|  Dear Supporter,
Did you know that more than 32,000 people have been forcibly disappeared in Colombia and the numbers are rising every day? Not many people in the United States do, so that’s why for Human Rights Day LAWG, and our partner the U.S. Office on Colombia (USOC), is releasing a report that shines a light on the shocking numbers of disappearances in Colombia and tells the stories of the victims and their families’ search for justice.
Click here to read Breaking the Silence: In Search of Colombia’s Disappeared.
For too long, the relatives of the disappeared and the human rights groups that accompany them have labored with too little acknowledgment, protection, and support. In Breaking the Silence, we tell the stories of people like Ana, who has been searching for her brother since he was disappeared by paramilitaries in January 2003. The paramilitaries who took him threatened Ana many times, warning her that if she didn’t stop looking for her brother she would be the next to vanish. But she kept searching anyway. “I just wanted to have his body so at least we could bury him,” she has said. It is long past time for us to start helping people like Ana break the silence.
Will you help us get this information out and start some conversation on this critical issue?
Click here to read the article we wrote about it on the Huffington Post, leave a comment, and then share it with your friends on email, facebook, or twitter! Or do you have a blog? Write a post linking to the report!
 We need to get U.S. citizens talking about the fact that the highest number of forced disappearances in Colombia took place during the first four years of U.S.-funded Plan Colombia (2000-2003), according to official government statistics. The U.S. government has literally spent billions of our taxpayer dollars supporting a military that was responsible for thousands of extrajudicial executions and that collaborated with, or at least turned a blind eye to, paramilitaries responsible for the majority of disappearances—brutal illegal armed groups who destroyed the bodies of their victims, burning them or cutting them with chain saws, sometimes alive, burying the bodies in unmarked graves on ranches, riverbanks or cemeteries, or throwing them into rivers.
It’s time for people to know about this, so please raise your voice this Human Rights Day about this hidden tragedy!
If you have any questions about the best way to get the word out or want to order a hard copy of the report, please let us know.
Best,
Lisa and Vanessa, LAWG Colombia Team
P.S. Haga clic aquí para leer Rompiendo el Silencio: en la búsqueda de los desaparecidos de Colombia en español.
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