Jessica R Pomerantz
The human rights situation in Colombia is irreducibly complex. All parties to the civil war and the ongoing conflict�the government, the paramilitary, the military, the guerillas, and the United States�mutually share responsibility for grievous human rights violations that have been commonplace in Colombia for more than thirty years. Each faction blames another, and each refuses to cease their own actions without concessions from the other, making for a deadly negotiations stalemate that seems perpetual, and truly the situation is perpetual to some degree, because administrations and politicians come and go, while the violence itself remains constant.
Although the government of Colombia is considered a democracy, it is a democracy by name alone; often politicians actively incorporate oppression of human rights and dictatorial tendencies into the very operation of their governmental institutions, whether that includes the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of government.
The 2003 Human Rights Watch Report on Colombia attributed the decline in prosecution of human rights criminals to the attorney general, who went so far as to eliminate judicial personnel willing to pursue those cases. And the recently elected president expanded his own powers under the pretense of emergency measures, placing areas under military control, restricting civilian movement and foreigners alike�including journalists. These emergency measures also gave security forces the power to supersede warrants in wiretapping or making arrests. So government activity at the bureaucratic level does not result in atrocities per se, but in a sense Colombian politicians seem to be encouraging human rights violations. And the voting process itself is stunted when killings peak around political events, especially elections. Surrounding the 1997 municipal elections, 110 people were killed, including mayors, town council members, and other candidates.
The first recorded paramilitary group was founded to protect members of drug cartels, as a response to the kidnapping of wealthy narcotics-related landowners and their families by guerillas in 1981. Since then, a number of individuals, from local politicians to corporate representatives, have founded or endorsed armed militias to protect themselves from guerillas, but often with other side effects, like the cleansing of undesirables, which may include anyone from prostitutes to trade unionists. These paramilitary forces have historically acted in concert with the Colombian military, and Colombian laws were enacted in the 1960s permitting the military to organize and arm civilians for the express purpose of fighting guerilla groups, although this practice was later outlawed in 1989. Conservative estimates of the atrocities committed by paramilitary groups hold them responsible for 67 percent, but some attribute as much as 80 percent of all violence to these groups. Outlawing the groups did not eliminate them, and they remain a force of terror, carrying out massacres, executions, torture, and hostage taking.
While the military is only formally held responsible for a mere 3 percent of all the human rights violations, paramilitary groups that are directly responsible for human rights violations are often aided and abetted by the military via joint operations, intelligence-sharing and such. The military has constructed its own legal absolution for human rights violations; officers are tried for violations in a military tribunal and never convicted or punished.
Political violence in Colombia has a lengthy history that stretches at least as far back into time as the 1940s, when two parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives, dominated and controlled all of Colombian politics; the conflict between the two erupted in the form of a Liberal peasant uprising. After the rebellion was crushed, many peasants sought new lands, hidden from government control, in the 1950s. But soon, landowners laid claim to these lands, and the government launched attacks against the peasants as invaders. So the peasants moved further into rural territory, and again they were pursued. Eventually the peasants gave up trying to find a safe place, and in the 1960s they formalized themselves as an armed self-defense group seeking agrarian reform. Other guerilla groups formed around the same time, basing themselves on a variety of ideologues and popular revolutionary heroes, including Che Guevara and Mao Tse-Tung. In a country where the richest 3 percent owns 70 percent of all arable land and 57 percent of the poorest own less than 3 percent, agrarian reform starts to sound like a justified request. Human rights groups point to a conservative media bias, in which guerilla activity is reported and blamed for atrocities although quantitatively the paramilitary is responsible for far more damage. But regardless of any validity in motivation or a lesser share in the violence, the guerilla groups have resorted to human rights violations as brutal by nature as those of the paramilitary. They, like the paramilitary, force the recruitment of children as soldiers against their will. They have kidnapped political opponents for ransom, targeted civilians, and imposed their own law in some areas of Colombia, executing or otherwise punishing villagers for alleged infractions, like incorrect hair length. They have used illegal gas bombs against civilians, looted homes, and exploded oil pipelines, causing economic and environmental damage.
