The situation I have been describing lasted from March 2 to 15. Immediately afterwards, the compañeros were accused of being active elements of the National Liberation Army (ELN) in the area. On this charge, they were transferred to the Villahermosa jail here in Cali. The majority of them were released on Saturday, April 14. However, ten people are still being held, and an operation has been mounted against them based on the claim that they were caught "red-handed," that is, with guns and dynamite. The situation is extremely strange and confused, because, in fact, of the ten still in prison, only nine are members of A Luchar. The other seems in fact to be linked to the drug traffic. The army is using his arrest to besmirch the A Luchar members. This seems to be confirmed by the fact that the place where this person was picked up (with arms and dynamite) happened to be very close to the union headquarters in which the A Luchar leaders were arrested. The campaign of persecution has led also to the confiscation of the organization's publication, which had legal recognition from the Ministry of Administration, and to considering any person with a copy as liable to arrest.
OULD you explain the form taken by the offensive that the army mounted against A Luchar activists in the Cali region?
On March 2, Manuel José Bonnet, commander of the Third Brigade of the Southwestern region, headquartered in Cali, unleashed a campaign of persecution against members of A Luchar, a campaign organized and coordinated by the shadowy Army Intelligence Service (AlS), and which the brigade commander himself built up through the mass media. This campaign was directly related to A Luchar's position toward the present electoral process, in which it is calling on people not to vote.
The campaign of persecution led to raids on trade-union offices and homes of trade-union and political leaders in the region. In all, about 70 compañeros, in groups of 20, passed through the brigade's facilities. These premises are fitted out for torture. The walls are lined with tractor tires, and the roof is made out of zinc. The space is divided up into small rooms.
One is set up for electrical torture. In the early morning hours, they strip people, put them into baths and apply electric shocks. Another is set up for torturing people on a wooden horse. They set on people, tie them up and begin to spreadeagle them and beat them. There is another that serves for simulating executions. They bring people there blindfolded, and begin to fire into the air or poke an empty pistol into their chests and pull the trigger.
All the compañeros were beaten, and some, especially those with higher ranks in the regional union and leaders or the regional leadership of A Luchar, were 14 tortured. They were all kept blindfolded • for three days, their hands and feet tied, International Viewpoint #185 • May 21, 1990 without food and exposed to the sun, which in this climate can mean temperatures of around 34 degrees centigrade. As a result of all this, on the second day, some compañeros fainted, and in this condition they were kicked and trampled by elements belonging to the AIS.
On the third day, when they were given food, pentothal (otherwise known as truth serum) was put in the hot chocolate given to some. Under these conditions, in which people's physical faculties are worn down (above all those that have to do with their consciousness) and in which under pressure they may say whatever you want them to say, the compañeros were interrogated.
One of the compañeros most tortured was Harold Weiss, a prominent member of the regional leadership of A Luchar. On one occasion, they took off his blindfold to show him that they were putting a bullet in the pistol. Immediately putting the blindfold back, they took out the bullet or changed the pistol, an operation that Harold of course could not be aware off. Without a bullet in the chamber or with another pistol, they started "playing" Russian roulette with him.
Another compañero, a highly respected trade-union leader in the region, was buried up to his neck and tortured by the head of the AIS, a truly sinister figure, whom everyone calls "the priest." When he tortures people, he puts on a priest's robe and resorts to mystical language in order to justify his human wretchedness.
Compañera Elizabeth Suárez was tortured and raped. Other compañeros were taken from the Battalion headquarters in vehicles that use various license plates (which makes them hard to recognize) and which have polarized-glass windows (which makes it impossible to see who is inside). In these vehicles they were taken to high points in the city, and then their
• What was the response of the various political and social organizations?
The solidarity of the trade-union movement proved to be extremely important. There was a public outcry; marches were organized, and there was even a strike in the first week of these events. The unions in the factories most affected - Good Year Oxo and FIDELPA (which makes metal frames) — managed to organize one-hour strikes. The regional organization United Confederation of Workers (CUT) organized many mobilizations.
We think today that the mass movement is strong and can do a lot. After the general strike of October 27, 1988, the movement went into a defensive phase. In these conditions, this was a good show of solidarity.
International solidarity also played an important role. The compañeros say that during the trial they were told that international pressure (from bodies that defend human rights, Amnesty International and so on) worked in their favor. The judge himself recognized this fact. • What happened to you?
