Interview with a Colombian Political Prisoner

By Garry Leech · July 13, 2009, Colombia Journal

On August 8, 2008, Colombia’s National Police arrested Liliany Obando and charged her with the crime of rebellion and providing funding to a terrorist group. Ten months later, Obando had yet to have her day in court and remained a prisoner in Bogotá’s Buen Pastor Prison. Her work for the international relations commission of FENSUAGRO (The National Federation of Agricultural Farming Unions) included speaking and fundraising trips to Canada, Europe and Australia during which she openly and repeatedly criticized the Colombian government’s human rights record. Obando was the first person arrested as part of the so-called FARC-politica scandal that resulted from alleged evidence found on the laptop computer of FARC Commander Raúl Reyes, who was killed by the Colombian military in March 2008. I recently interviewed Obando in her prison cell.

Why are you being held here in Buen Pastor Prison?

The charges against me are politically-motivated. My work involved denouncing the government’s human rights abuses. The government is concerned with its international image and some of us have spoken out internationally against the government. In this country, the judicial process is politicized and there is a lack of independence. As a result, there is a new crime that exists: the crime of opinion. In Colombia, there are more than 7,200 political prisoners, most of who are prisoners of conscience.

What happened when you were arrested on August 8, 2008?

Friends called me that day to tell me that an order had been issued for my arrest. The order for my arrest had been announced in the media earlier in the day. I heard the doorbell ring and thought it was a friend I was expecting. I ran to the door and when I opened it there was a uniformed man and woman standing there and behind them a lot of armed men. They said they were from the DIJIN [the intelligence unit of the Colombian National Police] and began to search the apartment. The captain, Ronald Hayden Coy Ortiz, was the same captain who seized the laptop computers of Raúl Reyes and manipulated the information they contained. He said that I was Raúl Reyes’ lover. They searched the apartment room by room and in my office searched through my books one by one and pointed out that I had many leftist books including books by Marx. They found a pamphlet about Polo presidential candidate Carlos Gaviria in one of my books and for them this was evidence of links to the FARC. They also found photos of Gloria Ramírez [Colombian senator of the Polo Democrático Alternativo party] and Carlos Lozano [editor of Colombian communist newspaper Voz], which they also considered suspicious. In Camilo’s room [Obando’s 15-year-old son], they pointed at a poster of Che Guevara and said to him, “Is this the example your mother is setting for her son?” They thought the poster and the books in Camilo’s room were subversive materials. All these things in their minds linked me to the FARC. The search took about four hours and they filmed everything. The film appeared on the news while they were still searching my apartment. The captain said sarcastically, “You are going to be famous nationally and internationally.” My five-year-old daughter was afraid of the presence of so many armed people so I held her in my arms until they took me away. In the ten months since my arrest, I have only been interrogated twice by the Attorney General’s office. I eventually learned that I was being charged with two charges: the crime of rebellion and administering the finances of a terrorist group. I refused to accept the charges, which are based on supposed emails on Raúl Reyes’ laptop.

What is life like here in the prison?

I am being held in a patio [cell block] that is high security and is separated from the other patios, so we cannot mingle with the other prisoners. In Patio 8 are prisoners that have worked for the State, para-politics prisoners for example. Many of them are white collar prisoners. All the women in this patio [Patio 6] are political prisoners accused of rebellion. There are 84 prisoners in this patio. Not all the women are guerrillas; some are unionists, others are campesinos who have organized their communities, others are students. The commonality between all of us is that we have all been charged with the “crime of rebellion.” According to Colombian law, rebellion is a crime, but to us it is a right. The expression used by INPEC [National Institute for Prisons and Jails] states, “Your dignity and my dignity are inviolable.” But their claim that they respect human rights is the first lie of the system. There are not sufficient beds, so three people sleep in cells [measuring eight feet by five feet] with only two beds so one has to sleep on the floor. There is no possibility of “rehabilitation.” Sometimes INPEC acts as a contractor and brings in work from companies outside and it is a violation of labor rights because we don’t get paid. Also, about 90 percent of the women here are mothers and in many cases they are the heads of their families. There are six children under three that live here with their mothers. Even though I presented evidence that I was a single mother of two children, they refused to allow me home arrest and sent me to prison. Five more times over the past ten months I applied for home arrest and each time was denied. There is a difference between us political prisoners and those who were engaged in the para-politics process. Those women received house arrest on their first request. This hypocrisy is also evident in the case Yidis Medina, who was a friend of [Colombia’s president] Uribe.

What are some of the political and social problems in Colombia that you have denounced in your work?