The United States has been providing technical and financial support to the government, the military, and by proxy, the paramilitary, for over four decades. It is the primary purchaser of illegal narcotics and the primary supplier of military aid. America�s claimed stake in Colombia has ranged from a good neighbor policy under the Nixon Administration to an alleged drug war, and eventually, a war on terrorism. Despite the drug war pretense, all weaponry and training have always gone straight to the military and not the National Police, the institution devoted to halting drug activity in Colombia. While research on successful drug policy demonstrates that a one percent decrease in narcotics consumption may be achieved by spending 43 million dollars on drug treatment programs, or 783 million dollars on eradication at the source, the United States has typically opted for the latter. Plan Colombia, a 1.3 billion dollar 2-year aid package, was signed into law under President Clinton in 2000, and President Bush provided 374 million dollars in 2002, not in a drug war context, but instead for the war on terrorism, lifting former restrictions requiring the money to be used specifically against drugs. Some have questioned the motives behind individual United States politicians� involvement in Colombian issues. On the radio program Making Contact, Adam Isaacson of the Center for International Policy cited the influence of Sikorsky, the manufacturer of Black Hawk helicopters, in Senator Chris Dodd�s introduction of an amendment to provide more Black Hawks to Colombia than was already proposed; Sikorsky donated 100,000 dollars to Senator Dodd�s campaign for re-election.
The policy of the United States towards Colombia seems to vacillate between responsible and irresponsible human rights attitudes. The School of the Americas, located in Fort Benning, Georgia, has trained some of the paramilitary commanders linked to the most severe of human rights violations; its training manual at one time included instructions on bribery, threats, and torture. In 1999 the House of Representatives voted to close the installation in response to general public outrage, especially in connection to the rape and slaughter of churchwomen in El Salvador by School of the Americas graduates, but the Senate kept the military installation open with a name change; it is now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security and Cooperation. In 1996 the United States Congress passed the Leahy Provision as a special amendment to the Foreign Operations Appropriations Act, stating that funds may not legally be given to military units that have committed human rights violations. But President Clinton waived these restrictions when he signed Plan Colombia, negating them in opposition to human rights groups� recommendations.
Colombia�s early laws regarding civilian warfare and the nature of the leftist insurrection have made civilian and soldier indistinguishable, making life in Colombia especially deadly for would-be noncombatants in a harsh continuous violation of Article III of the Geneva Convention. Medical workers are attacked, human rights workers, usually looked on as guerilla sympathizers, are targeted�16 dead in the first 11 months of 2002. Fifty journalists have been killed in the past decade. Preachers opposed to violence are shot while performing mass. Schoolteachers and labor unionists alike�151 of the latter in 2002�are extrajudicially murdered, all for allegedly consorting with guerilla groups, which may or may not be true. According to Bishop Jaime Prieto, �For every one person who may have helped guerillas, two are killed who had nothing to do with them.� (1) One million people or more were displaced between 1985 and 1998, creating an ongoing refugee situation. Two hundred thousand civilians were reportedly displaced in 2002 alone, mostly by the paramilitary; these refugees live in temporary, usually appalling conditions. From 1988 to 1995, an average of 23.4 people were killed per day. Some areas are worse than others, for strategic reasons. The city of Barrancabermeja, for instance, had a homicide rate of 227 per 100,000 in the year 2000, one of the world�s highest, most likely because of its large oil refinery and its economic importance as a port city.
Policy recommendations in the face of such a legacy of complex political violence seem absurd. As tends to be the case with human rights, politicians say one thing and do another. The United States government repeatedly called for an end to human rights abuses while continuing to fund those responsible for violations. According to Human Rights Watch, the State Department has begun to �spin� news reports to make it appear as if some progress is being made. The State Department web site reports paramilitary troops captured by the military, which, according to Human Rights Watch interviews, represents a one-time effort exerted by the military to make it appear as if they are not colluding with the paramilitary. Human rights groups repeatedly implore the United States to end funding of and equipment delivered to armed forces in Colombia; when the previous government of Colombia, the Pastrana administration, unexpectedly broke off peace talks with guerilla groups and militarily re-occupied territories formerly conceded, in alignment with a new pledge of aid by the United States, one could perceive a definite exacerbation of violence in Colombia on the part of external forces. But external forces alone do not build a conflict. The guerilla groups claim to be responding to economic and political inequity; they request freedom and personal security for all, but the United States, the paramilitary, the government, and the military all claim similar goals. Meanwhile, the violence continues, arbitrarily. As with any irreducibly complex situation, all the components seem to have arisen simultaneously, and as with any political impasse, none of the groups will back down before the others. There seems to be no political solution.
