Garces

Luz Divia Franco Garces (“Garces”) was in charge of the “social action” for the Foundation of Businesses for Peace (“FUNDAEMPAZ”), 1 an organization which promotes human rights in Colombia and speaks out against guerilla violence by the National Liberation Army (“ELN”). Garces and her two younger daughters (the “petitioners”) fled Colombia on March 5, 2001, after a series of events left them in fear of their lives. Their concerns began in October 2000, when Garces and her family started to receive telephone death threats several times each day as a result of her membership in FUNDAEMPAZ. During the same time period, Garces was also aware that other members of FUN-DAEMPAZ had received similar death threats and that some had actually been killed or abducted. Then, during the last week of February 2001, an unknown assailant shot into the petitioners’ home. Finally, on March 2, 2001, a man and a woman in a taxicab drove up to Garces’s home while she was sitting on the balcony at the front of her house. The woman pointed a gun at Garces, who fled into the house. The taxicab then drove away. The petitioners had had enough and boarded a plane bound for Spain several days later, but en…