COLOMBIA: UN HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BOGOTA 004962 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/23/2015 TAGS: PHUM PREL CO UN SUBJECT: COLOMBIA: UN HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS BRIEFS DIPLOMATIC COMMUNITY Classified By: Ambassador William B. Wood for reasons 1.4 (d). ¶1. (C) Summary: Louise Arbour, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, visited Colombia May 12-14 and briefed the diplomatic community mid-way through her trip, following meetings with senior GOC officials. Arbour and the GOC agreed to set a timetable by the end of June for the GOC to complete implementation of the 27 recommendations of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), most recently presented to the UN Commission on Human Rights (CHR) during its last session. Arbour agreed to adjust the timetable if it was found to be overly ambitious. Like her interview in the leading Bogota daily El Tiempo preceding the visit, Arbour reiterated concerns that the current draft of the Law for Peace and Justice was pursuing peace at the expense of justice and did not provide sufficient incentives for beneficiaries to tell the complete truth about past crimes. She also raised concerns about the extent of the paramilitary presence in the southern Bogota suburb of Ciudad de Bolivar. It appears that Arbour's principal purpose for visiting was to bolster support for the work of her office here. End Summary. ¶2. (C) On May 13, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour briefed the diplomatic corps at the end of the Bogota portion of her May 12-14 visit to Colombia. Earlier in the day, she had met with President Uribe, Vice President Santos, Foreign Minister Barco, Minister of Defense Uribe, as well as with the Inspector General ("Procuraduria"),Human Rights Ombudsman ("Defensoria"),the Constitutional Court, and several groups of NGOs and other members of civil society. ¶3. (C) Arbour opened by praising the work of her office in Colombia, calling it a professional, sophisticated operation, "fully supported" by the chair statement adopted at the 61st session of the UN Commission on Human Rights. ¶4. (C) Arbour described Colombia as a "sophisticated democracy with significant capacity." She was most impressed with the workings of the Constitutional Court and the Office of the Inspector General, calling these operations Colombia's most impressive mechanisms for democracy. She said the court, in particular, was way ahead of many similar institutions elsewhere. ¶5. (C) Arbour characterized her meetings with GOC officials 
as excellent. She said the GOC was committed to fulfilling its "obligations" stemming from the July 2003 London conference, including the 27 OHCHR recommendations, albeit some more enthusiastically than others. Her goal in meeting GOC officials was to develop a specific timetable to make progress on implementing the OHCHR recommendations and indeed, both sides had agreed to set a timetable by the end of June. Such a mechanism to monitor progress would ensure that there would be neither surprises nor disagreements on where the GOC and OHCHR stood by the end of the year, before the next CHR session. Arbour expressed a willingness to adjust the timetable if it became clear it was too ambitious. ¶6. (C) Prior to her arrival, in an interview with Colombia's leading daily El Tiempo, Arbour criticized the GOC for not responding to paramilitary cease-fire violations and for not placing strong enough demands on the paramilitary groups in peace negotiations and in the Law for Justice and Peace before the Congress. Arbour told the diplomatic community that she had had a lively discussion with President Uribe on the draft law, in particular whether it struck the right balance between peace and justice. Arbour reiterated to the group that, while she understood the difficulties in finding the right balance between peace and justice, she shared the views of the Inspector General, Human Rights Ombudsman and non-governmental organizations that peace was being pursued at the expense of justice. Peace and reconciliation had to be accompanied by justice and accountability. Paramilitaries had to be prepared to pay a reasonable price for reduced sentences, she said. ¶7. (C) Arbour said her most serious concern was the provision of the law that offers the possibility of benefits, even if information subsequent to the offering of benefits indicates involvement in additional crimes not mentioned in the "free declaration." The law offered modest penalties for human rights atrocities but the incentive to tell the whole truth was non-existent. A legal framework that does not reward telling the whole truth was going in the wrong direction. (Note: the Embassy has recommended to GOC officials that the text be modified to add a requirement saying that the beneficiary must prove that the omission of facts from the free declaration was not motivated by an attempt to conceal or deceive. That would still leave the decision to extend further benefits in the hands of the court but it would provide a stronger incentive for a complete free declaration. End Note.) ¶8. (C) In the context of criticizing the demobilization law as not doing enough to dismantle paramilitary networks, Arbour expressed particular concern about their presence in Ciudad de Bolivar, a southern Bogota suburb she had visited earlier in the day. Community leaders described an atmosphere of intimidation and social cleansing, including denying young people freedom of association (septel). (Note: Embassy is investigating this report. The local office of the International Committee of the Red Cross has reported paramilitary presence in the area but not to this degree. End note.) -------------- COMMENT -------------- ¶9. (C) Arbour came to Colombia to support the work of her local office, which she noted repeatedly had been strongly endorsed by the recently-adopted chair statement at the Commission on Human Rights. Her talking points were derived from the chair statement and the earlier report to the CHR. There was virtually no give-and-take between her and the local diplomatic community, many of whom share our frustrations with the adversarial relationship of the office to the government that invited it in. In a brief meeting with the Ambassador following her presentation to the diplomatic community, she revealed considerable bias in favor of the views of OHCHR director in Colombia Michael Fruhling (to be expected),the Inspector General, the Human Rights Ombudsman and various non-governmental organizations. Although she privately labeled GOC presentations as impressive but bordering on a "beauty contest," she was not prepared to accept that other interlocutors were pitching their own views equally hard. She treated their suspicions of GOC intentions as facts rather than opinions. She also strongly criticized the Peace and Justice draft law, but freely admitted that the international community was placing more demands on the Colombian process than on other peace processes in Africa and the Middle East. WOOD