Am Ri E S Ty INTERN-ATI 0 NAL January 2( (111 Vol
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Am ri e s ty INTERN-ATI 0 NAL January 2( (111 Vol. 30 / N EWS Adis- • COLOMBIA People of the Cacarica River Basin in boats they will use to return and reclaim their land DISPLACED COMMUNITY PREPARES TO RETURN Colombian authorities responsible for their "disappearance" of at least 70 members of holnes. all` people of the Cacarica River safety. "IThey want specific measures to be their community be brought to justice: "Flow T WOBasin \TARS :ire .preparing X FIE.R BEIM. to return DRIVE :Ind\ FRONI !HEIR implemented, including action by the can I live in peace if my oppressors remain rebuild their lives. After months of enforced security forces to prevent incursions bv army- free?", asks one. inactivity, hying in temporan-, overcrowded backed paramilitary groups or guerdlla "This is a struggle for what we want to be shelters, Wilboull :My privacy, they are forces. They want civilian law enforcement and for what they will not let us be-, says one determined to overccmle the dangers they agencies to be on hand to help prevent f'ather of four. talking about the land he was face in order to regain their lands. human rights abuses by the armed groups. forced to abandon. "It is land which offers us About 3,8110 people were forcibly displaced They arc also demanding that those everything a family needs: but there are those in a.joint army-paramilitary operation in responsible for the killing and that stand in our way." Ianuary 1997. They were refused help when The people of the Cacarica River Basin are they turned to locally stationed troops, aml asking for international help and support for were told: "the paramilitaries are in charge of their return. Raising the profile of this the operation". Most sought refuge in the community can help to ensure their safety. towns of Turbo and Bocas del Atrato in the Both sides in Colombia's armed conflict must northwestern department of Antic)quia. A know that the eves of the outside world are group that fled to Panama was later upon them. repatriated bv (',olombian and Panamanian You can help, by expressing concern for :tuthorities, in violation of their rights as the safety of the displaced community and refugees. calling on the Colombian authorities to take .Approximatelv 2.100 men, women and all measures deemed appropriate by the children insist that they will reclaim their community itself, to guarantee its safety.. Send lands. In October 19819 a group of 80 people appeals to: Senor Presidente Andres travelled to the region to prepare for the Pastrana, Presidente de la Reptiblica. Palacio return of the community to two settlement de Narino, Carrera 8 No. 7-26, Bogota, camps — ,Vneva I 'ida (New I tfe) and EV111'071:0 Colombia (fax: +57 1 286 7434/286 6842). ell MA ( I lope in Godl. (:onstant death threats Write also to your own government, raising from paramilitary groups, together with the your concerns for the displaced community presence of guerrilla forces in the region. as it returns to its lands, and urging it to raise serious concerns l'or the group's safety. monitor efforts made by the Colombian 'Elie community's retimi takes place in the authorities to guarantee its safety. midst of war, and panimilitary and guerrilla Send messages of support to the Displaced tOrces arc active in the (:acarica River Basin — commimities of the Cacarica River Basin, c/o ;in arca of economic and military strategic Connsión Intercongregacional de Justicia y importance. Community members hold the Pat„NA 31861, Bogota, Colombia. 4 •41 4* ...e" ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES Children retrieve toys from the rubble of their destroyed home DEMOLITION OF PALESTINIAN HOMES Fit ArRASH. I W1FF 1 -R .AND ;ire then strictly enforced. resulting in Barak. In October 1999. for example. )( their 10 chiklren watched in despair demolition orders. Mam owners face the two houses in East Jerusalem where june 1998 as the house they had built additional punishment of substanfial families had lived for Years were on their OW11 I.and near liebron in fines tiff illegal development and a bill to destroyed. In East Jerusalem alone. Khirbet Qilges W:ts destowed l'or the coVer the costs of demolition. 