Colombia’s ambassador to the OAS walked out of an NGO presentation on human rights at an Inter-American Commission on Human Rights hearing on Thursday, because he “had not been informed of the content of the presentation.”
Before his withdrawal, Colombian Ambassador to the OAS, Luis Alfonso Hoyos, read a statement to the IACHR (an autonomous organ of the Organization of American States). Hoyos told the Commission that Colombia had requested information on the content of the presentations on various occassions but had not received any.
Hoyos said that the petitioners had violated the rules of the IACHR and that Colombia was therefore unprepared and unable to respond to their arguements.
Among the topics covered by the NGO presentation were the illegal wire-tappings carried out by intelligence agency DAS, alleged State crimes committed by the army and police, gay rights and the situation of Colombia’s war refugees.
Viviana Krsticevic, one of the petitioners from the Center for International Justice and Law (CEJIL) told El Tiempo she was “surprised and concerned” by the governments attitude.
“The government is pretending to not have information that it does have. If arguments have not been presented it’s because the revelations [such as DAS espionage] only became known this year,” Krsticevic said.