January 2008 Colombia Peace Update

In this update:

In mid-January three members of the U.S. Congress visited Colombia with varying agendas: Rep. George Miller (D-California), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, was investigating labor rights, meeting with a wide variety of union leaders and judicial officials. To read about it,

Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Massachusetts), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight, was investigating U.S. corporations' alleged support for paramilitary groups; he went to two Colombian jails to meet with top paramilitary leaders, read more here.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Massachusetts) was looking into the issue of the FARC hostage crisis and the search for a humanitarian accord. To read more about McGovern's visit, click here.

School of Americas Graduates Implicated in Bogotá Bombing

A director of Colombian military intelligence and another officer implicated in a series of false attacks and a bombing that killed a civilian and injured 19 soldiers in Bogotá in 2006, attended the U.S. Army School of the Americas, an examination of records shows.

The Colombian Public Ministry is investigating Colonel Horacio Arbelaez, former director of the Army's Joint Intelligence Center; Major Javier Efrén Hermida Benavides; and Captain Luis Eduardo Barrero for orchestrating placement of bombs in a Bogotá shopping mall and other sites in July 2006, on the eve of President Uribe's inauguration for his second term. At the time of the bombing and false attacks, they were attributed to guerrillas of the FARC. In most cases, the bombs weren't detonated, but were denounced by the accused officers and deactivated to demonstrate the FARC threat and show military intelligence was doing its work.

According to SOA Watch, Hermida took two courses at the School of the Americas, including a three-month military intelligence intensive in 2000, while Arbelaez took an infantry course at the School in 1981. A statistical study by sociologist Katherine McCoy found that the more courses Latin American officers took at the School, the more likely they were to commit abuses. (Latin American Perspectives, 2005)

In addition, the Army Joint Intelligence Center that Arbelaez directed receives U.S. aid, according to a State Department list of units vetted to receive assistance.

The officers reportedly collaborated with a FARC deserter on placing the bombs, according to tapes, videos and documents. Hermida, who claims his innocence, told a Colombian radio station that the operation at the shopping mall was carried out with knowledge of high military officials.

Hermida and Barrero also face criminal charges for the false attacks, five of which had been united into one case by the Prosecutor General's office.

Arbelaez, who is now Colombia's defense attache in Israel, was previously head of intelligence for the Army's 18th Brigade. That brigade, based in oil-rich Arauca state, has received extensive assistance and in-country training from U.S. Special Forces.

Press reports identified Hermida and Barrero as belonging to the Army's 13th Brigade, part of which receives U.S. assistance, as well as to a regional military intelligence center that also receives U.S. aid.

FOR leads civil society response to libelous attacks

On December 14th, in the printed version of Colombia's second largest newspaper, an article was printed that cited "leftist organizations as part of the FARC's strategy to wage political and judicial war against the military" and that the investigation into the February 2005 massacre of peace community members was an effort to frame the military. It specifically mentioned Justicia y Paz, Colectivo de Abogados Jose Alvear Restrepo, Red Europea de Hermandad con Colombia, Comite de Solidaridad con Presos Politicos, Minga and Peace Brigades International.

FOR led an effort to write a sign-on letter, which responded to these accusations and asserted that they put the legitimate work of human rights defenders and communities in danger. Such libelous statements put at grave risk these national human rights organizations, the safety of the peace community San Jose de Apartado and, by including PBI, the ability of this and other international organizations to offer protection to our counterparts. The letter was signed by 22 organizations and printed in the editorial page of the newspaper, the following weekend, December 22nd, 2007.

Paramilitaries Raison Detre: Making Businessmen Happy

According to some, the reason paramilitary groups exist is for self-protection from the guerrilla groups. It has also been claimed that although paramilitaries have been taken advantage of by different companies' "security needs," they don't exist for that sole purpose. But many rural communities have witnessed over the years that the paramilitaries displace people off their lands specifically so that companies can come in once they are vacant and set up their businesses. In an interview published in El Tiempo on December 22, Colombia's Attorney General recognized this very fact. Journalist Yamid Amat asked: "What was it that the Attorney General's office discovered and is investigating in the Choco?" and Attorney General Mario Iguaran replied: "The tragedy of the communities in the Jiguamiandó, Curvaradó y Domingodó river basins. In the '80s they suffered through the presence of the FARC and in the '90s that of the self-defense groups and the Castaño family. There are accusations that the self-defense groups threw people off their lands to eradicate the guerrilla groups. But there are indicators that these expulsions were not exactly to get rid of the guerrilla, but to take control of land that was owned by the community. After receiving hundreds of testimonies, carrying out judicial investigations at the palm oil companies, in banks, notaries and in the Registry public offices, the Attorney General's office just opened a formal investigation into the representatives of these companies." Read the full interview in Spanish here.

