Luis Gilberto Murillo

Luis Gilberto Murillo Urrutia is the former governor (1998-1999) of the Department of Chocó in Colombia. He was the first Afro-Colombian to be elected as governor of the predominately Afro-Colombian-populated department. However, he was removed from office by a federal court in 1999 after revelations that the Colombian Liberal Party had forged over 3,000 votes during the 1998 gubernatorial election, handing the election to Murillo, who was running as an independent; the court decided to recount the forged votes and handed the office to the Liberals.

Murillo fled into self-imposed exile in the United States after he was kidnapped by local paramilitaries in summer 2000 [citeweb|title=Luis Gilberto Murillo Urrutia profile|url=http://www.globalexchange.org/getInvolved/speakers/64.html|accessdate=2008-04-23] . He later testified in 2007 before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs' Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere on US-Colombia relations, with support from the Congressional Black Caucus [citeweb|title=Testimony of Luis Gilberto Murillo-Urrutia, Former Governor, State of Choco, Colombia, Senior Fellow on International Policy, Phelps Stokes Fund|url=http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/110/mur042407.htm|accessdate=2008-04-23] . He currently serves as a Senior Fellow on International Policy for the Phelps Stokes Fund and as Senior Consultant for Lutheran World Relief, and continues to work for Afro-Colombian civil rights and environmentalism while in exile; he is also a critic of the Uribe government's encouragement of palm oil cultivation for biofuel production, due to fears that this will encourage the rise of employment of paramilitaries by biofuel manufacturers who desire to take over lands illegally [citeweb|title="Biofuel gangs kill for green profits"|url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1875709.ece|accessdate=2008-04-23] .

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