I was assigned by the A Luchar Executive Committee to offer legal help to the compañeros arrested. In carrying out this duty, I went to the civilian authorities to demand better treatment for the compañeros. In the beginning, I managed to
BUENO... JYA ESTAN LiSTAS LAS ARMAS? LiSTAS! LiSTO EL LiBRETO? LiSTO! ¡ACCION! ycic:
avoid being arrested for circumstantial reasons. But they started following me.
At 7:45 a.m. on March 27, I was getting ready to take Avianca Flight 202 from Cali to Bogotá. I even managed to check in and get through the screens. The line was very slow, however, and at one point I needed to go to the bathroom. When I entered, I was surrounded by three men armed with machine guns. They were dressed in civilian clothes, and identified themselves as belonging to the Third Brigade. "You are Daniel Libreros," they said, adding immediately, "We have come for you." I reacted according to the advice given for such cases. First, I asked on what charge they were arresting me, and when we left the bathroom, I shouted, "I am Daniel Libreros, and they are arresting me arbitrarily."
Unfortunately, when we came out the people were already in the airplane. Moreover, although it was a national flight, the plane left from the international runway, a part of the airport normally deserted. As a result of all this, no one heard me (although the investigation that the compañeros carried out that same afternoon showed that a worker laying blacktop had been aware of the events). The military were able to take me out of the airport quickly.
I was put in the cab of a 1981 Chevrolet pick-up truck with polarized-glass ENTONCES EMPECEMOS... ¡CAMAR UCES!..
COLOMBIA windows, and an open back. Two of them got in with me, and the third rode in the back. They started driving around through the whole city and trying to intimidate me.
"What should we do?" they asked each other. "Should we kill him once and for all?" After about half an hour of driving around, they took me to the Battalion
Headquarters.
I had a bag with books and some magazines (Newsweek, Time, Inprecor, International Viewpoint), as well as a copy of the writ that we had presented to the civilian authorities in protest against the treatment to which the compañeros had been subjected. The military men started going through the bag carefully looking for telephone numbers and addresses. Luckily, I had neither.
Then, they took down my personal information, and made me sign a form normally filled in by everyone who is going to be tortured. It is a document in which you state that you are in perfect conditions in the Battalion headquarters.
So, when people ask for you, the military just say something like "We cannot present this person, but you can see the form in which the one concerned declares that he or she is perfectly well."
Since 1 was aware of the way they use this form, I told them that I was not signing it, that I would do so when I left the
Battalion. I told them besides that I demanded guarantees, and that I wanted to know the legal circumstances of my detention in the Battalion headquar ters and what I was being charged with.
The characters who had arrested me and another one who was in the headquarters shut themselves up in the office of a Colonel Alvarado (1 managed to read the name on the door) to discuss what to do after my refusal to sign the form. Shortly afterward, they came out, and along with three others put me in the same pickup truck and took me about two kilometres to the end of the Battalion base. They put me in an abandoned room (as shown by the dust everywhere). It was soundinsulated, like a radio room, that is, insulated so that the screams of those tortured cannot be heard outside.
They took out a table and made me sit in front of it. A man in civilian
R clothes began to interrogate me. I found out later,
15 after asking the imprisoned compañeros who
)
"Are the arms ready?" "Ready!" "And the script?" "That's ready too
"LIGHTS — CAMERA — ACTION!
(from A Luchar - referring to Colombian military frame-ups of leftists
COLOMBIA had directed the interrogation, that it was the notorious "priest. When this characthe notorious ter questioned the compañeros, he never showed his face. He questioned them while they were blindfolded, or wore a hood. But he always showed his face to me. I think that was because, in one way or another, they had already decided to kill me. I think they made that decision when they shut themselves up in this Alvarado's office, because there were no witnesses to my arrest, a fact that would have made it very difficult to prove that I had been arrested by the army. • So, why didn't they kill you?
Well, the character started asking me personal questions again. That day, I had a meeting planned with the minister of the interior to discuss the case of the arrested compañeros. When I mentioned the date, my interrogator smiled. "If you like", I told him, "call and check that we were going to meet". To that, he answered by saying that he wasn't going to ask me any more questions, because he was convinced that I was not going to implicate any compañero. In fact, I reiterated that I had no intention of making any kind of statement as long as I was not given guarantees and as long as I was held incommunicado.
The "priest" then started going through my books and magazines, asking me questions and making comments. Immediately afterwards, he said, "Look, we are holding you here as the political boss of the ELN in the whole area. If we torture you or kill you, it is because that suits us. It is not to get information. I am not going to ask you anything more about the ELN. I am convinced, and that conforms to the experience of the Battalion, that guerrilla chiefs never 'sing' because they are conditioned for that. What we do is torture the intermediate cadres to get them to say who the political leaders are. And all the intermediate cadres we have tortured have told us that you are the ELN's regional political leader. We are going to act on this information. Right now we are discussing with the brigadier general what decision to make."