As part of the legal proceedings in case 3856, the Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Special Investigations Unit of the Attorney General's office, opened a formal investigation against 23 businessmen and land buyers from Antioquia whose companies occupy the collective territories of Curvaradó and Jiguamiandó in the lower Atrato river region of Choco. Among the crimes committed are forced displacement, land usurpation, falsifying public documents and crimes against the environment.

According to the information published in the newspaper, the actions of these businessmen are associated with the presence of paramilitaries in the region since 1996. Demobilized paramilitary boss Fredy Rendon Herrera alias 'El Aleman,' made declarations stating that the military control of the region happened as part of an operation carried out by the brothers Castaño Gil, and that it wasn't until the year 2001, when african palm started being planted, that the area was given over to the control of the Elmer Cardenas block. Mario Iguaran affirmed in the interview "the paramilitaries weren't looking for anyone, but rather, people looked for them" (meaning it wasn't the companies which started their businesses and then found the paramilitaries to protect them, but the companies who sent the paramilitaries in to clear and take control of the land).

While this investigation is a positive step forward, the organization Justicia y Paz warns that the displaced communities still face risks as they affirm their rights to Life and Territory. Read the full communiqué of La Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz.

Forrest Hylton, Evil Hour in Colombia (Verso, 2007), 174 pages, $23.
Winifred Tate, Counting the Dead: The Culture and Politics of Human Rights Activism in Colombia (University of California, 2007), 379 pages, $21.95.

Colombia is known for its long-running armed conflicts; most Colombians alive today have not known the country when it was not at war. The conflict's apparent endlessness leads outsiders to see it as impenetrable to understanding. With so many layers of conflict in its stories, it's hard to find media coverage that conveys Colombia with any depth or commitment.

So we're fortunate to have these books by passionate U.S. scholars, an historian and ethnographer.

Hylton traces histories of Colombia's popular movements — both unarmed and armed — since the mid-1800s. "Nowhere else in the Atlantic world," he writes of that period, "did descendants of African slaves vote" and nowhere else did Indian communities exercise the vote as citizens. The rise of conservative or repressive orders in Colombia, Hylton asserts, periodically occurred in response to such popular mobilizations. When coffee capitalism crashed in the late 1920s, organized labor stepped up, but a revolution did not take hold, even the type of limited opening that occurred elsewhere in the region at the end of World War II. Instead, the assassination of Liberal reformer Jorge Eliecer Gaitán in 1948 unleashed a chaotic period of political terror that killed 300,000 people, mostly peasants.

Hylton brings the story all the way to 2006 and the "para-politician" scandal that revealed the close collaboration between paramilitary death squads and dozens of high officials close to President Álvaro Uribe. In an incisive passage, Hylton reviews Uribe's and his father's history of connection with drug trafficking and concludes: "Uribe's links with the inmost nexus of narcotics, and its peculiar forms of terrorism, would appear to be far more intimate than [former president Ernesto] Samper's," who — Hylton notes — was treated with indignation by the U.S. government and media. The reason, he says, is that U.S. policy makers saw Uribe as “a true believer in counterinsurgency as a means of extending state power."

Hylton covers a lot of historical ground in 136 pages of text, and it can be breathless. His sources are admirably broad, and include many Colombian historians and primary materials. FOR gets a mention as one of the organizations accompanying the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó.

Winifred Tate's book is more prosaic. She draws on the stories of individual human rights activists who have labored decades to protect individuals from state violence. Many came from the Left, much of which, into the 1980s, viewed the armed insurgency with some sympathy, even hope. The movements from which they came were considerably broader in social, economic and cultural vision than the framework of political rights codified by international laws, and activists struggled with the tradeoffs involved in obtaining international support through such a limited framework.