In particular, the government of Alvaro Uribe has many facets of fascism. It hates the opposition and the poor. It is a government that is fundamentally oligarchic, that serves the upper class and multinationals. It is a government that has given up our sovereignty to the United States and has given away our resources. It is a government that fails to provide social investment; that fails to engage in a humanitarian prisoner exchange. It is a government that refuses to engage in a process for peace. It is a government of war. It is a government that lies. It tries to portray to the international community that Colombia is a country with democracy that respects human rights and that people are provided for, but this is not the reality. It is a government that wages war against social movements that have fought decade after decade against injustices. It wants to silence us. It kills us and then defames the memory of the dead. It imprisons those of us who want a just Colombia, an inclusive Colombia. The ability to build democracy here, in reality, does not exist.

What are your thoughts regarding the government’s claims that you raised funds abroad for the FARC?

The money I raised abroad was for FENSUAGRO’s human rights project as well as for cultural and education projects. They don’t have any proof that any of this money went to the FARC.

What do you think the outcome of your case will be?

I believe that, if the judicial process were to work correctly, I would be absolved of all charges. But the judicial process here is a political process so we need other governments to pressure this government and to stand in solidarity with Colombians to ensure the process is democratic.

For more information about Liliany Obando’s case and the international campaign to free her, visit Peace and Justice for Colombia

Sworn affidavit from Dr. James Brittain and Dr. Jim Sacouman, Canada

The following is a sworn affidavit from Dr. James Brittain and Dr. Jim Sacouman related to the arrest and incarceration of Liliany Patricia Obando Villota. From what we have learnt about the case, we strongly believe that little evidence exists or can support any claim that Liliany Obando has been involved in rebellion or the managing of resources related to terrorist activities. On the contrary, we would like to make a statement that such claims are unfounded and have been falsely used to assault the upstanding character of Liliany Obando.

Having worked with her since 2003, and organizing meetings and speaking tours for her between 2004 and 2006, we have known Liliany Obando to be nothing other than an upstanding citizen and an active link between Colombian and Canadian labour groups and civil society. Liliany Obando has spoken with thousands of unionists, members of social justice organizations, development agencies, various religious and faith-based communities, university students and academics across Canada. During these colloquiums, public forums, and lectures Liliany Obando regularly spoke of human rights abuses, anti-labour policies, the state’s attack on social welfare, and increased military spending under the administration of President Álvaro Uribe Vélez.

hroughout this period, Liliany Obando worked for Colombia’s largest rural-based labour federation (FENSUAGRO’s international commission) and was heavily involved in fundraising in our country (as well as Australia, the European Union, and the United Kingdom). As a direct result of her efforts, tens of thousands of dollars were acquired from some of Canada’s most important unions. Finances obtained trough this work were utilized in a number of development projects across Colombia ranging from the creation of socioeconomic infrastructure for small and medium agricultural producers, human rights advocacy and data collection, and the development of an important experimental farming and educational facility called La Esmeralda – which assists displaced rural families in areas of agricultural training, organic food production, gender equity, and literacy skills.[1] Simply put, if Liliany Obando’s fundraising was a medium through which the FARC-EP obtained funds than how would any of the preceding activities been attainable? It is a travesty to declare Liliany Obando’s hard-won efforts in supporting Colombia’s rural poor and assisting international relations between labour and social justice networks in Canada an act of terrorism.

An accomplished and rising academic, Liliany Obando has also been recognized for her work as a sociologist and political scientist.[2] Being imprisoned has disrupted Liliany Obando’s current graduate research investigating Dissident Memories and Peasant Resistance – FENSUAGRO: A Case Study. Her arrest and incarceration has prevented an important segment of Colombian historical and political memory from being realized, which has a very real effect on expanding the awareness of new generations of peasant organization. Disallowing this work to go forward fractures insight on the internal conflict and potential solutions to stabilize the countryside. Dissident Memories offers a much-needed discussion of how organized peasantries have been structurally excluded from a space of decision-making further weakening rural social and political structures. As the violent persecution of members of peasant organizations and their leaders goes on the dismantling of social movements remains a completely unknown phenomenon.