Afterwards, he asked me what I thought about the political situation in the country, and then he started making comments trying to show me that he really knew what was going on in the country, the situation of the left and so on.
In the midst of this scene, another character came in with two pepsi colas. Just seeing them reminded me of what they often do to hide their crimes. They get detainees to take a drugged drink, take them out on the highway, murder them and then claim they died as a result of criminal attacks. So, I only pretended to take the drink (imagine me at 34 degrees centigrade, shut up in a wooden room and with my nerves on edge). Even after just 16 that my interrogator was moving away 16 wetting my lips and tongue I began to feel that my interrogator was moving away International Viewpoint #185 • May 21, 1990 from me, to start to see him as if he was 50 meters away and surrounded by circles and stars. Imagine the sort and quantity of drug that they put in!
This lasted about 20 minutes, 20 very difficult minutes, because they were a struggle between consciousness and unconsciousness. I knew that if I lost consciousness, I was finished. I concentrated all my physical and mental capacity so as not to lose consciousness. The "priest" saw what was happening, and started asking me stupid questions about perestroika and glasnost. Really, the only thing he wanted to do was to see whether the drug had started to take effect.
After about 20 minutes - think how strong the instinct for self-preservation is! - the character said that he was going to stop me. He did that, and led me to the only spot in the room where a bit of fresh air came in. I breathed deeply, and finally felt that the worst was over. I went back to the table and asked him why he didn't drink his pepsi cola... "I am not thirsty, he said, but you can drink yours."
In a little while, a terrible meal arrived (I suppose it is the same thing they give the soldiers). Obviously, after the experience of the soft drink I had no intention of taking even a mouthful.
The interrogator resumed the conversation, talking in generalities about the situation in the country. I talked in the same terms. Suddenly, he told me: "The problem with this country is that people have not thrown themselves into the arms of the Lord, Christ our Lord." After this, he plunged into a really violent mystical religious state. He started to talk to me about the Epistle of Saint Paul, about St. John, the Baptist; about the Apocalypse, Sodom and Gomorrah (he said that Colombia was a sort of Sodom and Gomorrah and that I was going to turn into a statue of salt), and so on.
Uncovering his face (which reconfirmed my suspicion that they were thinking of killing me), he confessed to being the head of the AIS; he said that he was 44 years old and old enough to retire but wanted to continue in the Service "because God, our Lord, has put me in this Service." Suddenly, he asked me, "And you, Daniel Libreros, do you know why God manifested himself in this base at just this moment and not before?" I answere that I didn't have the slightest idea. "Because you have been called to the realm of eternity."
In view of this situation, I asked if I could pose a question. "Ask it," he said. "You are going to kill me, isn't that so?" "Yes, we are going to kill you. We have to kill you. You know that this is a war. The decision has already been made." He went on to say that he was going to give me Extreme Unction, and took out a book normally used by people who belong to a Protestant sect that has its center in Los Angeles, California (I imagine that it is linked to the Ku Klux Klan and the rightist groups in the US.) He opened the book, and asked me to read a selection from Saint Matthew on death.
I was shocked by his answer that they were really going to kill me. You join the revolutionary movement thinking that as a revolutionist you may die at any moment. But it is something else to accept it as an imminent reality. So, I was faced with a personal dilemma, a process, you might say, of self-destruction, of having to accept dying in full physical and psychological health. In these circumstances, I refused to read the indicated passages.
Then, he blessed me in the style of a Catholic Extreme Unction, saying that he hoped that the prophets would go with me, that I would achieve freedom in the Divine Judgement, and so on. He promised to make sure that my family would not suffer at the painful moment of getting the news of my death. He also said something very significant. He recognized that excesses had been committed on the premises but that "the Lord will understand it because this has happened in the context of a war." Finally, he asked me to bless him. In the state I was in, my answer was that I was not going to do it. In the face of my refusal, he flew off the handle and walked out of the room.
Immediately, another person came in (who I later identified as the chief of torture and one of those who raped Elizabeth). He started to go through my books and magazines (I suppose in search of some clue that would connect me with the ELN). After this, he told me that he had also finished his task and asked me to keep my things in the bag.
As soon as he had finished, a man came in who said his name was Martínez and that he was a visiting lawyer for the regional prosecutor's office. He asked me, "Under what charge are you being held on these premises?" I answered that I did not know under what charge they arrested me. "They are holding me totally incommunicado."