Tate has lived in both Colombia and the NGO community in Washington for nearly 20 years, and she brings a vivid first-person voice and eye for detail to observations about the people and movements she describes. The tensions between Bogotá-based NGOs and community groups in the interior in the development of priorities, and the way international funding or the lack of it impacts work, are ably conveyed. This is illustrated especially in a section on work at the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva, coordinated by a Colombian organization funded by the Ford Foundation. The effort resulted in successes — a front of consensus among Colombian groups developed through workshops, and the appointment of an office of U.N. Human Rights Commissioner in Colombia. But many criticized the U.N. work as neglecting to build solidarity among social movements.

In two later chapters, Tate turns her attention to governmental human rights agencies — civilian and military. In the age of modern communications and transportation, she says, impunity is no longer the result of inaction; the state must actively produce it, and "Colombian state agencies often contribute to the production of impunity." She deconstructs cases of massacre and murder that get cycled endlessly through the system with no effective action against the perpetrators. The Colombian military, meanwhile, has established human rights offices that focus on violations by guerrillas, and on apparent respect for rights as a part of psychological operations to win the war.

Both writers are academics, and each book has its moments of insider language, making their analysis occasionally opaque to lay readers. But the rest of their writing is rich with complexity, history and lived experience. The books are fantastic resources not only for those seeking insight into Colombia, but for anyone interested in the histories and challenges of social movements everywhere.

(Im)Patiences for 26 Years: An Interview with Cristina Espinal

This month our newsletter features an interview with Cristina Espinal, one of the founders of the Colombia Human Rights Committee, which currently celebrates 26 years of existence and is one of the longest-standing Colombia-focused organizations in the U.S. The inspiration for conducting this interview was to look back as we look forward: it's the start of 2008 and another year of Colombia work is ahead of us. There have been successes in 2007, like a cut in military aid — but how do we measure that success in the larger scheme of things? And what are the challenges that lie ahead? As the saying goes, "we stand on the shoulders of our ancestors." Cristina is not yet an ancestor, but she has been involved in State-side Colombia work for a quarter of a century! As I.F. Stone said, "If you expect to see the final results of your work, you simply have not asked a big enough question." Cristina has had both the patience not to expect immediate results and the impatience to get things done over the years. Surely we have something to learn from her. Click here to read the full interview.

Letter from the Field: A Commission of Solidarity

By Mayra Moreno, FOR Colombia Peace Team

Along with the holidays, December brought much tension to the region of Urabá. Traditionally the end of the year is always a period in which the violence in the region increases. Lately, the Peace Community has also been concerned about the widespread rearming of paramilitary groups in the region. As one Peace Community member said, "This strong presence of paramilitary groups brings much hostility in the zone, making peasants feel unsafe and threatened."

In order to make more visible the solidarity with fellow campesinos in outlying villages where the presence of paramilitary groups is known to be stronger than state forces, the Peace Community organized a commission on the 18th of December to Nueva Antioquia. This is one of those villages known for having a strong paramilitary presence and where campesinos feel highly threatened and at-risk of displacement. In November and December, five civilians where killed despite the fact that both the army and the police have a permanent presence in the region. This village is located outside the urban limits of the coastal city of Turbo (about 30 minutes north of Apartado).

Members of the Peace Community asked FOR to accompany the commission of about 20 civilians. Peace Brigades International and two observers also accompanied the commission from MAPP-OEA (Mission to Support the Peace Process of the Organization of American States). Given that the MAPP-OEA has been leading a nation-wide project that is responsible for observing and documenting paramilitary demobilization and the rearming of these illegal groups, their presence was perfect for the occasion.

On Tuesday morning, fellow FOR peace team member Kevin and I got up really early to pack our bags with all the basic supplies needed for the long walk across the green mountains. We were warned that it was going to be a total of three days from La Union to Nueva Antioquia and back. So we packed our hammocks, water filter, change of clothes, snacks and put on our long socks and rubber boots. We left La Union around 11am with a large group of community members of all ages, the MAPP-OEA observers, and about eight horses and mules that were carrying food and supplies. The first two hours challenged my physical endurance since it was mostly uphill. The path was mostly dry but there were many small chunks of mud mixed with horse poop and water. We walked across cornfields, cacao trees, and through places where the humidity is trapped between the trees and plants that give shape to the isolated jungle.

