James J. Brittain
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 â 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.]
From Green Left Weekly, November 3, 2004.
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