"But what are they accusing you of?" he insisted. "I don't have the slightest idea," I reiterated. "Personally," he said, "I am opposed to the army assuming powers that don't belong to it. What do you want?" I asked him to get in touch with my family and my compañeros of A Luchar in Bogot. • How do you explain the fact that a lawyer for the prosecutor's office turned up right away?
Well, it's a bit complicated. The A Luchar compañeros were waiting for me at Bogot airport. When they saw that I did not come on the Avianca flight, they got worried and immediately called my mother (who had accompanied me to the Cali airport). Later, they asked in the Avianca offices, where they denied knowledge of me, although my name appeared on the screens. They went to the civilian authorities and to the army. Both denied
WE ARE HERE TO DEFEND DEMOCRACY! holding me.
The compañeros put on pressure and got the prosecutor's office lawyer to come directly to the Battalion's base. On arriving, he went first to Hernández, the secretary general of the Brigade, who denied knowledge of me. He said that they had not arrested any Daniel Libreros, and that he should look somewhere else. Then he went to Alvarado, who also denied knowing about me.
The lawyer then asked them to let him into the detention cells. Obviously I was not there, because they intended to "disappear" me. Then he asked them to let him look into the little parallel room, where he knew that they held people from the April 19 movement (M-19) and other left groups, when they had a presence in the region. I wasn't there either. He went back with Hernández, and asked for a card saying that Daniel Libreros was not being held in the Battalion base. And Hernández gave it to him! His intention was to make me disappear! (Later I asked the lawyer to give me the card, and of course he didn't. They have even threatened to kill the prosecutor).
When Martínez left the Brigade base, he met a noncommisioned officer, who asked him what he was doing there. The lawyer answered that he was "looking for Mr. Daniel Libreros." The soldier, certainly unaware that a decision had been made to have me disappear, told him that I had been held here since 9:00 a.m. Did the lawyer find me totally by chance? As we say here, it was a real miracle!
Immediately, Martínez went back to Alvarado's office and told him that he knew perfectly well that they were holding me, and that there was no reason to go on denying it. In view of this situation,
Alvarado had no alternative but to accept the fact and to start making up stories
("we are drawing up a memorandum to clarify his juridical situation" in order to justify holding me for eight hours without producing me.
Martínez then drew up a statement for the DAS (the secret police), took responsibility for me, and took me to the DAS offices. There they locked me up for four
AND IF THE LEFT WIns? days in a horrible dungeon (a tiny cell, without a mattress, with a toilet inside, which forces you to eat while breathing the odor of excrement, infested with mosquitos, and so on.)
Finally, they could not find anything to accuse me of. There is no charge against me. The arrest was therefore totally arbitrary. Even so, the DAS took a very strange attitude. It recognized there was no problem, and that they were going to release me, but they only did so four days afterward. I suppose that their objective was to wait for a relaxation of the political pressure brought to bear by the compañeros of A Luchar and by various social and political organizations.
Once they had managed that, I believe their intention was to take advantage of the weekend — when all the legal authorities are closed - to take me back to the Battalion base to torture me and perhaps "disappear" me. On Friday, the DAS chief, a retired colonel, told my mother that if the Brigade wanted me, he could not object, because it had ordered my arrest.
Fortunately, there was never any let up in the pressure brought to bear by the A Luchar compañeros. They went to the offices of the Ministry of Administration itself and to the doors of all the Colombian and international organizations that defend human rights. The trade-union movement took the same attitude through the CUT. The compañeros of the Fourth International played a very important role, because they organized an international campaign with wide repercussions, getting statements from governmental bodies in several countries as well as from organizations that defend human rights. Under all this pressure, without authorization from the Brigade, the minister of the interior took responsibility for releasing me.
When I came out, nonetheless, the DAS offered me a personal escort, arguing that the army unit that had arrested me might kidnap me again. I suspect that this same unit is behind the activity of the paramilitaries in the region. After my release, two trade-union leaders from the Yumbo
COLOMBIA I SAID DEMOCRACY 1502/28 region (outside Cali) "disappeared." I am sure that they are in the clutches of the kidnappers, torturers and murderers of trade-union, political and people's leaders, of defenders of human rights, the same people who have even threatened to kill the prosecutor.
I refused the personal escort and left accompanied only by Martínez, the lawyer who rescued me and in effect saved my life. He went with me to my home. In the following days, however, I continued to get various sorts of threats. There were telephone calls, and the truck in which they held me was parked outside the door of my mother's apartment for the whole weekend following my release.
