Washington--"In 1982 Pablo Escobar, the greatest narcotics trafficker in Colombian history, was elected to Congress as a deputy representative with 16,250 votes—less than 1% of the votes cast for Senate seats that year. 8,000 votes, nearly 8% of those cast in the Senate race, were found to have received finances from the cartel of Cali. Nearly 25% of the votes for Senate seats were distributed illegitimately, through a coalition of armed traffickers, paramilitary combatants and politicians," asserted researcher Claudia López before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR).

"This demonstrates that the problem is growing. Today 25% of political power is taken by means of arms, compared to just 1% 25 years ago," López emphasized.

In her powerful testimony, López asserted that "between 25 and 35 percent of publicly elected positions in Colombia is captured by the violent means of paramilitary groups." In further conversation with El Espectador she argued that president Álvaro Uribe has done little or nothing to bring an end to the alleged backing of those who are linked to paramilitary groups.

"I have been studying the paramilitary influence in politics for three years and all this time I have wondered why each time we denounce a politician for paramilitary links, the President of the Republic is the one who responds to us and attacks us. Ideally he would refuse the support of these politicians, refuse to work with them in congress, refuse to have anyone with links to illegal armed groups in his governing coalition, and refuse to endorse them through the parties that support him," affirmed the witness.

Carlos Franco, director of the Presidential Human Rights Program, spoke on behalf of the government. He responded that the problem of paramilitary influence in politics in Colombia "has been treated as a true threat and attacked with an effectiveness and speed we have seen in no other country," and recalled that charges have been brought against 77 congresspeople for links to paramilitary groups, 9 of whom have been found guilty.

In his testimony, León Valencia, director of the Nuevo Arco Iris Corporation, argued that the government is impeding justice: "Remember that Judge Iván Velásquez has become the nearly number-one enemy of the president in the judicial branch of government. That is because he is investigating paramilitary influences in politics," he assured.

Judge Velásquez attended the hearing, but declined to comment to media representatives.

Meanwhile, representatives of other non-governmental organizations, such as Reiniciar, the Corporation for the Defense and Promotion of Human Rights, asked for an "urgent and decisive" intervention by the IACHR to stop the extradition of paramilitary combatants to the United States. They argued that truth and justice are left undetermined for victims when accused paramilitary combatants leave the country.

Amidst the rain of criticism of the Colombian Government, the Colombian Ambassador to the Organization of American States, Camilo Ospina, explained that these sorts of accusations have a clear agenda that is working against the interests of the Uribe administration in Washington.

"To be just 20 blocks from the United States Congress is a form of impacting public opinion in the United States. We are defending the national interest in the effort toward a [U.S. Colombia] free trade agreement, and they want this to happen," Ospina affirmed at the close of the nearly 10 hour day in which discussion ranged from paramilitary politics to the state of freedom of the press, labor organizing rights, and the protection of indigenous people.