Socioeconomic inequity may have been the deciding factor in the start of Colombia�s conflict, and the prolonged nature of the civil war has only resulted in more poverty and a bleak economic outlook. Colombia has one of the highest unemployment rates in Latin America, and country debt has doubled over the past decade. There is no social welfare, only political corruption and cronyism. Nearly all of the millions of dollars in aid Colombia receives every year leaves the country to purchase expensive weaponry from other countries. Economists and activists alike condemn the economic policies of the current president, Uribe Velez, who, for example, took over the power to grant oil concessions, allegedly to alleviate local corruption but perhaps only resulting in presidential corruption. To promote privatization, already unaffordable energy prices are set to rise 22-30 percent due to reduced government subsidies.
And the structure of the multinational corporation lends itself to the repressive tendencies in Colombia, which usually result in further human rights violations. Labor unionists across the country have been terrorized, tortured, and murdered along with their families. In 1996, union leader Isidro Segundo Gil was shot 10 times next to the Coca-Cola sign of the company�s bottling plant, one of seven dead Coca-Cola employees. Since 1992, Occidental Petroleum attempted to conduct exploratory drilling on the land of the U�wa, an indigenous community in Colombia, who threatened to commit collective suicide in protest. After three U�wa children died, when Occidental called in the military to break up a blockade, Occidental agreed to withdraw from the region in 2000, citing only technical and economic reasons. As instrumental as these companies may be in allowing, perpetuating, or condoning human rights violations, a complete absence of corporations would presumably only worsen the political conflict. High unemployment and grim economic conditions only precipitate violence participation, that is, a reduced number of economic possibilities leads to an increase of membership in guerilla or paramilitary groups.
Politics has been failing humans for ten thousand years. The art and science of compromise looks inherently doomed. (2) Since humans began organizing themselves around agriculture, the concept of a societal hierarchy was born, and the hierarchy itself breeds inequity and resulting violence due to the perceived, and usually very real, injustice in such a system. (3) But an overarching anthropological theory does nothing to explain why Colombia rather than France or Australia should suffer at this point in time.
There is the bastard theory, as discussed in class, which claims that bastards cause violence. So it could be that Colombia happens to hold a larger number of bastards than France or Australia. And it could be that bastards in the United States, like those who operate the Western Hemispheric Institute of Security and Cooperation, have outsourced to Colombia due to the collectively non-violent nature of the United States, increasing the number and concentration of bastards. And, as the timeline extends out towards infinity, perhaps each country comes under the influence of bastards; France�s time of beheadings and political rebellion has simply passed, and Australia�s discriminatory behavior towards its indigenous people has merely faded over time. The same will happen with Colombia. But must it always be this way with the human species? And if so, what is it about the human that makes it so violent?
One wonders if it is the large brain of the human species that makes it so prone to violence, but it cannot be the brain size alone. Elephants� brains can be as large as a Volkswagon bug, yet they rarely attack unless provoked. Dolphins, on the other hand, have been known to beat each other up for fun, and since dolphins have also acquired language, then maybe language is the pre-requisite for senseless murder. Chimpanzees, on the other hand, have not demonstrated language capabilities, and yet they wage war on each other just as humans do, even going so far as to commit genocide�systematic killing of each member in a rival group. The chimpanzee�s DNA is 98.2 percent similar to human DNA, so perhaps humans and chimpanzees are both hard-wired to kill, as opposed to snails, which demonstrate no inclination to murder their own species. Maybe the peaceful nature of snails is additionally owed to the lack of opposable thumbs, making it difficult to hold some sort of a killing tool, or maybe it is due to the fact that snails each have their own habitat located on their backs, so there is no competition over a perceived finite habitat.
The problem with these theories is that, barring genetic modifications, lobotomies, and the like, they only offer solace to those seeking an explanation, but contrary to what one imagines is the desire of the Colombian people, they offer no hope of a solution. No country has suffered internal strife forever, and when the conflict ends in time, it is often left up to the resilience of each individual to heal from such a life of terror. One can only hope an end to the conflict is on the horizon for Colombia.
(1) From The �Sixth Division�: Military-Paramilitary Ties and U.S. Policy In Colombia. Human Rights Watch: 2001, p. 63.
(2) Just look at the etymology of the word politics: poli, meaning many, and tics, meaning bloodsucking parasites. I forget who told me that one. Probably a politician.
(3) For more information on the inhumanity of agricultural civilization, please see Hunter Gatherers Didn�t Have Prozac, to be published in the Spring 2003 issue of UNM Best Student Essays.
Works Cited
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http://www.prospect.org/print/V13/2/bacon- d.html: 1.28.02
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http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2002-09/12mondragon.cfm: September 12, 2002.
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