Javier Giraldo
Javier Giraldo Moreno (born 1944) is a Colombian Jesuit priest and human rights activist, known for his support of people in rural Colombia who have been adversely impacted by the ongoing Colombian conflict, particularly those living in Urabá Antioquia in the northwestern Antioquia Department. He is the founder of the Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz (English language: Interchurch Commission for Justice and Peace).
Early life
Giraldo graduated with a degree in philosophy from the Pontifical Xavierian University in Bogotá in 1969; he went on to obtain a master's degree in theology from the same institution in 1978. He also studied at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University in Paris, France in 1982.[1]
Giraldo has cited Colombian priest and liberation theologian Camilo Torres Restrepo as among his inspirations.[2]
Activism
In 1988, Giraldo founded the Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz, initially comprising of 45 Catholic congregations. The organisation supports Colombians caught in the crossfire of the country's internal armed conflict, particularly Afro-Colombians, Mestizo Colombians, and Indigenous peoples in Colombia.[3]
Between 1989 and 1991, he served as the Latin America secretary for the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal, an international human rights organisation founded by Italian senator Lelio Basso, during its session on impunity and crimes against humanity in Latin America.[4]
Giraldo has also contributed to Colombia Nunca Más (English: Never Again Colombia), a database compiling human rights abuses in Colombia.[5] Between 1996 and 2010, he recorded 201 crimes and murders committed by armed forces, paramilitaries, and guerillas in San José de Apertadó in Antioquia.[6] He published a book on the issue of impunity, Colombia: The Genocidal Democracy, in 1996, in which he estimated that between 1988 and 1995, over 60, 000 Colombians were killed due to internal conflict.[7][8]
Giraldo has been a vocal advocate for the victims of the San José de Apartadó massacre, in which five adults and three children were killed by members of the Military Forces of Colombia and the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, a far-right paramilitary and drug trafficking group, despite villagers having declared themselves as neutral in the Colombian conflict. Giraldo named Lieutenant Colonel Néstor Iván Duque as being responsible for the killings and cited it as an example of the armed forces working alongside paramilitary groups; Duque subsequently complained that Giraldo had slandered him, prompting a criminal investigation into Giraldo.[9] Giraldo had previously been accused of slander in 1997 by Harold Bedoya Pizarro, a commander in the Colombian National Army, which Human Rights Watch called an attempt to silence critics of the armed forces.[10]
Giraldo has been critical of attempts made by the Government of Colombia to broker peace with paramilitary groups, guerilla groups and crime syndicates as part of the ongoing Colombia conflict, including the drafting and passing Justice and Peace Law of Colombia|Justice and Peace Law in 2005. Giraldo has cited the link between paramilitary organisations, the National Army of Colombia, and the Colombian government, as evidence that paramilitarism remains present in the country, and feels it will not end while it is so heavily entwined with the army.[11] Giraldo accused Álvaro Uribe, then-President of Colombia, of giving legitimacy to paramilitaries, particularly those linked to the Illegal drug trade in Colombia|illegal drug trade, as well as supporting politicians associated with them.[12]
Giraldo has criticised the Federal government of the United States government for supporting the Colombian conflict, which he has stated was in order to enable American companies to exploit Colombia's reserves by weakening its people, citing the large wealth gap in Colombian society, as well as the abundance of poverty amongst the population.[7][8]
In 2010, graffiti emerged in several locations in Bogotá making death threats against Giraldo, including muerte a Javier Giraldo (English: "death to Javier Giraldo".[6] This followed the publication of his figures estimating that over 60, 000 Colombians had been killed as a result of paramilitary and governmental activity.[8]
In 2014, Giraldo became a member of the Historical Commission on the Origin of Conflict and its Victims, implemented by the Colombian government to address the legacy of the Colombian conflict; though he has since stated that the conflict is not over and has accused the government of continuing to coexist alongside paramilitary and guerrila groups.[13]
Recognition
In 1997, Giraldo received the John Humphrey Freedom Award in recognition of his human rights activism.
References
- ↑ "Resume: Javier Giraldo Moreno". Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación. Retrieved 6 November 2022.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ↑ ""Camilo fue mucho más que un guerrillero": Javier Giraldo". Semana (in español). 13 February 2016. Retrieved 6 November 2022.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ↑ "Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz – Interchurch Justice and Peace Commission". For Peace Presence. Retrieved 6 November 2022.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ↑ Johnstone, Lesley (6 September 1997). "Equipo Nizkor - El CIDHDD de Canada Otorgo el Premio John-humphrey a la Libertad a Javier Giraldo y Justicia y Paz de Colombia". Equipa Nizkor. Retrieved 6 November 2022.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ↑ Barrero Cuellar, Edgar (2010). Memoria, silencio y acción psicosocial: reflexiones críticas sobre por qué recordar en Colombia (in español). Cátedra Libre Martín-Baró & Fundación Mundos Posibles (1st ed.). Bogotá. ISBN 978-958-98548-1-5. OCLC 747086123.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Menaces de mort contre le Père Jésuite Javier Giraldo, défenseur des droits humains en Colombie". Comté pour les Droits Humains en Amérique Latine (in français). 1 June 2010. Retrieved 6 November 2022.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ↑ 7.0 7.1 Giraldo, Javier (1996). Colombia: the genocidal democracy. Monroe: Common Courage Press. ISBN 1-56751-086-8. OCLC 34651413.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Kovalik, Dan (26 June 2010). "Colombia's "Genocidal Democracy" May Have Claimed Over 150,000 Lives". HuffPost. Retrieved 6 November 2022.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ↑ "Investigan al Padre Javier Giraldo por falso testimonio". NotiCentro 1 CM& (in español). 7 November 2009. Retrieved 6 November 2022.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ↑ World Report 1997: Colombia. Human Rights Watch. 1997.
- ↑ ""El paramilitarismo sigue vivo"". Semana (in español). 15 April 2016. Retrieved 6 November 2022.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ↑ "Javier Giraldo: "El Gobierno de Uribe dio estatus político al narcotráfico y el paramilitarismo"". PBI Estado Español. Retrieved 6 November 2022.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ↑ Herrera, Martha Cecilia; Cristancho Altuzarra, José Gabriel; Pertuz, Carol Juliette (2018), Bevernage, Berber; Wouters, Nico (eds.), "Memory Institutions and Policies in Colombia: The Historical Memory Group and the Historical Commission on the Conflict and Its Victims", The Palgrave Handbook of State-Sponsored History After 1945, London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 727–740, doi:10.1057/978-1-349-95306-6_39, ISBN 978-1-349-95305-9, retrieved 2022-11-06
External links
This article "Javier Giraldo" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical. Articles taken from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be accessed on Wikipedia's Draft Namespace.