[Colombian human rights activist Norma Irene Perez was found shot to death in the central province of Meta, the Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights said Monday.]

Rights Activist Murdered in Colombia

Wednesday 25th August 2010, by EFE

BOGOTA – Colombian human rights activist Norma Irene Perez was found shot to death in the central province of Meta, the Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights said Monday.

The mother of four went missing Aug. 7 after leaving a community assembly in La Union, an outlying hamlet in the municipality of La Macarena, where Perez lived.

A body found six days later near La Union was subsequently identified as Perez, the committee said.

The slain woman was a member of the Regional Human Rights Committee of the Upper Guayabero river basin and was among the activists who spoke at a July 22 congressional hearing held in the La Macarena area.

Perez and other speakers used the occasion to present evidence of the existence of a clandestine cemetery holding the bodies of several hundred people, including civilians murdered by soldiers and then presented to their superiors as rebels killed in combat.

With the investigation of the “false positives” – as such killings are known – still in progress, the number of documented victims has already topped 2,000.

During a visit to La Macarena three days after the congressional hearing, then-President Alvaro Uribe referred to the recent presence in the area of “spokespeople ... of terrorism” who sought to discredit the security forces with accusations of rights abuses.

Uribe’s comments, according to the Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights, “put in grave danger” the participants in the hearing, including the now-dead Norma Irene Perez.

Uribe stepped down Aug. 7 after two four-year terms. He was succeeded by his former defense minister, Juan Manuel Santos. EFE

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