Letter to the Chairman of the Committee
from Jeremy Corbyn MP
FCO ANNUAL HUMAN
RIGHTS REPORT—COLOMBIA,
LAND MINES
I understand that the Foreign Affairs Select
Committee is currently looking at the new Foreign Office report
on Human Rights and that the Committee will be, at some point
in the future, publishing a response to the report.
I would like to express to you and your fellow members
of the Committee my bewilderment at one line of argument that
was put forward in the report in relation to landmines in Colombia.
In what appears to be some sort of justification
of the Colombian Army's ongoing use of landmines, the report argues
that the minefields maintained by the Colombian security forces
"pose no threat to the civilian population".
This is an outrageous position for the FCO to
take and an insult to those who have been killed or maimed after
stepping on the landmines laid by the Colombian Army including
the five children and two adults from the Nukak Maku indigenous
group who, according to UNICEF, were badly wounded after straying
into an Army minefield in the Colombian region of Guaviare.
I fear that the argument put forward is indicative
of the Colombia section of the report more generally which appears
to try to minimise criticism of the conduct of the Colombian State
vis-a"-vis the human rights crisis in Colombia. This
is deeply worrying especially when so many of the reputable human
rights organisations working there state that in fact the Colombian
State is responsible for a majority of all of the abuses that
are occurring.
I hope that the Foreign Affairs Committee will
agree to call on the FCO to withdraw their absurd comment on Army
minefields in Colombia and to make it clear to the Colombian regime
that, in line with their responsibilities under the Ottawa Convention,
they must remove all landmines planted by their security forces
as quickly as possible.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
18 May 2009
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