Plan Colombia and Beyond

We call on national and international human rights organizations to remain alert against any reprisal that the government might take against these national demonstrations, as it is public knowledge that when the people take part in peaceful protests, the government uses its elite anti-disturbance commandos to repress and to attack the free use of our right to demonstrate publicly and peacefully.

The groups were not exaggerating. The Colombian government chose not to negotiate with the protesters in Cauca. Instead, the Army’s Third Brigade, the National Police’s Mobile Anti-Disturbances Squad (ESMAD), and other units did not hesitate to use force, wielding clubs, tear gas, and rubber bullets – some fired from helicopters – and possibly other, more lethal means, such as whatever killed Nasa indigenous leader Pedro Coscué in Monday’s disturbances.

On Tuesday, the protesters cleared one lane of traffic on the highway in anticipation of the promised arrival of a team of government negotiators, which was understood to include the ministers of Interior and Agriculture. The protest’s leaders gathered in Piendamó to receive the government representatives, who were to arrive at 1:00 that afternoon, an arrival that was postponed until 3:00.

They government team did not show up. Instead, at 2:30, the demonstrators and their would-be negotiators were met by another assault from 300 ESMAD commandos. Two of the indigenous leaders who had come to negotiate were arrested. The ONIC and ACIN (the indigenous organization in northern Cauca) condemned this operation as a government “lie” and a “trap.”

In all, the toll from two days in Cauca included one dead, over fifty wounded (including about twenty-three police), thirty-six arrested, and three police being held by the indigenous protesters. Meanwhile, about 150 miles south in Nariño department, the Colombian government also used force against a gathering of about 5,000 farmers, many from indigenous groups, protesting aerial herbicide fumigation of coca. Though reporting is still sketchy, the Nariño human rights ombudsman’s office claims that at least two protesters have been killed. The situation in both areas remains tense, and information is still emerging.

While this week’s protesters were mainly non-violent, there were exceptions. Colombian media reports told of protesters throwing rocks, attempting to burn a truck, and taking police hostage. In a statement condemning the Cauca and Nariño violence, the Bogotá office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights had words for all sides, including the protesters: “The Office also reminds the members of the indigenous, afro-descendant, and campesino communities, and other sectors participating in the demonstrations, that the pursuit of their aspirations or interests does not justify, in any case, the use of violence.”

The government response, however, has been heavy-handed and disproportionate. It has been accompanied by accusations – from Cauca governor Juan José Chaux, from Police Director Gen. Jorge Daniel Castro, from Interior-Justice Minister Sabas Pretelt – that the protests were in fact encouraged and sponsored by the FARC guerrillas. According to Chaux, the guerrillas “obligated the campesinos, almost with a gun at their backs, to go out and take over the Pan-American highway.” These officials presented no proof, other than a reference to intercepted guerrilla communications.

The Colombian human rights group CODHES responded well to these dangerous accusations: “To try to confuse social protest with terrorism is not just irresponsible, but it endangers the lives and safety of those who participate in the mobilization.”

Meanwhile, this week’s violence places front-and-center the role of the ESMAD, the Colombian Police anti-riot unit, which has been building an alarming record for brutality. (Recent examples of people killed or abused by the ESMAD have been denounced here, here, here, here and here.) This unit clearly has some serious problems, and it is frequently being deployed as the government’s front line for dealing with citizens who take to the streets to make demands. (CIP has no data right now indicating whether the ESMAD receives U.S. assistance, but we will be trying to find out.)

The picture gets worse, however. The violence that met the “National Summit of Social Organizations” is just the latest of several recent indicators of a rapidly worsening human rights climate in Colombia. Two reports released in the past week by Colombian human rights groups make clear that we should be worried.

First, the Consultancy for Human Rights and Development (CODHES) released its latest annual report on forced internal displacement in Colombia. In 2005, CODHES found, 318,387 people were forced to leave their homes and relocate, the third year in a row in which the group’s estimate of newly displaced people increased. (CODHES’ figure for 2004 was 287,500 people.)

CODHES counts 1.069 million Colombians displaced between August 2002, when President Álvaro Uribe was inaugurated, and December 2005 – a horrifying figure indicating one in every forty Colombians, but about 100,000 lower than what was measured at a similar point in the presidency of Uribe’s predecessor, Andrés Pastrana.

Second, the Colombia-Europe-United States Coordination group (CCEEU) released a very troubling report on the sharply worsening environment for Colombia’s non-governmental human rights defenders. (The report has not been posted to the group’s website yet, but is available here as a PDF file.) It cites the following recent examples of aggression against Colombia’s human rights community, among a few dozen others:

• An e-mail sent to several groups last week, claiming to be from a group of former paramilitaries, threatening them for continuing to oppose President Uribe’s security policies.
• Recent robberies of computers, hard drives and information from computers at five non-governmental organizations’ offices or employees’ homes.
• A video from a group calling itself the “Social Front for Peace” accusing television reporter Hollman Morris and activists Gloria Curtas and Javier Giraldo of being FARC spokespeople.
• The March disappearance and murder of Jaime Gómez, an aide to leftist Liberal Party senator Piedad Córdoba.
• The April assassination of Higinio Baquero, a former member of the nearly exterminated Patriotic Union party, who was working as a bodyguard for Jahel Quiroga, head of the human rights group REINICIAR.
• Continued statements by President Uribe linking his critics to terrorism. Speaking at Bogotá’s Javeriana University on May 5, the president/candidate warned, “many boastful voices appear criticizing Democratic Security [Uribe’s brand name for his set of security policies] and behaving apathetically toward terrorism. Much strength in mistreating Democratic Security, but total weakness in condemning terrorism. … That is why the country will have to choose now whether we are going to continue with the improvement of Democratic Security as a road to peace, or whether we are going to move backward so that ‘disguised communism’ may deliver the fatherland to the FARC.”

Critics dismissed as “disguised communists” helping the guerrillas? Increasing threats, intimidation and attacks? Demonstrations met with official violence? Is this what awaits Colombia in Uribe’s likely next term? Is Colombia about to undergo another mean season, another closure of space for peaceful opposition and criticism?

We hope not, but the worsening climate – which has corresponded with Colombia’s presidential election campaign – offers much cause for worry. Even the possibility that things will get worse requires the following actions of the U.S. government.

• Continue supporting the Bogotá office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The Uribe government has hinted that it may seek to reduce this office’s mandate when it is renewed in October – for instance prohibiting it from issuing public reports critical of the government – and U.S. funding for its activities must be renewed every year. The High Commissioner’s office is a badly needed independent voice whose role will become even more important if the human-rights situation worsens. This is absolutely not the right time to reduce its mandate or its funding.
  
  
• In top-level communications with the Colombian government, make very clear that the United States is gravely concerned about all of these recent events.
  
  
• Recognize that now is not the time to certify that Colombia’s human-rights performance is improving, as U.S. foreign aid law requires must be done in order to free up some of Colombia’s military aid. As long as there is little progress toward investigating and prosecuting abuses by units like the ESMAD, abuses that are already layered on a series of other grave cases of violations, it is impossible to issue an honest certification. In effect, the U.S. government would be certifying that the human-rights situation is getting better, when in fact events on the ground indicate everything moving in the wrong direction. That would send a terrible message.