By silencing proponents for social justice like Liliany Obando, it is our belief that the state hopes to not only stifle any continued understanding of the violations being committed against Colombian activists, civilians, and workers but to hinder the important efforts made by Canadians who wish to support the struggle of human rights and rural/urban workers in Colombia. Targeting Liliany Obando is not an anomaly but rather a structured tactic on the part of the Colombian state. The revelations of ‘false-positives’ under the Uribe administration has shown the systemic actions carried out by specific interests to silence opponents of the government’s political, economic, and military policy. Amidst great protest to the Canada-Colombia FTA, Canadians are outraged by the ‘parapolitica’ scandal where officials from all levels of government and military have been found guilty of working with death squads to eliminate political-economic opponents, unionists, or state antagonists. Silencing cross-national linkages – like Liliany Obando – hinders the capacity for Canadians to become materially informed of the internal realities of the Colombian government’s sanctioning of paramilitarism and corporate exploitation.
In conjunction with labour unionists, agronomists, ecologists, farmers, and researchers, Liliany Obando spent the last few years working on an expanded development program to further assist rural workers and displaced families at La Esmeralda. At the time of here detention, she was on the cusp of finalizing another significant Canada-Colombia solidarity project between several Canadian unions and FENSUAGRO. By imprisoning Liliany and branding her as a supporter of ‘terrorism’ the entire project – about to be passed – was derailed. By slandering her, solidarity between Canada and Colombia has taken a hit.
Much of our protest toward the charges against Liliany Obando are based on what we see as a manufactured case. Immediately following Liliany Obando being taken into custody, the state demonstrated the feeble intelligence related to the detention of this accomplished filmmaker, women’s rights proponent, labour solidarity activist, and scholar. Fiscalía charged that ‘Liliana’ (misspelled) worked for a ‘non-governmental organization (NGO)’ entitled FENSUAGRO and indirectly rallied funds for the FARC-EP through said association. This was the beginning of a series of errors related to the state’s case against Liliany. Said errors are listed below.

1. The state’s intelligence is misinformed in the fact that FENSUAGRO, or more accurately, The National Unitarian Federation of Agrarian Unions (Federación Nacional Sindical Unitaria Agropecuaria), is not a NGO but rather the largest rural-based labour organization in Colombia. In its 33rd year of formation, FENSUAGRO has a membership of roughly 90,000, which organizes unions, labour associations, cooperatives, community groups, and indigenous collectives, across the Colombian countryside into one labour federation. Due to its achievements in social justice and organizing many of Colombia’s most marginalized peoples, FENSUAGRO has been the most targeted union in Colombia. More members of FENSUAGRO have been assassinated than any other union in the country.[3] Since its inception, as many as fifteen-hundred persons associated with the federation have been assassinated or disappeared by right-wing paramilitaries and/or state forces, while five thousand members have experienced some form of state-based abuse or human rights violation. In 2007, twenty percent of all known unionists murdered in Colombia belonged to this one labour organization. If the state cannot correctly identify intelligence of this simplistic nature than what assurances are there that any information related to the charges against Liliany Obando are less erroneous.
2. Adding to this lapse of credibility, the accusations against Liliany Obando are suspect due to the fact that no material evidence has been found to support the charge. The only ‘proof’ presented by the state against Liliany Obando is purely speculative as it was ‘allegedly’ retrieved from FARC-EP computers captured after an illegal raid of one insurgent encampment on March 1st 2008, in Ecuador.
3. After two independent examinations were conducted on the FARC-EP databases, it was first confirmed by Interpol that agents connected to Colombia’s Anti-Terrorism Unit (the same faction that arrested Liliany) had manipulated tens of thousands of files from the seized computers and memory sticks. In their report, Interpol published that using their forensic tools, specialists found a total of 48,055 files for which the timestamps indicated that they had either been created, accessed, modified or deleted as a result of the direct access to the eight seized exhibits by Colombian authorities between the time of their seizure on 1 March 2008 and 3 March 2008 at 11:45 am.[4] After further investigation of said databases took place, another independent source found difficulty in accepting the material within the FARC-EP computers. In July 2008, the State General Public Prosecution Office of Ecuador (Procuraduría Geberal del Estado) disclosed that all files under analysis had shown signs of tampering by the Colombian state.[5]
4. Lastly, on December 2nd 2008 Colombian police Captain Ronald Hayden Coy Cortiz revealed that no emails or formal electronic communications were actually found on the laptops in question. Rather Word documents and other easily alterable Microsoft software were the only pieces of data ‘recovered’ from the databases.[6] This directly contradicts Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos’ claim that emails were found on the laptops, which in turn were used as ‘proof’ to arrest Liliany Obando.

In light of the above, we would like to urge that Liliany Patricia Obando Villota be released and that all charges against her be withdrawn. Liliany Obando has done nothing wrong and should be treated as a democratic citizen. An international campaign to free Liliany Obando has begun, to which we are involved. The campaign calls upon all Canadians; individuals, unions, community and civil society groups, development agencies, members of faith communities, academics, students, and concerned citizens to show their solidarity for Liliany Obando. As members of this international campaign we ask you to stop the unjust detention of this important Colombian scholar and human rights proponent.