I think that my situation remains precarious, since they started out with the idea that I was going to disappear. They are perfectly aware of the fact that I know the chief of the Intelligence Service, the chief of torture. They never took precautions; they never took the trouble to use a hood. They even gave personal information.
When I made my statement, I gave a description of these people, and the A Luchar companeros who had been held agreed that these were in fact the people who headed the campaign against the organization, who arrested them, kidnapped them and so on.
We reported this whole situation to the governmental authorities in Bogotá. In fact, the problem is not confined to individual persecution.
restricting the rights of A Luchar to exist as an organization. We want to remind international public opinion that in Colombia there are no guarantees of the right of political activity outside the bounds established by the regime, that is outside murderous para-militarism and militarism and a bipartisan system closely linked to them. Setting up a union in
Colombia is an act of real heroism, because union leaders are persecuted and murdered. Recently, a common grave was found in Córdoba containing the remains of 20 peasant leaders. Three A Luchar compañeros have also been arrested and wrongfully accused of being involved in 17 burning a bus. * May 21, 1990 • #185 International Viewpoint
BRITAIN abortion rights fai abortion rights fails "WOMEN [have been regarded] as little more than flowerpots in which future generations of children, preferably boy children, are reared". (Conservative MP Theresa Gorman during the parliamentary debate on abortion.) ON APRIL 24 the British parliament voted for the first time for 23 years on women's rights to abortion. Prior to the votes, which took place because the Thatcher government made a concession to the anti-abortion lobby by allowing government time for new legislation to be considered, the pro-choice movement feared that a substantial attack on the existing law might be carried. In fact the outcome was not a restriction of legal abortion, but in some respects at least, a liberalization of the law. This result was a massive defeat for the anti-abortion lobby. ANNE KANE voted against the final amendment proposed to the abortion law — to set back the the anti-abortionists for a number of years.
This success for the pro-choice movement lay in bringing the reality of the majority view that women have a right to decide on abortion, to bear on parliament. This was achieved despite difficult odds arising from the confusing context of the attack, the weight of medical opinion supporting a cut in the abortion time limit, considerable hostility from the leadership of the labour movement, and initial public apathy.
It involved a major campaign involving pro-choice women's groups, backing from women in the trade unions, and support from Labour MPs. It built on previous campaigns on the same issue - for example against the attempt two years ago to introduce an 18 week limit on abortiors by Liberal-Democrat MP David Alton.
This battle was the sharpest test for legal abortion in Britain since the passage of the 1967 abortion act, which substantially decriminalized abortion and made it possible - though it was not a "right" -for women to obtain legal abortion with the agreement of two doctors on a wide range of grounds.
The ferocity of the attack on abortion rights this time came from the fact that the anti-abortionists were given backing by Thatcher herself. She had personally intervened to ensure that a vote on abortion could be attached to a bill on the government's "Human Fertilization and Embryology Bill", which meant that unlike previous attacks raised by individual MPs, this time the amendment was ensured lime in the legislative proceed- ensured time in the legislative proceed.
W HILE the new abortion law
Flowers the general time limit for legal abortion by four weeks, to 24 weeks, other amendments adopted mean that later abortions will continue to be available to exactly the groups of women who receive them now. They are covered by the two exceptions to the 24 week limit adopted by parliament - for foctal abnormality and "grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman" — which are allowed with no upper limit.
Possibly the most significant step was the vote to separate the 1929 Infant Life Preservation Act from the new abortion law. The 1929 Act's statutory ruling on "viability" of the human foetus puts the onus on doctors to prove that a foetus was not viable, and that the abortion had taken place before the 28th week - the 1929 Act's limit for the "presumption of viability". This has been used to threaten doctors, who might perform an abortion in good faith under the 1967 abortion act but then be challenged legally under the 1929 act. This has limited the willingness of many doctors to perform late abortions.
The 24 week limit with exceptions had the backing of the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, on the grounds that, due to advances in medical science, a presumption of viability should have 18 been more accurately fixed at 24 weeks. While the pro-choice National Abortion International Viewpoint #185 • May 21, 1990
Campaign (NAC) clearly rejected thesc arguments about viability, as not relevant to women's right to terminate a pregnancy, the medical profession's view did initially push a substantial section of moderate pro-choice opinion - for example the charities that run abortion clinics — in the direction of favouring a cut in the existing time limit from 28 to 24 weeks. However lack of clarity in the debate meant that it was not at all clear that this same section of opinion understood that the medical profession also favoured wide exceptions to this limit and the decriminalization of abortion.
Tactics of anti-abortionists backfire