February 28, 2003
H.E. Dr. Álvaro Uribe Vélez
President of the Republic
Palacio de Nariño
Carrera 8 n° 7-26
Santa Fe de Bogotá
Colombia
Dear Dr. Vélez:
I write on behalf of the American Association of University Professors to register our outrage at the assassination of four educators in your country in recent months. We also note the kidnapping and probable murder of a fifth faculty member in early February. We are astonished to find that the profession of teaching—of working with colleagues and students to expand knowledge and to further human welfare—should have become a life-threatening vocation in Colombia. Clearly, progress in any country depends upon the freedom of its educational system, and nothing could be more threatening to that freedom than the physical danger in which teachers must pursue their work.
We urge your government to make every effort not only to capture and punish those who have committed the horrendous murders of your teachers, but to provide measures that can protect faculty members from such harm in the future. There could be no more critical goal for any government or its system of justice.
Meanwhile, along with our outrage, our heartfelt sympathies go out to the families, colleagues, and students of José Marcelino Días González, Luis Eduardo Guzmán Alváres, Luz Mery Valencia, Maritza Ortega Serrano who have been murdered in cold blood. We speak for, as well, Carlos Eduardo Velandia Callejas—who has disappeared. Please know that the colleagues of these martyrs in the United States stand ready to help the teachers of Columbia in any way that we can.
Yours,
Mary A. Burgan
General Secretary