SPECIAL REPORT ABOUT COLOMBIA

IF IT RAINS IN IRAK, IT DOESN’T CLEAR UP IN COLOMBIA, EITHER
(Or the story of a tragedy... already old fashioned)

Since the beginning of the Irak crisis and the new start of the historical endeavour of the Empire for the petrol and lives of the arab people, the libertarian world and the international human rights and supportive organisations focused, as hoped, all their energies to avoid the war and promote solidarity with the Iraki people, not with the Irak state nor with the dictator Saddam Hussein. Nevertheless, they have temporarily forgotten the war that the Colombians live against the neighbouring empire, so close
that there is no need for huge troop deployment nor for agreements and negotiations for the installment or circulation of military material, nor disagreements within the U.N. Security Council, not even the veto of any of the permanent members of the famous U.N.O. “insecurity” council. The voices of France, Germany or Belgium have not been heard requesting to the US government not to keep on sending troops and all sort of mass destruction weapons... that result in 30,000 deaths every year.

Do not forget the Colombia tragedy!!, a country where sovereignty is already a very short, and almost exahusted natural ressource, but where repression and impunity are abundant. Violence has even touched the very state representatives, such as the U.N. Office for Human Rights has pointed out: “selective manslaughter, outrages, seizures and multiple threats by the AUC, FARC, and ELN against mayors, deputees, councillors and officials have limited the possibility for them to fulfill their duties”.

Similarly, in 2002 the FARC stepped up their activities and seriously increased the consequences for the civil population, such as Human Right Watch state in their report about Human Rights in Colombia in 2002: “the FARC-EP increased their attacks against civilians, amongst them hundreds of mayors and local civil servants”. “Our slogan is not to let the state representatives work at any department at all” anounced the guerrilla in
June. On the 5th of June, FARC-EP gunmen murdered the mayor of Solita, in the southern department of Caquetá (...) During the first ten months in 2002, the FARC-EP used gas cilindre bombs in more than 40 attacks against towns and villages, resulting in mostly civilian victims”.

The increase of para-militarism during the last months is unparalleled. With regards the Report that the State presents about its “struggle” against the para-military groups, Human Right Watch point out, in the above mentioned Report, an apparent paradox: “the government registered more confrontation between their troops and the para-military ones, and more arrests of supposed para-military than in any of the preceeding years. The para-military seemed to be more numerous and with more military power than
ever before, however. They claimed to count on more than 10,000 trained and armed members, a figure that not the government nor any other source denied”.

Protected by the investiture powers, called “Inner State Conmotion”, that the Congress conferred to President Uribe, they approved the Decree 2002 by which the government creates “restoration areas” in order to consolidate its military politics leaving, according to the international human rights organisations, a tragical balance, especially in the Arauca department. In this sense, according to the Office of the U.N. High Commissioneer for
Refugees – ACNUR-, Arauca is one of the departments where armed confrontation has intensified the most during the last months, together with North of Santander, Cesar, Chocó and Putumayo, which means still more displacements; even though, according to ACNUR, these migration movements mostly take place within the country, an increase in border crossing has also been registered. Such a situation has lead this Office to call to all border countries to give access to the Colombians that escape.

As a paradox, the national government created these areas to “protect the civil population”; nevertheless, since the moment of the massive increase of armed forces in the area, forced displacement of people and selective murder have also increased. According to declarations received from the displaced population since the middle of 2001, and comparing figures with the preceeding periods, the Arauca displaced population has increased a 300% since then, but mostly since november 2001. Please notice that not every displaced person declares such a condition for fear to be found by
those who displaced them, or because they ignore the actions they have to undertake face to the state once they’ve been displaced. For this reason, the denounces received do not show the total numbers of displaced population, thus the increase might well be higher.

In February 2002, around 35,000 peasants of the Arauca Department mobilised in order to demand the fulfilment of the agreements formerly signed with the national government, regarding inquiries about human rights violations and infringement of the International Human Laws in Arauca, the creation of a Commission for Inquiries about crimes against human rights, the presence of a permanent delegate of the Red Cross International Committee, the presence of a Delegate Deputy for the military forces and a visit in place
of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission.

Colombia is a member state of the American Convention for Human Rights since the 31st July 1973. The Colombian state approved, on the 21st June 1985 and for an indetermined period, the competence and jurisdisction of the Inter-American Court and Commission for Human Rights –CIDH, organisations for the protection of human rights. The article 63 of the American Convention for Human Rights establishes in its point 2: “in case of extreme seriousness and emergency, and whenever it is necessary to avoid irreparable damage to people, the Court can take any provisory measures it considers pertinent, in the cases it tries. In case of any matters not yet submitted to it, it could act on request of the
Commission”.

