The Colombian Minister of Defense accused the Colombian Commission of Jurists and another human rights group of falsely reporting guerrilla fighters killed in combat as civilian casualties. After two years of refusing to provide evidence and judicial orders, the new Minister of Defense was found in contempt of court and was forced to retract the accusations. He acknowledged the Ministry has no evidence that the rights groups falsely reported combat deaths as civilians killed outside of combat. While the retraction only came after wasting opportunities to recognize earlier mistakes, the Commission hopes officials will stop making libelous claims against human rights defenders.

1. COMISIÓN COLOMBIANA DE JURISTAS
Organización no gubernamental con estatus consultivo ante la ONU
Filial de la Comisión Internacional de Juristas (Ginebra) y de la Comisión Andina de Juristas (Lima)
Minister of Defense finally rectifies accusations against the Colombian Commission of
Jurists and the Coordination Colombia-Europe-United States
On August 29, 2007, the then-Minister of Defense, Juan Manuel Santos, publicly singled out the
Colombian Commission of Jurists and the Observatory for Human Rights and International
Humanitarian Law of the Coordination Colombia-Europe-United States as organizations registering
in their reports guerrilla members dead in combat as civilians out of combat. He argued that “many
times we are seeing guerrillas dressed as civilians, and then they are shot down and immediately, which is to say almost
automatically, they accuse: Look, extrajudicial executions. And immediately that goes into that list of that
organization you mentioned.”
In view of the seriousness of such statements, and of the stigmatization that they represent for the
work of human Rights defenders in the country, from the very moment of these declarations,
Minister Santos was requested to prove his affirmations or to recant them. After several requests,
and including several judicial orders, the Minister, in spite of not being able to prove his assertions,
repeatedly refused to rectify. On July 13, 2009, after two years of insistence in the judicial arena and
recurrent calls by tutela judges that the rights of those involved be respected, the Minister in charge of
National Defense, Freddy Padilla De León, after a declaration of contempt of law by the Superior
Tribunal of Bogotá on July 7, 2009, had to rectify the claims made by the Government through his
predecessor and recognize that:
“To date, this Ministry has no knowledge of individual cases registered by the Colombian Commission of Jurists
and/or the Observatory for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law of the Coordination
Colombia-Europe-United States in which members of a guerrilla group having been killed in combat have been
registered and presented as civilians dead out of combat.”
In spite of the fact that this retraction comes after the Ministry wasted multiple opportunities to
recognize that it had made baseless assertions, and only as a result of the declaration of contempt of
court, we take the opportunity to insist on the need that high government officials stop making
libelous affirmations against human rights defenders, which not only violate individual rights but,
much more seriously, affect the activity of defense of human rights in Colombia and, as
consequence, the full and effective respect, protection, and guarantee of such rights for all
Colombians.
Bogotá, July 27, 2009
For further information:
Gustavo Gallón Giraldo
Colombian Commission of Jurists
Phone: 376 8200, ext. 115
Calle 72 Nº 12-65 piso 7 PBX: (571) 3768200 – (571) 3434710 Fax : (571) 3768230
ccj@coljuristas.org www.coljuristas.org Bogotá, Colombia.