10,000 homes, housing a third of the third tine. Flie Israeli soldiers who Isriebs.ire treated differently. Thev Palestinian population. are threatened oversaw the demolition beat Vustif and hase few problems ohtaining building hy demolition orders. Suhur and dragged them across the permits and even if they build homes By targeting Palestinians almost ground. The family was left destitute ;Ind without authorization, their houses are exclusively for house demolitions, land is now living in a lent. rarely, if ever. demolished. confiscation and denial of building Mans thousands of Palestinian Hopes that demolitions of Palestinian permits, Israel is breaching international families have suffered similar fates since homes would end with the signing of the humanitarian and human rights treaties 19117. when Israel occupied the West 1993 Oslo peace tigreement have proved that it has promised to uphold. The Bank and the Gaz,i Sti ip. Palestinians are unfOunded. Sin«' 1995 .u-ound 5,000 policy shtmld be ended immediately. systematic:11h denied permission to build people, including 2,000 children, have Emu- further infOrmatitm. see Israel and homes. (Well 011 land that has belonged been made homeless by the bulldozers. the Occupied Territories: Demolition and to their families for generations, so they 'Hie policy has contimied under the new dispossession — the destruction of Palestinian build "illegally-. Nanning prohibitions government of Prime Minister Ebud houses (AI Index: MDE 15;59/99). SOLOMON ISLANDS ETHNIC VIOLENCE REACHES UNPRECEDENTED LEVELS A!IR \ PEALFForce /NM/RIM; coordinated by. the Commonwealth arrived in the Solomon Islands, Southwest Pacific, in October 1999, to help end violent ethnic unrest on the maM islaiid of Guadalcanal. At least 13 people are loutwn to have beer killed and at least 11 reported to be missing, but the real figures are likely to be far higher. Several hundred houses have either been burned down or looted. I lundreds of armed inen, calling themselves the 'Isatarnbu Freedom Movement', have been terrorizing mostly Malaican settlers iicross rural (:uadalcanA since September 1998. Police roadblock controlling traffic in and out of Honiara More than 32,00)) people, predominantly machetes. covering her with his Mil 110Ch.. no access to medical assistance or from Malaita Province, have since lett There have also been reports of emergency. fOod supplies. their homes and villages on Guadalcanal. excessive force being used by police. In Al is (alling for independent and "Scared villagers and displaced September 1999, gunfire from a police impartial investigations into human families have given horrific accounts of boat destroyed the roof' of a leaf hut, and rights abuses committed by all those both indiscriminate police shootings and eyewitnesses told AI how two unarmed involved in the conflict. By November, cruel killings by armed groups known as teenage boys were killed by police bullets one police officer had been charged 'militants': said Als Australia-Pacific fired from the same boat. One of them with the murder of a suspected researcher. was shot in the back. 'militant', but no other deaths had been In one attack attributed to 'militants', AI delegates who visited the country. in properly investigated. fleeing children saw their father hacked to September found hundreds of families For further information, see Solomon death when he protected his Hured who had fled from such shootings Islands: No end to ethnic violence (ASA three-year-(Vld daughter from the blows of sheltering in remote locations. Many had 43;01 00). lan non 2000 101.10 No. I .1NINFSIY INTERNATION11, NEWS • • D D Focus \' •ID A ,, ENCOURAGINGWORDS... wish that I could meet each and everyone of you personally, to say thank you for the support you gave me during my darkest days in prison.' execution at the last nraulte when an amaied senior t tnd sentenced In death for a murder she gmernment official took a c ouple of sackfuls of A hadNlOINF nothing Fl I. ( ,Il10 \ IIINdo with.Vt \st ARRUS-11-.1).She still suffers10R I t -RI It letters from AI members down to the prison to meet nightmares :mil is inixious :trout the luture. She him. The President of the DR( has since said that visited the International Secretariat and .AI 1..rated there is a morraoritml on exec utions pending Kingdom in Octolx•r to meet some of those who discussion on tibolitiot I of the death penalty. had campaigned fOr her release from a I obanese Fwo itimbabweanrournahsts visited the IS in prison. She spoke ithivinglv of ',March 1999. They had been her ordeal, ()Cher arrest. of the harassed and tortured and ph 5xical and mental torture Were dle SIlbjeCt Of a \\WA inflicted 11p011 11(1 bY 11C1 earlier that month. I hev captors, ;Ind iil her hopes and told staff at the IS: "The fears rimy she has been ordeal we went through released. while We Wel.e ill the hands .Antoillette Chahin featured of the military is something in a 41),ildwide Appeal ( \MA) ill unspeakable itild very ,Ntigust 1997. She had been shocking. We have managed sentenced to death in.ltomary to regain our strength, and 1997 — this WaS Subsequently take this opportunity to commuted to life thank ,Al and the :Medical • imprisonment with hard labour Foundation for Victims of — on charges of involvement in 'rorture fOr the second to a murder. T he primary none tissistalice that was • evidence against her was the extended to us.- confession of het two co- Elsewhere the news was defendants, allegedly extracted less po!..itiNV.