The Movimiento Nacional de Víctimas de Crímenes de Estado, National Movement of Victims of State-Sponsored Crimes, requests that Senator Dieb Maloof be excluded from the Senate Human Rights Commission.

 

The Movimiento Nacional de Víctimas de Crímenes de Estado, National Movement of Victims of State-Sponsored Crimes, requests that Senator Dieb Maloof be excluded from the Senate Human Rights Commission.

During the first term of the Álvaro Uribe Vélez presidential administration, many political leaders and parliamentarians from the Liberal and Conservative parties, as well as from the movements making up the ruling coalition, have been implicated in scandals and investigations that link them with paramilitary groups. Evidence of these alliances has appeared not only in judicial files, but also in the irregular nature of electoral processes in several regions of Colombia, and in statements by the very paramilitary bosses, who have boasted of controlling one third of the legislative branch.

As is known, these links take the form of complicity in atrocious acts and in crimes of major corruption. The Movimiento Nacional de Víctimas de Crímenes de Estado considers that the criminal and political responsibility must be determined to its logical conclusion as regards the links of these leaders and congress members with groups that have committed, and continue to commit, crimes against humanity, and that have been able to consolidate an economic empire based on the seizure of land and drug trafficking. Therefore, the Movement requests that the Prosecutor General’s Office (Fiscalía General de la Nación) and the Supreme Court of Justice expedite their investigations to the fullest so that these criminal alliances may be clarified.

Among these crimes, those that occurred in the Department of Atlántico are especially grave, and concern the murder of more than 500 union and social leaders in the last four years, including the social researcher Alfredo Correa de Andreis. Inasmuch with the most recent scandal, relating to the content of alias Jorge 40’s computer, as with many denunciations in the past, the involvement appears of Senator Dieb Maloof, who today is a part of the Senate Human Rights Commission.

The work carried out by this legislative entity is of major importance for Colombia, and in particular for the victims of violence, since it is the body in charge of carrying out political control, listen to the voice of citizens, and study bills concerning issues related to grave human rights violations. This means that its members must be parliamentarians with the highest moral character. The fact that the victims of paramilitary groups have to present their testimony and complaints before this commission entails that their safety must be guaranteed.

For these reasons, the Victims’ Movement considers that Senator Maloof must resign from the Senate Human Rights Commission while the present investigations are resolved that clarify his supposed links with the authors of crimes that this parliamentary body should precisely contribute to investigating.

Movimiento Nacional de Víctimas de Crímenes de Estado
Bogotá, Colombia
October 17, 2006