Human Rights
Colombian Government’s Role in Human Rights Abuses
It seems that new revelations about the Colombian government’s links to human rights abuses are appearing almost weekly. In recent weeks there have been allegations that Colombian political and military officials conspired with right-wing paramilitaries to burn the bodies of massacre victims in an effort to conceal the number of people killed by the militias; the country’s largest paramilitary organization funded President Alvaro Uribe’s 2002 election campaign; and the military’s counterinsurgency strategy has contributed to a worsening humanitarian crisis. These revelations come on the heels of evidence that the military has increasingly used extra-judicial executions as a counter-insurgency strategy in recent years and the para-politics scandal linking elected officials to the paramilitaries. In response to the Colombian military’s increasing involvement in human rights violations, the British government recently announced that it was ending military aid to Colombia. In contrast, both the US and Canadian governments continue to disregard the human rights crisis in their push to implement bilateral free trade agreements with Colombia. Read more»
The Liberation of Mother Earth in Cauca
In Colombia, many indigenous people inhabit officially designated resguardos, or reserves, in highland areas where insufficient space fails to fulfill the agricultural needs of an increasing population. The lives of the indigenous Nasa are further complicated because they live in Colombia’s Cauca Department, a violent area where fighting between the army, the insurgent Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and right-wing paramilitary groups often leaves indigenous people caught in the crossfire. Together, violence and malnutrition caused by the land deficit have resulted in numerous Nasa deaths. Like many indigenous peoples in Latin America, the contemporary problems within the Nasa community began centuries ago. During the Spanish conquest, European settlers claimed flatter lowlands better suited to agriculture for themselves. Hundreds of years later, indigenous groups from Mexico to Bolivia barely eke out a subsistence living cultivating crops on the steep hillsides their ancestors were forced to inhabit. Such is the plight of the Nasa. Read more»
The New Face of Plan Colombia: An Alliance for Progress for the 21st Century?
The streets of the remote village of La Cooperativa in the La Macarena region of eastern Colombia were bustling with people going about their daily business. The restaurants were full and stores had no problem selling their wares to a steady stream of customers consisting of local peasants and leftist guerrillas who had controlled this region for more than four decades. There was plenty of work for everyone and local businesses were booming. At the heart of this robust economy was coca, the plant whose leaves provide the raw ingredient in cocaine. But that was in 2006. Today, La Cooperativa is a virtual ghost town. The coca is gone, the guerrillas are gone; and so has more than 80 percent of the population. “Life is worse now than it was three years ago; the situation here is critical,” says one local resident. “In six more months there might not be anyone left here.” From the Colombian government’s perspective, however, a pilot project that utilizes a carrot and stick approach towards combating both the insurgency and coca cultivation is paying dividends as the state is finally establishing a permanent, and comprehensive, presence in a traditional stronghold of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Read more»
Anatomy of an Investigation: The Colombian State’s War Against Civil Society
Aidee Moreno Ibagué recently learned that the Colombian government is investigating her for the crime of rebellion. But Moreno Ibagué (pictured) has not taken up arms against the state. She does not plant bombs in Colombia’s cities. Nor does she carry an AK-47 assault rifle in the jungles of rural Colombia where leftist guerrillas have been fighting to overthrow the government for more than four decades. She is a lawyer who lives in the capital Bogotá. More specifically, she is a human rights lawyer for the country’s largest peasant union federation Fensuagro (The National Federation of Agricultural Farming Unions). She is also an outspoken critic of the government’s security and economic policies and the dirty war it is waging against those who struggle for social justice. According to Moreno Ibagué, it is her work and her political views that have made her a target of the state. “I will not be silent when there are so many atrocities,” she declares emphatically. “They have not been able to assassinate me, so now they want to put me in prison.” Read more»
Two Colombia’s in 2008: Which One Will Be Remembered?
olombians could be forgiven for waking up in the year 2009 with a slightly larger hangover than the guayabo usually associated with drinking too much aguardiente during the festive season. The country now faces the challenge of moving on from arguably the most momentous year in its modern history. While 2008 brought with it the euphoria of the rescue of Ingrid Betancourt and the process of national mutual backslapping that accompanied periodic confrontations with Colombia’s leftist neighbors, it also revealed previously ignored cancers of Colombia’s politics and society: primarily the scandalous massacre of innocent youths to present them as “enemy” casualties, and the country’s time bomb of pyramid schemes and money laundering activities. The year 2008, therefore, revealed two Colombia’s: one being the swaggering and reveling in the government’s achievements against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the country’s role as the continent’s bastion of free market capitalism; the other dark and shady, highlighted by the “false positives” scandal and the pyramid scheme crisis. Read more»
Violent History Repeats Itself For Indigenous Communities
More than 12,000 indigenous activists and representatives of other popular and social sectors of southern Colombia have congregated in the “Territory of Peace and Coexistence” in La Maria Piendamó in Cauca and are confronting a massive presence of state security forces who have been ordered to dislodge them. The popular mobilization began on October 12, and was called to protest the militarization of their territories, the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, and the failure of the government of President Alvaro Uribe to fulfill various accords with the indigenous communities relating to land, education and health. In initial clashes, more than 50 indigenous were injured and one killed. Read more»
Displacement, Disappearances and Extrajudicial Executions Increase Under Uribe
While many supporters of Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe and proponents of free trade agreements between Colombia and the governments of the United States and Canada repeatedly point to a recent decline in killings and kidnappings to support their causes, they conveniently ignore startling increases in other human rights abuses. The US-sponsored Plan Colombia and Uribe’s so-called Democratic Security Strategy have improved security for many Colombians, particularly in urban areas. However, Colombia’s conflict continues to rage in rural regions and civilians continue to be the principal victims of the violence. The state’s escalating role in the rapidly growing number of forced displacements, disappearances and extrajudicial executions represents the human rights reality for many rural Colombians. Read more»