The article 24 of the Regulations of the Inter-american Commission for Human Rights, in its point 1 states that “in case of gravity and emergency and whenever it is necessary, according to the available information, the Commission will be able to request, on its own or on behalf of a part, to the State in question, to adopt any prevention measures in order to avoid irreparable damage to persons”. The point 4 states that “granting such a
measures and its execution by the state, will not mean pre-judging about the nitty-gritty of the matter”.

During 2000, the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights decreed eleven prevention measures for Colombia. In 2001, 14 -and in 2002 they issued 19 measures. The important thing about these measures, in the Colombian case, is that they are aimed at protecting entire communities, unions and organisations –some of them spread throughout the country, social sectors, etc... very differently from the measures given to other countries that basically protect individual persons. This fact is an indicator that allows us to assess the gravity of the Colombian situation.

With regards the situation of women in the conflict, the People’s Defender declared in his report for 2000 that women, who are generally in greater vulnerability condition, still are the most seriously affected by violence, especially in war areas. The People’s Defender also underlined the lack of government programmes to face these problems. The feminist leaders within the political and peasants organisations in several regions, are also being
prosecuted, threated, tortured and executed. Violence inside the family, sexual harassment and women murder is still a serious problem throughout the country. More than 30% of the FARC members are women. Several observers have criticised the use of women-fighters as sexual slaves within the guerrilla organisations.

In the Second World Conference on Human Rights (Vienna 1993) and in different conferences, conventions and declarations, the UN have emphatised that women human rights make also part of Human Rights. Nevertheless, women are constant victims of human rights violations to the detriment of their condition of women. This is how violation and torture have become a constant practice in the Colombian armed conflict.

Women have, equally, been pushed to forced displacement in large numbers; the figures evidence the dimension of this fact since, according to ACNUR they are between 49 and 58% of the total displaced population of the country; displaced women face multiple forms of discrimination.

Another highly vulnerable group in the middle of the conflict, are people under 18 years since, together with women, they are target of the actions of all groups operating outside the law; in some cases, the armed conflict makes part of their every-day lives, such as the words of an under age - once linked to an out-law armed group- show “since I was a child, shooting is normal, when someone is killed, it is very common and usual”.

The conclusions presented by the Colombian Lawyer Commission, one of the most prestigious human rights organisations in Colombia, in its January 2003 report, are self-explanatories: “the progress of the human rights situation in the country is alarming. There are many arbitrary arrests, court prosecutions and housebreakings against the defenders of human rights and against the civil population (...). The organisations for protection of human rights and the national and international community should intervene
in order to stop this arbitrariness and to repair the rights of the victims”.

The dynamics of the armed conflict have victimised not only to thousands and thousands of Colombians, but also to members of the US intelligence
system -three military arrested and a dead soldier, after the shooting down
of the airplane where they travelled carrying out tasks of intelligence,
such as the press of the Empire itself reports. The roaring of the Empire
was heard all througout the american continent “we will rescue our
citizens”. Then, they decided to initially send 150 marines, such as they
did in Phillipines after the 11th September where the government of the
Empire sent 350 men at the beginning; today, there are almost 8000 men,
armed and equipped to stay there for more than two years.

A remote possibility? There are people who believe that a possible military intervention of the north-american marines could be the final solution to this conflict; this has been said by journalists such as Antonio Caballero “they tell us: with those observation satellites the gringos have, and those intelligent rockets, the only thing there is to do is to
find “Momo Jojoy” and “Tirofijo” in the forest and send them a big rocket. And that’s all. Otherwise, let them invade us”, in these moments, some political and managerial sectors are thinking about a marine-type action to solve, by means of extermination, what they never wanted to negotiate in a sincere process for peace. Caballero adds: “And it is even less certain that the gringos are going to solve the problems of the incompetent
responsible for the Colombian establishment. ‘They are our friends, they’re people like oneself’, they say, illusioned. But that isn’t true either. They were more friends to the Iran Shaa, Ferdinando Marcos from Phillipines spoke a much better English, General Mobutu from Congo had made post-degree studies in West Point. An they changed them all when, being so incompetent, they weren’t of use any longer”.

