We are greatly concerned about a serious threat yesterday against Yolanda Becerra, the president of the Popular Women’s Organization (Organización Femenina Popular, or OFP) in Barrancabermeja, Colombia. Ms. Becerra, who figures prominently in CIP’s 2001 report The “New Masters” of Barranca, is one of Colombia’s best-known, most admired human rights defenders.
Ms. Becerra and her organization have persevered in the paramilitary-dominated Magdalena Medio region despite a constant barrage of threats. These threats, though, have rarely been as serious as what happened yesterday.
Here is coverage from today’s edition of the Bucaramanga daily Vanguardia Liberal, and an urgent action from the OFP. Some translated excerpts from the Vanguardia piece detail what happened.
The president of the Popular Women’s Organization, OFP, Yolanda Becerra, suffered serveral hours of anguish and fear on account of three armed men who visited her with no advance warning at her apartment in the Conjunto Cavipetrol I, in Barrio Galán.
The three carried out their incursion at 7:30 in the morning, when the humanitarian organization’s leader had just awakened.
According to Becerra’s account for this daily, the three unknown men abruptly forced their way into her apartment and immediately rendered her powerless.
“One of them aimed a firearm at my head, while the other two dedicated themselves to turning over my bookshelves and any boxes they found along the way. I have no idea what they were looking for,” said the OFP leader.
The men stayed inside the apartment for a half hour, during which they did not cease to shout threats and vulgarities at Becerra.
“The message they expressed to me was very strong: ‘Listen b*tch, your story is over, if you don’t leave Barranca in 48 hours we’ll kill you, and if we can’t, then someone in your family will pay.”
According to the NGO director, “This is a form of intimidation. They destroyed my library, they knocked everything over, the SIJIN [Police intelligence], the DAS [presidential intelligence], the police and the Prosecutor-General’s office [FiscalÃa] have all been alerted about this case, as have international human rights organizatons.”
Regarding the case, the Magdalena Medio police commander, Col. Oscar Hernando Torres, said unofficially that he will produce an official communiqué once investigators provide information.
… [Becerra] warned yesterday that the issue of threats in Barrancabermeja “is completely known to the Vice President’s office [which, in Colombia's government, has responsibility for human rights policy]. Although the government keeps insisting that there are no longer any ’self-defense-groups,’ in Barrancabermeja paramilitarism still has a presence. It must be said, the paras are still existing, the only thing they have done is change their name.”
The OFP alert offers a few clues about the motive behind this serious threat, including this disturbing tie to paramilitary leaders’ confessions as part of the “Justice and Peace” process.
On September 16, 2007, in the city of MedellÃn, during the confession procedure of paramilitary leader Julián BolÃvar, before the Prosecutor-General’s Justice and Peace Unit, he stated:
“Including Señora Yolanda Becerra, sitting in one of the National Police’s armored personnel carriers, went neighborhood by neighborhood pointing out the autodefensas’ guards, whom she knew from back when they were guerrillas.”
“These oeprations you refer to, what did they consist of?”
“They singled us out, they sat in the police armored personnel carriers, and pointed out who were members of the autodefensas.”
It is greatly troubling that the scenario of the confessions for the so-called “Justice and Peace Law,” where the duty of those who have chosen to participate, according to the Constitutional Court, is to tell the whole truth, is turning into a new mechanism to persecute, stigmatize and issue veiled threats against human rights defenders.
Along with hundreds – perhaps thousands – of people all over the world who know and admire Yolanda Becerra, her organization and its courageous work, we are very concerned, and we are watching closely. Ms. Becerra absolutely must be able to continue living and working in Barrancabermeja, with no consequences for herself and her family.
November 5th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
This is absolutely horrible news. I cannot imagine the anguish Yolanda, Juan Carlos and their family is going through right now. Thank you for posting this incredibly important information. I would not have known about it, most likely, had it not been posted here. I had the pleasure to meet, get to know and stay with Yolanda (and Juan Carlos and their family) in Barranca last summer for about 5 days. Sadly, we have had barely any contact between each other since then, so I thank you for posting this, again. As I admire Yolanda’s work, I will start to keep a closer eye on Barranca again, especially the OFP, and Yolanda’s family.
November 6th, 2007 at 9:46 am
How can you be sure it wasn’t the FARC? If the lady in question was a human rights campaigner, presumably she wasn’t selective about the politics of the people she was defending. If that’s the case, then FARC should be looked at more closely, because they have never been disarmed and are as much against human rights campaigners as the paras. In these days, FARC’s record is the more lethal one.
November 6th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
I can’t say I have any specific knowledge of Mrs. Becerra and her work, unfortunately, but I also believe that this is very worrying and she deserves all the protection she can get. It must be horrible indeed to go through what was described above, and I can only join in demanding respect for her right to live and to continue her duties.
Camilla. Very unlikely. While it’s not impossible, strictly speaking, the circumstances do make your hypothesis rather baseless at the moment. Unless you have something more than speculation behind that claim, that is.
November 7th, 2007 at 2:05 am
JCG: What circumstances make it baseless? Your guess is as good as mine. But it’s an absolute fact that FARC is the greater danger to Colombia right now, it has the greater body count and the lower respect for life. You are aware that they recently murdered 11 state legislators in cold blood are you not? They like doing that kind of stuff and they are doing it now. Why would they exempt a human rights campaigner? They have no respect for life of any kind.
November 7th, 2007 at 10:31 am
Actually, looking at numbers from the Colombian Commission of Jurists, when the killer is known, what they label paramilitaries are still the number 1 killers in Colombia’s conflict. Also, if it’s such an absolute fact, you should provide something emperical. Just because they killed (most likely killed) the deputies does not make them the biggest killers in Colombia. And your claims are baseless. There’s a lot of violent groups in Colombia, you shouldn’t be so certain that it was just one.
Plus, it’s quite possible, and most likely accurate, that Yolanda has been receiving death threats from paramilitary groups in Barranca before the attack. I know her companero has received multiple death threats from paramilitary groups, and so has Yolanda in the past. Since Barranca is still dominated and control by paras, and the OFP has been targeted viciously by paras, the OFP feels it was paramilitary fighters who carried out the attack.
Could it be the FARC? Yes. Was it most likely the FARC? No. Who exactly was it? We don’t know yet, but some logical hypotheses can be drawn.
Hell, while we’re arguing over who it could have been, maybe it was the M-19. I saw some grafiti in Bogota this summer that said “M-19: we still exist.” Are we aware about the whole Palace of Justice dabacle? Really, as of right now, there is only speculation behind the idea that it could have been the FARC. There also is some speculation that it was the AUC, but it is much much lower. If you’re threatened by the same people for years and years, and they control your town, and then some people attack, of course, what will one logically think?
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