US embassy cable - 05BOGOTA4962

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BOGOTA 004962 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/23/2015 
TAGS: PHUM, PREL, CO, UN 
SUBJECT: COLOMBIA: UN HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS 
BRIEFS DIPLOMATIC COMMUNITY 
 
Classified By: Ambassador William B. Wood for reasons 1.4 (d). 
 
 1. (C) Summary:  Louise Arbour, UN High Commissioner for 
Human Rights, visited Colombia May 12-14 and briefed the 
diplomatic community mid-way through her trip, following 
meetings with senior GOC officials.  Arbour and the GOC 
agreed to set a timetable by the end of June for the GOC to 
complete implementation of the 27 recommendations of the 
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), 
most recently presented to the UN Commission on Human Rights 
(CHR) during its last session.  Arbour agreed to adjust the 
timetable if it was found to be overly ambitious.  Like her 
interview in the leading Bogota daily El Tiempo preceding the 
visit, Arbour reiterated concerns that the current draft of 
the Law for Peace and Justice was pursuing peace at the 
expense of justice and did not provide sufficient incentives 
for beneficiaries to tell the complete truth about past 
crimes.  She also raised concerns about the extent of the 
paramilitary presence in the southern Bogota suburb of Ciudad 
de Bolivar.  It appears that Arbour's principal purpose for 
visiting was to bolster support for the work of her office 
here.  End Summary. 
 
2. (C) On May 13, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights 
Louise Arbour briefed the diplomatic corps at the end of the 
Bogota portion of her May 12-14 visit to Colombia.   Earlier 
in the day, she had met with President Uribe, Vice President 
Santos, Foreign Minister Barco, Minister of Defense Uribe, as 
well as with the Inspector General ("Procuraduria"), Human 
Rights Ombudsman ("Defensoria"), the Constitutional Court, 
and several groups of NGOs and other members of civil society. 
 
3. (C) Arbour opened by praising the work of her office in 
Colombia, calling it a professional, sophisticated operation, 
"fully supported" by the chair statement adopted at the 61st 
session of the UN Commission on Human Rights. 
 
4. (C) Arbour described Colombia as a "sophisticated 
democracy with significant capacity."  She was most impressed 
with the workings of the Constitutional Court and the Office 
of the Inspector General, calling these operations Colombia's 
most impressive mechanisms for democracy.  She said the 
court, in particular, was way ahead of many similar 
institutions elsewhere. 
 
5. (C) Arbour characterized her meetings with GOC officials 
as excellent.  She said the GOC was committed to fulfilling 
its "obligations" stemming from the July 2003 London 
conference, including the 27 OHCHR recommendations, albeit 
some more enthusiastically than others.  Her goal in meeting 
GOC officials was to develop a specific timetable to make 
progress on implementing the OHCHR recommendations and 
indeed, both sides had agreed to set a timetable by the end 
of June.  Such a mechanism to monitor progress would ensure 
that there would be neither surprises nor disagreements on 
where the GOC and OHCHR stood by the end of the year, before 
the next CHR session.  Arbour expressed a willingness to 
adjust the timetable if it became clear it was too ambitious. 
 
6. (C) Prior to her arrival, in an interview with Colombia's 
leading daily El Tiempo, Arbour criticized the GOC for not 
responding to paramilitary cease-fire violations and for not 
placing strong enough demands on the paramilitary groups in 
peace negotiations and in the Law for Justice and Peace 
before the Congress.  Arbour told the diplomatic community 
that she had had a lively discussion with President Uribe on 
the draft law, in particular whether it struck the right 
balance between peace and justice.  Arbour reiterated to the 
group that, while she understood the difficulties in finding 
the right balance between peace and justice, she shared the 
views of the Inspector General, Human Rights Ombudsman and 
non-governmental organizations that peace was being pursued 
at the expense of justice.  Peace and reconciliation had to 
be accompanied by justice and accountability. Paramilitaries 
had to be prepared to pay a reasonable price for reduced 
sentences, she said. 
 
7. (C) Arbour said her most serious concern was the provision 
of the law that offers the possibility of benefits, even if 
information subsequent to the offering of benefits indicates 
involvement in additional crimes not mentioned in the "free 
declaration."  The law offered modest penalties for human 
rights atrocities but the incentive to tell the whole truth 
was non-existent. A legal framework that does not reward 
telling the whole truth was going in the wrong direction. 
(Note: the Embassy has recommended to GOC officials that the 
text be modified to add a requirement saying that the 
beneficiary must prove that the omission of facts from the 
free declaration was not motivated by an attempt to conceal 
or deceive.  That would still leave the decision to extend 
further benefits in the hands of the court but it would 
provide a stronger incentive for a complete free declaration. 
End Note.) 
 
8. (C) In the context of criticizing the demobilization law 
as not doing enough to dismantle paramilitary networks, 
Arbour expressed particular concern about their presence in 
Ciudad de Bolivar, a southern Bogota suburb she had visited 
earlier in the day.  Community leaders described an 
atmosphere of intimidation and social cleansing, including 
denying young people freedom of association (septel).  (Note: 
Embassy is investigating this report.  The local office of 
the International Committee of the Red Cross has reported 
paramilitary presence in the area but not to this degree. End 
note.) 
 
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COMMENT 
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9. (C) Arbour came to Colombia to support the work of her 
local office, which she noted repeatedly had been strongly 
endorsed by the recently-adopted chair statement at the 
Commission on Human Rights.  Her talking points were derived 
from the chair statement and the earlier report to the CHR. 
There was virtually no give-and-take between her and the 
local diplomatic community, many of whom share our 
frustrations with the adversarial relationship of the office 
to the government that invited it in.  In a brief meeting 
with the Ambassador following her presentation to the 
diplomatic community, she revealed considerable bias in favor 
of the views of OHCHR director in Colombia Michael Fruhling 
(to be expected), the Inspector General, the Human Rights 
Ombudsman and various non-governmental organizations. 
Although she privately labeled GOC presentations as 
impressive but bordering on a "beauty contest," she was not 
prepared to accept that other interlocutors were pitching 
their own views equally hard.  She treated their suspicions 
of GOC intentions as facts rather than opinions.  She also 
strongly criticized the Peace and Justice draft law, but 
freely admitted that the international community was placing 
more demands on the Colombian process than on other peace 
processes in Africa and the Middle East. 
WOOD