As degradation and political hostility continue to deprive Colombia of any system of law and order, Jeremy Fleming talks to Liliana Uribe Tirado about working as a human rights lawyer in one of the world's most conflicted areas

Colombia has been ravaged by a decades-long violent conflict, involving guerrilla insurgencies, drug cartels and gross violations of human rights.

Inequality has provided a natural constituency for left-wing insurgents.

Lucrative returns from drugs and kidnapping now dominate the rebels' agenda, and have largely replaced ideological motivations.

At the other end of the political spectrum are right-wing paramilitary groups, sometimes in the pay of drug cartels and landowners, and backed by elements in the army and the police.

The paramilitaries are particularly strong in the north-western regions, and target human rights workers and peasants suspected of helping left-wing guerrillas, street children and other marginal groups.

The Law Society's international policy executive on human rights, Mel James, says: 'Colombia is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a human rights lawyer.'

In the last 18 months, the Law Society President has written to the Colombian authorities on no fewer than six occasions to express Chancery Lane's strong concerns about the situation for human rights lawyers in the South American country.

Sometimes lawyers are arrested and they have been the victims of political killings for taking cases against the authorities.

So the arrival in London late last month of Liliana Uribe Tirado to deliver a paper on human rights in Colombia to an international seminar conducted by the Law Society was met with interest.

A lawyer working for a legal collective - Corporacion Juridica Libertad - in the war-ravaged city of Medellin, Ms Tirado's arrival was an opportunity for UK lawyers to hear at first hand of the difficulties faced by lawyers on the ground in Colombia.

Ms Tirado qualified 13 years ago, and ten years ago she joined the collective of three men and four women lawyers.

She says: 'We decided to get together because, at that time, the state began to apply anti-terrorist statutes against trades unionists, peasants and people living in marginal parts of the city.

They were being taken to court so we decided to get together to defend those kinds of people.'

She says that since it was the first time anti-terrorism legislation had been used in Colombia, it was applied 'very flexibly' by the authorities.

'Any number of things could be brought within the definition of terrorism, including rebellion generally, and many people who were in opposition to the policies of the state were processed for anti-terrorism.'

Ms Tirado explains: 'During our existence we have denounced violations of human rights, and sections of the military.

Massacres, murders, disappearances and torture have been perpetrated by military and paramilitary groups and we have been stigmatised by the government authorities and military authorities.

'Many of our lawyers who defend political prisoners are intimidated in the military installations where they go to visit prisoners.

They have the finger pointed at them and are permanently exposed to set ups by the police with witnesses who are paid to turn evidence and inform against those we represent.'

She says that in cases brought against the state for reparations for victims of human rights abuses, lawyers for the Colombian ministry of defence 'deliberately avoid coming to agreements'.

Colleagues who are constantly working in conflict areas have to overcome paramilitary roadblocks.

Ms Tirado herself has fled from Colombia on one occasion: 'I was taking part in a public trial where it was announced that the activities of the paramilitaries in the region were encroaching on the place of the trial.'

She says that the message she wants to send on behalf of her collective of lawyers is that they will not give up working despite the fact that 'the risk is permanent not only for me but for my colleagues'.

But what does she say to the argument that, since she and her colleagues are acting for those sections of society that oppose the state, they too represent a quasi-political force? 'No.

We and other social organisations in Colombia are seeking remedies through legal means and recourse to the constitution.

We are standing up for human rights to defend the rule of law.

That is why we question the state, which is the party that is violating the norms.

We are seeking for the state to be legitimate, which only happens if it guarantees the human rights of its citizens.'

Ms Tirado says of utmost importance for her collective and others in Colombia is 'that the situation in Colombia is recognised [in the west] and gains support and solidarity of organisations that can help'.

She says the British government should repeatedly call on the Colombian authorities to respect human rights.

As to the danger of being so outspoken, she says: 'It is very positive for us to make contact with other bodies to seek support, and it makes us feel internally strengthened in what we are doing.'