COLOMBIAN ACTIVIST POINTS OUT RIGHTS CRISIS

Human rights have been sacrificed in Colombia to a sterile policy of
militarizing the U.S.-financed war against the cocaine trade, a spokeswoman
for a coalition of Colombian human rights organizations says.

Olga Gutierrez of Coordinacion Colombia-Europa, wrapping up a nine-city
speaking tour of the United States, said that media focus on the cocaine
trade has obscured her country's abysmal human rights record.

"The situation is beyond serious; it's critical. Every day in Colombia, 10
people are being killed for political reasons -executions, "disappearances'
and "social cleansing,'." she said in an interview.

Twenty-six human rights activists have been killed in the past two years,
Gutierrez said. "We are publicly threatened, and the military says that we
are members of the guerrillas, which is just not true Š.. We condemn crimes
committed by the guerrillas as well."

Gutierrez expressed the hope that when President Clinton meets Oct. 28-29
with Colombia's newly elected President Andres Pastrana, he offers more aid
in the area of human rights, less in military hardware.

Heavy U.S. financing of the Colombian army has only produced an increase in
cocaine production and trafficking, while contributing to the corruption of
the nation's institutions, Gutierrez said.

"There is an obvious, close connection between the military and the
right-wing paramilitary groups, which are linked to and get funding from
cocaine traffickers, so it's just a circular process," she said.

Pastrana is saying all the right things and seems to have made progress in
bringing about a truce, if not real peace, between government forces and
the nation's principal guerrilla forces, she said. "But he has not said
anything about human rights."

Gutierrez attributes Colombia's wretched human rights record in large part
to the special treatment accorded the military, granting it authority to
give practical support and cover for paramilitary groups, while disclaiming
responsibility for the crimes they commit.

Conflicting rulings by Colombian courts have enabled military officers
suspected of committing crimes against civilians or of abetting crimes by
paramilitary groups to escape prosecution in civilian courts, she said.

Coordinacion Colombia-Europe, which comprises 50 national, regional and
local human rights organizations, this month received the Letelier-Moffitt
Memorial Human Rights award from the Institute for Policy Studies in
Washington. "All of the Coordinacion's member organizations have worked
courageously amidst threats, pressure and killings, and every group has
suffered from political persecution," the Institute said. The award honors
the memories of former Chilean Ambassador Orlando Letelier and human rights
activist Ronnie Moffitt, who were assassinated by a car bomb planted by the
Chilean Secret Service in 1976.