The concept “Vietnamisation” of the Colombian conflict is back to the agenda of worries for the 44 million decent Colombians that do not want this war, even more, it is not only that we do not want it, it is that we hate it. When we look in more detail at the possibility of a military intervention on the part of the marines, interesting ideas come to mind,
such as the opinion of Jesse Helms, which is the opinion of an important sector of the North-American right, with regards the International Penal Court face to the US decision of keeping out of the Rome Treaty. One of Mr. Helms’ arguments is that the Rome Treaty is a dangerous document, one the crimes it contemplates is the “agression”, which was included -although there was not an agreement about how to define it. Mr. Helms adds “We should clearly understand that, to the eyes of the Court there would be an
agression crime when the United States inititate a military action in the defence of their national interests, unless the U.S. apply for and obtain the permission of the Court”. The argument does not leave any doubt, since it considers that the US national interest are spread all throughout the world, any military action in this sense is unchallengeable. Jesse Helms continues “This Court tries to judge the US national security polices. Can
you imagine what would have hapenned if this tribunal would have been working during the US invation to Panama? Or to Granada? Or the bombing on Tripoli?. In none of these cases, the US requested the permission of the United Nations to defend our interests”.

Already in 1995, Noam Chomsky denounced “... Colombia receives near a half of the military assistance that the United States distribute in the hemisphere, increased during President Clinton administration, who took the emergency funds when the Pentagon budget did not allow to increase them”. Today, eight years afterwards, in 2003, Colombia is the third country in receiving the Empire military help to fight “terrorism”... from other
countries or groups against the core of the Empire, because the “terrorism” the Empire uses against the rest of mankind are legitimate and valid actions considered as “war preventive actions”.

Of course, the death of the three members of the US intelligence programme hasn’t the slightest similarity to the murder of the three American collaborators that developped their task supporting in solidarity the U’wa indian people just vindications; this crime was also one of the FARC but the Empire voices are also similar: “revenge, revenge, revenge” and the voices of the Colombian tyrants are identical ”invasion, invasion, invasion”.

At his intervention in the Porto Alegre World Social Forum in January 2003, Chomsky declared “the most powerful state in history has proclaimed, loud and clearly, that its aim is to manage the world by means of the use of force, the dimension on which it holds supremacy”.

In case it doesn’t seem too much, President Uribe ultra-right government is puting forward, to the Colombian people, the approval of an “endorsement” that endeavours to legitimate the impossibility of taking to court to the hundreds of corrupt politicians that have plundered our public finances, it is, those who have stolen us all. They eliminate the Municipal Personalities, the only body defending the citizen’s human rights in the
farthest municipalities in the country. But indeed, in a most cynical manner, after forcing the approval by the Congress of an infamous plan for taxes and VAT, they want that the Colombians approve the new taxes, specially set aside for the war and dismishing social investments. The endorsement is the culmination of the Financial Settlement imposed by the IMF; wages and public expenditures freeze which will seriously affect areas
such as education, health, food security, houses and employment, environment protection and will generate recession; well then, the endorsement is an action of injure against the Colombian people.

Some of the libertarian organisations in Cali, Medellín and Bogota have made common cause with many of the critical sectors in the country, social and community organisations, unions, human right organisations etc, in order to impulse the “Campaing of abstention to the Endorsement”; of course, every organisation making part of the Campaign has its own interests, we have ours: we do not believe in the repression system, but in the construction of a direct and self-managing democracy.

The Campaign has jeopardised the approval of the Endorsement; even more, some sectors of the traditional parties, ressented for not having been called by the government to make part of the banquet, have shown their sympathy with the abstention attitude; of course, they are a horse of a different colour.

The IWA, aware of this reality, has produced several resolutions and agreements about the urgence of impulsing a massive Campaign against the situation of the Colombian social and union organisations: only between June 2001 and February 2003, 219 union leaders have been murdered, many have been charged and taken to court by their activities: they have suffered housebreaking by the State officials at the sites of the Civil
Society Permanent Assembly for Peace and at the regional offices of the Colombian Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (Workers Unitary Central) –CUT-, the leaders of the Union Sindical Obrera (Workers Union) have been arrested and taken to court, members of the organisations of former insurgents, today inserted to civil life, have been threated. In the case of our organisation, we have had to close the local where we worked since, for three times, our windows’ glasses were smashed, several threatening
telephone calls were received and also two pamphlets with the sentence “death to toads and to the country betrayers”. In addition, during the housebreakings they made in the months of November and December at the Colombian National University, some of the pigeonholes where we kept diffussion materials were opened by force and these taken away. Our group, already shortened, is at present very reduced, since some of the comrades have had to seek for refuge in other areas of the country temporarily.

Please, do not forget the Colombian tragedy, remember that the struggle against the Empire must be global and on different fronts.

Libertarian and anti-militarist greetings.

FRIENDS OF THE IWA - COLOMBIA