A brief list of where and with whom Liliany has spoken within Atlantic Canada.

Academic Institutions and Faculty (and students) therein;

• Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada
• Cape Breton University, Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada
• King’s University College, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
• Mount Allison University, Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada
• Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
• University of New Brunswick, Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada
• University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada

Organized Labour

• Canadian Union of Public Employees, CUPE
• Canadian Union of Postal Workers, CUPW
• Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation, OSSTF
• Union of Taxation Employees-Public Service Alliance of Canada, UTE-PSAC
• United Food and Commercial Workers, UFCW

Human Rights Organizations

• World Peace Conference

Faith-based Organizations

• Roman Catholic Diocese of Saint John, New Brunswick
• Sisters of Charity of the Immaculate Conception, Saint John, New Brunswick

In respect and sincerity,

James J. Brittain, PhD                                      
Assistant Professor                                         
Department of Sociology
Acadia University
Wolfville, Nova Scotia
Canada

R. James Sacouman, PhD
Professor
Acadia Centre the Study of Ethnocultural Diversity
Acadia University
Wolfville, Nova Scotia
Canada
 

Notes:
[1] Brittain, James J. and R. James Sacouman. 2008. “Agrarian Transformation and Resistance in the Colombian Countryside,” Labour, Capital and Society, 41(1): 57-83.
[2] Liliany is a respected filmmaker (Sueños Postergados, 2004 and Tras las Huellas de la Resistencia, 2002) and her scholastic accomplishments at the Nacional Universidad de Colombia have raised awareness of the trials and tribulations of Colombia’s poor around the globe (see Beltrán, Miguel Ángel y Liliana Patricia Obando. 2006. “Colombia ¿terrorismo o insurgencia armada?” Fermentum, 16(46): 327-354.
[3] Janicke, Kiraz. 2008. “Colombian regime launches new crackdown,” August 22 On-Line http://www.greenleft.org.au/2008/764/39430 Accessed September 30, 2008; Rodriguez, Alejandro. 2007. “Colombia: FENSUAGRO organiser to speak in Australia,” August 17 On- Line http://www.greenleft.org.au/2007/721/37408  Accessed September 30, 2008.
[4] Interpol. 2008. Informe Forense de INTERPO: Sobre los ordenadores y equipos informáticos de las FARC decomisados por Colombia. OIPC-INTERPOL: Lyon, Francia. pp. 33-34.
[5] Colombia Reports. 2008. “Ecuadorean report says Colombia did manipulate computers Reyes” October 2 On-Line http://colombiareports.com/colombian-news/news/1522-ecuadorean-report-says-colombia-did-manipulate-computers-reyes.html Accessed October 2, 2008; Terradillos, Ana. 2008. “El ordenador del comandante de las FARC, Raúl Reyes, fue manipulado por el ejército Colombiano: Un informe del Fiscal de Ecuador denuncia que el ordenador del comandante de las FARC, Raúl Reyes, fue manipulado por la policía Colombiana” October 2 On-Line http://www.cadenaser.com/internacional/articulo/ordenador-comandante-farc-raul-reyes/csrcsrpor/20081002 csrcsrint_1/Tes Accessed October 3, 2008.
[6] Colombia Reports. 2008. “Police Investigator: There were no e-mails on computer Raúl Reyes” December 2 On-Line http://colombiareports.com/colombian-news/news/2215-police-investigator-there-were-no-e-mails-on-computer-raul-reyes.html Accessed December 3, 2008.

PDF of the affidavit attached

Letter of support by Ontario Secondary School Teachers´ Federation

January 12th, 2009

Alvaro Uribe Vélez
Presidente de la República

We write to you once again with respect to the unlawful detention of LILIANY OBANDO VILLOTA. The Ontario Secondary School Teachers´ Federation respectfully requests that you release Ms. OBANDO VILLOTA to home detention until her case is resolved. Her children are in danger, being followed and harassed on their way to and from school. The OSSTF knows Liliany Obando as a tireless advocate for land, labour and human rights in Colombia and she has been an effective international voice on behalf of Colombian human rights and social justice concerns.

Please be advised that OSSTF, representing 60,000 members in Ontario, Canada, has been supporting FENSUAGRO, a Colombian union of peasant farmers, since 2003. More than 500 Fensuagro activists have been assassinated in the last 25 years for trying to educate and organixe farmers on their rights, with barely a single arrest or prosecution. We are aware that each member of the current Fensuagro Executive has received death threats from the paramilitaries, including LILIANY OBANDO VILLOTA...

(For the full letter, please download the attachment)