The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) welcomes the fact that Mr. Oscar Tulio Lizcano, a former member of the Parliament of Colombia, escaped from a FARC guerrilla camp along with a FARC member. Mr. Lizcano was taken captive in August 2000.
“This is very good news indeed. We are delighted that the agony has finally ended for Mr. Lizcano and his family and that he can get the medical treatment he so desperately needs. News about his appalling conditions of captivity and precarious health should nevertheless remind us that some seven hundred hostages are still suffering at the hands of the FARC. The IPU therefore calls again on the FARC to release all remaining hostages immediately and put an end to their ordeal”, said the President of the IPU Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians, Canadian Senator Sharon Carstairs. She added that the Committee has worked for several years in support of the release of several members and former members of parliament taken hostage in Colombia.
The IPU helps legislators to represent their constituents freely, safely and effectively. In 1976, it established the Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians, which has since examined cases in over 100 countries and, in many instances, helped to provide victims or those at risk with protection or redress. This has taken a variety of forms, such as the release of detained parliamentarians, reinstatement to a previously revoked parliamentary seat, payment of compensation for abuses suffered, investigation of such abuses and effective legal action against their perpetrators.
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