We arrived dehydrated and hungry to La Esperanza around 6pm. Some members of the group organized themselves in a corner of the empty house that is used as a kitchen and prepared our very common rural Colombian dinner: white rice with tuna. Tired, cold, and in awe of the beautiful clear night sky we sat on the front porch to listen to Community members explain the next day's plan of action and the concerns they had for their safety. We would leave at 8am for Nueva Antioquia the next morning. It was projected to be a four-hour walk with the blazing sun over our heads. The more I thought about the long walk that awaited us, the more anxious I got. I was unable to sleep because of the cold temperature and with all the dogs barking, I just kept turning side to side wondering if we were going to run into any illegal armed groups that operate in the area.

We got up early the next morning, had a cup of panela and immediately started the walk towards Nueva Antioquia. The goal was to get there early so that we could get back to La Esperanza with the sun still out. We had walked and sweated for a good three hours when we finally arrived at a point where we crossed the river to a settlement known as Playa Larga. As we were crossing, we noticed that there was a camouflaged uniform over a large rock with a vest and a small backpack. When we turned to our left we saw that there were two individuals standing over the river. One of them was bathing while the other one in full army-style uniform and holding an AK-47 in a way that seemed like he was keeping guard.

The MAPP-OEA observers approached the two unidentified men and after they introduced the reason for their presence in Colombia, asked the uniformed men who they were. According to the MAPP-OEA, the unidentified individuals responded that they were part of the 17th Brigade of the Colombian Army. Nonetheless, they were unable to indicate which battalion they were part of because "they forgot." And the usual battalion patch on the sleeve of the uniform was oddly absent from their uniforms. This caused great suspicion in the Peace Community's eyes: how is it that members of the 17th brigade cannot identify which battalion they are part of, and where was the required battalion patch on their sleeve? Why were these two men alone and not with a larger more visible troop of soldiers if they were indeed with the 17th Brigade? The Peace Community believes that these two men were part of the larger group of paramilitaries that are operating in Nueva Antioquia. Urabá continues to be a zone of constant conflict because of the presence of the FARC, the continuous drug trafficking that takes place, and the fact that the state forces are still trying to gain control over certain strategic territories. One can assume that troops would normally travel in large groups to increase their security because of the probability of conflict at any given time. This leads me to agree with the community's assessment; If these men are part of the illegal armed group of paramilitaries that according to the Peace Community operate and have a strong control in that zone, wouldn’t they feel forced to say that they were part of the 17th brigade to the MAPP-OEA?

In order to understand why the Peace Community feels it is important to make visible the threats posed to the civilian population by illegal armed groups, one must consider the context of Urabá, the history of paramilitary groups in the zone and the territorial power that campesinos say paramilitaries are gaining. These types of commissions, these visible acts of solidarity are one way in which the civilian population aims to prevent killings and displacements before they happen.

We made it back to La Esperanza that same afternoon right before sunset. The commission spoke with a few public officials who had offered very limited information, but we felt that it was still important for them to know that we as extranjeros (foreigners) were in the area. The next morning we headed back to La Union ever so tired but feeling relieved that everyone in the commission made it back safe through the ups and downs of the Urabá mountains.

Youth Delegation: Make It Possible for Someone Else To Go!

Our upcoming youth delegation is an exceptional opportunity for youth organizers, conscientious objectors, vets and anti-militarism activists to meet their counterparts in Colombia and exchange experiences, tools and strategies. However, many of the young people who would greatly benefit from this experience don't have $1,700 extra cash to fund their own way ($1,000 for the delegation and about $700 for the airfare). If you are someone who supports the FOR Colombia Program, who has been on a delegation in the past, or believes that young people should be supported as leaders in the struggle to create a better world, then please consider making a donation specifically towards our youth delegation. We are currently in the process of accepting scholarship applications and will do our best to stretch your donations so that they cover as much of the need as possible. Anything and everything helps! And we thank you so much for your support.

Click here to make a secure online donation to help make this delegation possible. (Please note "Colombia Youth Delegation" in the Special Instructions area.)

Printer-friendly version

FOR Members

FOR Email Updates

January 2008 Colombia Peace Update

Posted in:

End U.S. Military Aid to Colombia

FOR Colombia Peace Update