Free Liliany Obando

Read in French

Women's Prison, Bogotá, Colombia, August 8, 2009.

To all comrades of the Campaign for my freedom, of Peace and Justice for Colombia – Australia, International Network in Solidarity with Colombian Political Prisoners, Permanent Campaign in Solidarity with Political detainees – Beyond Walls – Colombia, the Canadian Solidarity Campaign with Liliany Obando and all Colombian Political Prisoners, Central American Support Coalition, CASC – Canada, Canada-Latin America Solidarity Association – LACASA, Windsor Peace Coalition – Canada, Campaign for Labor Rights – USA, Justice for Colombia – UK, Thompsons’ Lawyers – UK, Collective 35 – Canada, Committee in  Solidarity with Colombia – Sydney, Colombia Journal, Vancouver Island District Council – VIDC, Canadian Union of Public Employees – CUPE, Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation – OSSTF, National Farmers Union – NFU, Agricultural Workers Union – Paysanne, Unions New South Wales – Sydney, Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union – CFMEU, Maritime Union Australia – MUA, Secondary School Teachers Union – Western Australia, International Committee of Unions Western Australia, Communist Party of Australia, Communist Party of Canada, The Peoples Party – Panama, Communities of Faith, Defenders of Human Rights, Parliamentarians, progressive lawyers, alternative media and journalists, academics and students, Activists for Peace and Social Justice, to my comrades and friends of many struggles, to all people who have accompanied me in Australia, France, United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Venezuela, Brazil, Bolivia and Colombia.

Today, it is a year since my detention, incarceration and the separation from my young children. I am still incarcerated at the "Buen Pastor Women’s Prison" as "inculpated" and waiting for the resolution of my legal situation.

I was the first person arrested within the context of a process against the Political Opposition and personalities committed with Peace in Colombia. This process begins its fabrication from the "Operation Phoenix", on 1st March 2008, when violating the international law, the sovereignty of Ecuador and after committing “war crimes”, the Colombian army and police, illegally removed from Ecuadorian territory electronic equipment and laptops supposedly
attributed to then killed head of the FARC, Raul Reyes.

Based on those alleged evidences, on 22nd May 2008, the Attorney General, Mario Iguarán and the ex-Minister of Defence, Juan Manuel Santos, announced the beginning of a process, the they denominated the "FARC - POLITICA", to which they linked 12 people, nationals and foreigners, among them political personalities, parliamentarians, journalists, academics and other members of the political opposition, who from our respective spaces have worked for
Peace, Human Rights and the Humanitarian Exchange of Political and War Prisoners.

This has clearly been a political process used like a "smoke screen" to deflect the attention of the international community from the scandal of the "PARA-POLITICA" (paramilitaries politics), that has sent behind bars a number of parliamentarians and regional politicians from the coalition of parties that elected and re-elected Alvaro Uribe Vélez as president.

The process against me has been vicious and plagued with illegalities from the beginning. These Illegalities violate the Colombian Political Constitution, the National Penal Code and International Law. They have violated my right to the "presumption of innocence", to a defence, to due process, to equality before the law, to not be accused twice for the same presumed act and to not have the trial changed arbitrarily from one system for judgement to another, nor to mix them as the Prosecutor (Fiscalía) has done. Furthermore I have been exposed more than once to the media.

As if this wasn’t enough, from the beginning the Prosecutor ordered the segmentation of the investigation of the Trial of FARC-POLITICA, thereby violating "unity of the trial". Thus they opened individual investigations, while it is a matter of a the same "act and the same proof" for all of us: the text documents (the Captain of the DIJIN [security police], Ronald Hayden Coy Ortiz, who had the computers in his custody and manipulated the files, acknowledged that
there weren’t any emails) extracted from the "computers" of Raúl Reyes. With this cunning argument our access has been blocked to the totality of the text (Word) documents that have been used as “proof” against us.

