International Trade committee  As I said, PBI doesn't have an opinion on the free trade agreement itself.

International Trade committee  Colombian activists often draw a comparison with impunity. When crimes go unpunished, it opens the door to them being committed again. With a free trade agreement, they see support for government policies, meaning that the door is open to the policies being repeated. In the case of Colombia, the criticism is that the policies that have been put in place have not succeeded in preventing people's basic rights from being violated.

International Trade committee  You are asking for examples of the denunciations, the señalamientos, that can affect the safety of the activists. Here is one example: a threatening e-mail was sent to several organizations in Colombia, social organizations, some of which we have been personally accompanying for a number of years.

International Trade committee  As I said, I think human rights defenders in Colombia believe it is a very dangerous business to take an unconditional approach to free trade with the country; that's obvious. Now, organizations over there have tons of recommendations around different issues. All of them know very well what they're talking about, around the extrajudicial execution, for example.

International Trade committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, I would like to inform you that, in my presentation, I will, for convenience, refer to Peace Brigades International as PBI. I would like to thank the committee for inviting PBI to present to you today. PBI is an organization that works to protect human rights defenders who are threatened because of their political work on human rights and unpunished crime in the armed conflict in Colombia.