Actualidad Colombiana IN ENGLISH

Bulletin No. 390 Index

August 18 – September 1, 2004
Year XXV

Economics
A 'Fatal' Decision Shakes the Economic World

Human Rights
The Code of Penal Procedure: A Lost Opportunity

Politics
The Gallery of Memory

Social Movements
Women in the Post-Conflict

Peace and Conflict
Colombia Without a Process of Peace

Full Bulletin in Spanish and in English (.doc).

A 'Fatal' Decision Shakes the Economic World

Social rights are ignored under the fiscal deficit or budgetary failure argument. The monetary economy will have to give way to the social economy. The fulfillment of social rights, their effectiveness – and more if they are to reach a 'a self-respecting age' – cannot be subordinated to the 'rationality' of mathematical finance

MIGUEL EDUARDO CÁRDENAS RIVERA

Constitutional remedies for a sick economy?

When this past August 10th saw the C-754 judgment of the Constitutional Court declare as unconstitutional Article 4 of Law 860 of 2003, making retroactive from 2004 to 2008 the 'acquired right' to the transitional system established by Law 100 of 1993, the Home Minister, Alberto Carrasquilla, said sharply: “That seems fatal because Congress provided a democratic debate, explanations of the case were made, all the details were given and they decided to wait until 2008 for the transitional system”. And in his consternation Carrasquilla announced that the government will present a new pension reform to be given free to the pensional transitional system, declared unexecutable by the Constitutional Court, because "we are going to continue insisting on the transition for a third time".

The Code of Penal Procedure: A Lost Opportunity

The desire for Colombia to have a secure and fully guaranteed penal system separate from investigatory powers and centered in a public, oral and balanced judgment has been delayed again

Colombian Commission of Jurists

The legislative act 03 of 2002, which reformed the consitutional framework governing penal procedure, as well as the Code of Penal Procedure, was approved to establish a penal system of an 'accusatory' type and a “public and oral judgment, with immediacy of tests, balanced, concentrated and fully guaranteed” (Legislative act 03 of 2002 Art. 2 No. 4). Nevertheless, as was considered in the reforms, these objectives are far from being met. On one side, the necessary balance between the Office of the Public Prosecutor and the defense does not exist, nor do the conditions necessary for the judge to act truly independently. On the other side, the ideal of establishing the judgment as the principal moment within the process is crippled, again, by the powers granted to the Office of the Public Prosecutor, allowing it to evade the procedural stage of the judgment, through mechanisms such as plea bargains. Now we expose the reasons the penal reform does not meet the ideals on which it was inspired.

The Gallery of Memory

Apart from preserving the memory, the victims of violence enter the public space, to speak with the citizens and demand justice

The 9th of August, in the Plaza de Bolívar in Bogotá, the Gallery of Memory was created as a tribute to the thousands of men and women killed in the genocide against the Patriotic Union (UP). Among the victims was Manuel Cepeda Vargas, senator of the UP elected by popular vote, who was assassinated 10 years ago by the military cupola and headquarters of the paramilitary groups. This attack was part of the 'Shock Plan of Gracia', whose aim was to eliminate the surviving leaders of the UP. Since 1985, more than 3000 members of the UP have been assassinated, tortured, disappeared, displaced, robbed and detained arbitrarily. Until today these deaths continued with almost complete impunity.

Women in the Post-Conflict

Eucaris Olaya y Liliana Guarín
Planeta Paz

"A large part of our efforts has been focused on finding an end to the armed conflict in Colombia, without looking any further – at the post-conflict time period. Are we prepared to construct a country in peace if most of us know nothing different from a country at war?" asked one the one of the participants of the International Conference of Women against War, which met from August 10-12 in Bogotá. The event, organized by the Initiative of Women for Peace and the Ruta Pacífica de Mujeres, brought more than 300 women together representing all regions of the country, plus 30 delegates from Costa Rica, Spain, Russia, Georgia, the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, Chile, Bolivia, Mexico, Israel, El Salvador, Haiti, Guatemala and Nicaragua.

Colombia Without a Process of Peace

JESÚS ANÍBAL SUÁREZ M

In reality, Colombia has not been in a profound process of peace that will eliminate the causes that generated the political violence.

A real process of peace demands an agreement in society, allowing it to eradicate the fundamental ideological, political and economic factors that stimulated the armed conflict in the first place.