Other months:
* Juni - august 1999
* September 1999
* Octuber 1999

Archivo de articulos más importante de ANNCOL y la prensa oficial

Paramilitary kill the son of a threatened human rights activist

Profoundly dismayed, we are calling upon human rights organizations asking their solidarity, and we request from the Colombian authoritorities that all those responsible for the assassination of YENER MARTIN COTE BLANCO, 26 years old, may be punished.

The persecution to which the COTE BLANCO family has been subject due to the noble and altruistic attitude of some of its members towards the defense and promotion of human rights, is a well known fact to many human rights organizations as well as some Colombian national and regional authorities.

Recently, we have being accompanying CARLOS COTE, father of the victim and President of the ANDAS Cucuta Section, due to the continuous harassment, persecution and threat to which he and his famility have been subject; no possitive response aimed at guaranting the life and professional activity of the victim has been given to us.

The assassination of the son of our collegue took place on November 6, 1999, morning time, in San Cristobal Venezuela, to where he had gone searching for protection; the death was provoved by a bullet impact he received from unknown persons.

In the light of the foregoing, we request the human rights organizations' solidarity towards our organization and the COTE family, and ask them to denounce these facts before the Colombian government, demanding all those responsible to be punished.

We ask the Colombian government: - To guarantee the life and labor of human rights defenders. - To carry out a complete and impartial investigation on these events, bringing those responsible to trial and punishing them according to legislation in force. 
 

Arguments provided by Equipo Nizkor:

1. This type of assassinations are perpetrated with intimidation purposes and they constitute a clear violation of the Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, known as the "Human Rights Defenders Declaration".

2. Article 2.1 of this Declaration states: "Each State has a prime responsibility and duty to protect, promote and implement all human rights and fundamental freedoms, inter alia, by adopting such steps as may be necessary to create all conditions necessary in the social, economic, political and other fields, as well as the legal guarantees required to ensure that all persons under its jurisdiction, individually and in association with others, are able to enjoy all those rights and freedoms in practice."

3. Article 9.5 reads: "The State shall conduct a prompt and impartial investigation or ensure that an inquiry takes place whenever there is reasonable ground to believe that a violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms has occurred in any territory under its jurisdiction. "

4. Article 12.2 reads: "The State shall take all necessary measures to ensure the protection by the competent authorities of everyone, individually and in association with others, against any violence, threats, retaliation, de facto or de jure adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of his or her legitimate exercise of the rights referred to in the present Declaration."

Please, contact the Colombian authorities urging them to: 1) Fully comply with the Human Rights Defenders Declaration.

2) To undertake an effective investigation so that those responsible for the assassination of YENER MARTIN COTE BLANCO may be brought before a criminal court.

3) To take all necessary measures in order to effectively protect the activists from ANDAS, given that on September 30, 1999, another activist belonging to the same organization, Rogelio Alarcon Morales, was also killed.

4) Please, in your messages make a clear reference to the seriousness implicit in the fact of utilizing any constraint mechanism to limit the individual freedoms protected by the Colombian constitution.