Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to thank all the witnesses for coming before us today.
I'm going to have questions for each one of you, so I'll ask you all to be fairly brief.
I'll start with you, Mr. Ferro.
I found your comments a little concerning, just given President Uribe's attacks against human rights activists, as most recently reported by the BBC, where he talked about “...those entrenched interests that in serving human rights just end up promoting the policies desired by those in collusion with terrorism”. So he's connecting human rights organizations with terrorist organizations.
We also have the recent story that's broken on the actions of the Colombian secret police, which you would know as the DAS. The 10-year-old daughter of one particular journalist who was targeted, Claudia Julieta Duque, was threatened with rape and they threatened to have her cut to pieces. She mentions that she received 70 threats in one day from the Colombian secret police.
She says that the president, referring to President Uribe:
...had a speech against those opposing him.
Those speeches were simultaneous with the actions of the secret police against us. There is a clear relation between a speech that accuses and a secret police that attacks.
So I wanted to ask you, Mr. Ferro, whether you were aware of these comments that have been made by President Uribe, and of the actions of DAS, the Colombian secret police. Or this is news to you?