Interview with Almudena Bernabeu

We did another interview with a lawyer who lives in San Francisco, but travels the world doing human rights work.

In today's interview, she mentioned how some of the paramilitary in Colombia view their killing as a game. She said that the Military will often collect villagers into a central location, and then the paramilitary comes in and murders the village. What is destroyed in a few hours can take years to mend.

She went on to mention that the gov't of Colombia has had to Reconciliation and Justice tribunals, but that in 2008, during the middle of testimony, 13 of 18 perpetrators were extradited to the US, effectively stopping their confessions.

Almudena Bernabeu
International Attorney, Center for Justice and Accountability
http://www.cja.org/

Transitional Justice in Colombia and Impunity

We have just started doing work on a new program about Transitional Justice in Colombia. We spoke with Javier Ciurlizza, Director of the Colombia Program at The International Center for Transitional Justice. He spoke so clearly about the social construct in Colombia, and what really perked my ears was when he talked about the sense of impunity that the former thugs have. He said,"I can't say this is a criminal government, but impunity has been the basis of many actors in the country."

This program is set to air Feb 24, 2009. Check our website for for more information.