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.)

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COMMENT
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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