That is how matters stand, so much so that the Supreme Court and the Fiscalía should declare the Trial null, not only for all of the irregularities committed but further, as the Colombian legal system lays down, a "proof" obtained illegally has no juridical value.

Parallel to the development of the investigation against me, my defence has made a request to the Public Prosecutor #19 of the Anti-terrorism Unit and the Judge granted me "home detention" to which my children and I have a right while my juridical status was defined. This petition has been denied on six (6) occasions sheltering behind spurious arguments from the Prosecutor such as that I represent "a danger to society", that others can look after my children,
or cynically denying my position as "mother and head of the family", in spite of our having gathered the documents that prove it.

During this year of unjust incarceration I have only appeared on two occasions before the Public Prosecutor #19 of the Anti-terrorism Unit: once before the investigation and the other to expand on the same matter. In the month of April 2009, the Public Prosecutor 19 declared the closing of the investigation and announced the "resolution of the accusation". From that moment the trial passed over to the jurisdiction of Penal Judge 9 of the Specialised Circuit of
Bogotá whose task it is to make the judgement.

On 7th July 2009 I was called to the preparatory audience in which 27th August 2009 was set as the date for the public trial.

Recently, the Supreme Court of Justice decided to shelve the investigation and declare that there was no case to answer in the case of the Senator for the Communist Party and the Alternative Democratic Pole, Gloria Inés Ramírez, finding no evidence to accuse her in trial of FARC-POLITICA. A short while later, the Director of Public Prosecutions recognised publicly that there was no basis either for accusing ex-Miniter Álvaro Leyva Durán, nor for Communist
leader and director of the Weekly VOZ [Voice newspaper], Carlos Lozano Guillén, within the same trial. In the same way it happened with the President of the Alternative Democratic Pole, Jaime Dussán. It was also recognised that the actions of these personalities had been in favour of peace and had been humanitarian acts. Congratulations!

We are witnessing the collapse of this fabricated trial and remain clear before public opinion that "Operation Phoenix" and the subsequent trial of "FARC-POLITICA" have been nothing more than illegal acts, never concerned with rights and that they offend the national conscience. The justice system in Colombia acts in a politicised manner that favours the government of Uribe, with subjectivity and dangerous criteria detrimental to opposition sectors.
This year in prison has been one of long waiting, of difficult conditions for my family, especially for my children, but at the same time it has been a great school of life at the side of my political prisoner comrades. It has been a year of temperance and reaffirmation of principles and commitment.

As a social and political activist, as a revolutionary, I am prepared to assume with dignity, with my head held high whatever decision there may be in my case.

Without doubt the manifestations of solidarity have been essential and I appreciate those I have received from all of you via your messages of moral and inspirational support, your moving letters, the wonderful postcards, your poems and songs, your calls and visits, your articles and interviews, your valiant testimonials and declarations, your generous material support, your letters of condemnation and pressuring to the Colombian authorities and those of
your own countries and for all your initiatives and actions carried out in connection with the campaign for my liberation.

Thank you, too, from my children, my family and myself for having been made to feel we are being accompanied.

The Campaign has also been a valuable opportunity because, by means of my case, which is only one among so many, the reality of the more than 7,200 Colombian political prisoners, our conditions in prison, have become known, made visible and condemned and our demands and our dreams have also become known.

From here, together with my other political prisoner comrades we will continue struggling for the respect of the human rights of all, including the prison population, for the Humanitarian Exchange of the Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War and for the construction of this New Country, inclusive, democratic, at peace with Social Justice.

We will continue counting on you, your company so that we may continue marching together, that your ardent voices will not allow ours to be extinguished, so that your determined actions may break our chains and the bars and that we might pass through these walls of infamy.

Thanks to all of you for giving meaning to the word of solidarity because it is nothing other than a powerful tool in the hands of the people struggling for a better world.

Fraternally,

Liliany Obando

Colombian Political Prisoner
Survivor of the Genocide carried out against the Patriotic Union