and is part of the activities of defense and promotion of human rights and the defense of democracy. It is protected by a constellation of rights and freedoms that the Inter-American System guarantees both in the American Declaration of the Rights and Obligations of Man and in the American Convention on Human Rights.
The best way to avoid IACHR scrutiny of Colombia is for the State, in its position as guarantor of human rights, to stop committing serious human rights violations such as those committed during the National Strike, and to investigate and punish those that have already occurred in order to avoid impunity. As long as the State does not comply with its obligations, does not correct its policies and does not control the actions of State agents, Colombian society will continue to turn to the IACHR, as it has no other option.
