Colombia: Who
Is Committing
The Abuses?
By James J. Brittain
08 November, 2004
The
Green Left Weekly
For
more than four decades, Colombia has been in the grip of a civil war
between the people and the state. Through this time, the state has capitalised
on laws and decrees that have enabled the formation of paramilitary
forces. These forces surreptitiously cooperate with the military to
attack oppositional social organisations created by the people.
The Colombian government
has creatively used the paramilitaries as an instrument to combat supporters
of social movements, thus enabling the state (and the United States
government, which militarily and economically backs the conflict) to
be shielded from international condemnation.
Therefore the bulk
of human rights abuses appear not to be caused directly by the state,
but are carried out through the perceived external forces
of the paramilitaries. This bipartisan military configuration has allowed
the Colombian administration to circuitously support abuse against the
Colombian populace without being seen as the direct perpetrator.
The civil conflict
has included a war against large sectors of the population (politically
active unionistto s, left-of-centre politicians, students and campesinos,
to name a few). The Colombian government views these people, and many
other conscious members of Colombian society struggling for equity and
respect, as a threat its legitimacy and control. They are deemed collateral
that is hindering the political and economic interests of the elite.
There has been an
outright attack against human and civil rights impacting on not
just individuals, but the collective population. Some of the daily realities
for critics of the administration led by President Alvaro uribe include:
* The legalisation
of detention without cause or warrant (for example, the detention since
February of Luz Perly Cordoba Mosquera from the social organisation
coalition FENSUAGRO);
* Rural and urban
unionists being systematic targets of threats, torture, and murder (for
example the murders of union members in Arauca in August); and
* The implementation
of political genocide (for example, the assassinations of members of
the Patriotic Union (UP)); and violent intimidation aimed at restricting
political opponents (for example murders of members of the Colombian
Communist Party, and the Bolivarian Movement for a New Colombia).
Along a secondary
road in Huila, anti-guerrilla units (who have been linked to the government-sponsored
paramilitary groups) stop all vehicles, conduct searches and immediate
interrogations, which is not a new phenomenon. What is new is that the
soldiers have begun a campaign of intimidation by handing out flyers
indicating how those stopped ought to vote. If the people within the
locality do not vote the way expected, then the soldiers will know in
what region dissenters are located. Tremendous atrocities can follow.
Similar activities
have also been seen on the streets of Bogot . Just outside the Plaza
de Bolivar, brigades of armoured government four-wheel drives have been
seen with their windows down, while armed guards hold signs telling
people on the street to lift their thumbs in the air as a sign of political
support. State-controlled TV cameras film the supportive
onlookers.
Recently, a tyrannical
campaign akin to that which took place during the 1980s and early 1990s
against the Patriotic Union has also begun. The UP was a left-of-center
party that gained more democratic support than any leftist party in
Colombian history. In the mid-1980s, the Colombian government, large
landowners and the economic elite recognised the growth in support for
the UP and in response, paramilitary forces initiated an immediate campaign
of political extermination against party leaders, members, secretaries,
and even people who passed out flyers for the party. By 1996, more than
4000 people had been intimidated, brutalised, tortured, raped or murdered.
In the past month,
there were reports that more than 70 members of the Colombian Communist
Party (PCC) have been murdered over several weeks. It is feared that
this is the beginning of another political genocide to limit leftists
from the spectrum of Colombian politics and society, thus enabling the
enhancement of the present neo-conservative economic and militaristic
policies of the Colombian state.
These and other
issues have received limited analysis, if any, and there has been a
failure to publicly identify who is perpetuating the human rights abuses.
Many media will only say that most violations are a result of the civil
war and the actors therein. However, when you actually examine the human-rights
abuse data, you recognise that this is a tremendous misrepresentation
of the reality within Colombia.
Recent findings
have demonstrated that the state-sponsored far-right paramilitaries
are the principal architects of violence, torture, rape, and murder
throughout the country.
Numerous popular-media
outlets, journalists, and academics have failed to identify the Colombian
government as the true executor of abuses against non-combatants. Under
the paramilitary pretense, the state has co-perpetuated violence, intimidation
and acts of murder. The Colombian state and military in collaboration
with the so-called United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) have
perpetuated the preponderance of the human rights violations against
the population.
The numbers are
as follows: the left wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-Peoples
Army (FARC-EP) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) are responsible
for about 5% of all internal violations and the state/paramilitary are
responsible for roughly 95%.
The state and paramilitaries
have demonstrated on numerous occasions tremendous ferocity against
the Colombian rural and urban population. In spite of this, the domestic
and international popular-media and other institutions have chosen to
under-examine their role in committing violence against the people the
state is delegated to protect.
This misrepresents
who is committing the human rights abuses. Presenting these issues openly
is one way in which the international community can come to understand
what is taking place within Colombia and what the people of the country
are struggling against; a strategic campaign to silence social and political
movements that are in opposition to the economic, political, and militaristic
policies of the Uribe administration.
The only way in
which true integrity can come to Colombia is if other unionists, students,
workers,and conscious people unite with the people of Colombia in their
struggle for social justice.
[James J. Brittain
is a Ph.D. candidate and sociology lecturer at the University of New
Brunswick, Canada.]