Author: Adam Isacson

The State of Human Rights in Colombia: Military Espionage, COVID-19, and Ongoing Abuses

(Cross-posted from wola.org)

Since our last urgent action Colombia’s weekly magazine Semana revealed that between February and December 2019, Colombian army intelligence units carried out illicit surveillance of more than 130 individuals, including human rights defenders, national and international journalists, politicians, labor leaders, and other members of the military. We at WOLA find this to be completely unacceptable . On Tuesday, May 19 from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, WOLA is hosting, alongside other human rights organizations, a webinar with several of the persons targeted by this illegal espionage. We encourage you to join us to hear their perspectives and recommendations on what should be done to redress this. In this document, you will find summarized statements made by several civil society groups about this scandal. You can join the webinar by registering here.

Additionally, WOLA produced a short video about the violence faced by social leaders in Colombia. The video asks U.S. authorities to call on the Iván Duque administration to protect social leaders, prioritize investigations of the assassinations, and prioritize full implementation of the peace accords.

We also take this opportunity to update you on developments on the April 25 request to President Duque by Black, Afro-Colombian, Palenquero and Raizal persons asking for the creation of an Afro-Colombian Emergency Fund. The Ministry of Health announced that it will designate a person to manage the COVID-19 emergency in the Colombian Pacific. However, details of who this will be or how this person/office will function are not clear. CONPA and others are asking for that to be determined as soon as possible. It should be done in full consultation with Afro-Colombian authorities. Secondly, a special education plan is required for Afrodescendants living in areas with limited internet capacity. Virtual learning is not reaching most children in shantytowns and rural areas because they do not have computers and/or the technical capacity to access school in this manner. Lastly, CONPA insists that the government advance humanitarian accords with the ELN that provide protection to civilians and communities caught up in conflict. We were disappointed by last week’s developments that run counter to peace in Colombia. Please see our May 14 statement Inaccurate Trump Administration Charges Against Cuba Damage Prospects for Peace Talks in Colombia and Elsewhere.

The following are summaries of the human rights situations and cases we received that require action. We have divided them into three parts: military intelligence scandal, COVID-19 related concerns, and human rights abuses.

Military Intelligence Espionage

Illegal Military Surveillance Targeting Social Leaders

On May 10, the Inter-Ecclesial Commission for Justice and Peace (Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz, CIJP) condemned the illicit surveillance carried out by the Colombian army’s intelligence units on social leaders Luz Marina Cuchumbe and Jani Rita Silva and CIJP staff Father Alberto Franco and Danilo Rueda. They make clear that strong measures must be taken to protect the whistleblowers in this case.

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Tags: Human Rights, Human Rights Defenders, Public Health, Security Deterioration

May 19, 2020

May 18, 2020

Legislators from the ruling Centro Democrático party call a hearing on “the FARC’s non-compliance with the accord,” alleging that only 85 percent of FARC members reported in 2017 are continuing in the process,” and that the FARC has yet to turn over the vast majority of its declared assets. FARC legislators respond that the government was slow to secure assets like real estate, much of which may have fallen into the hands of dissident groups.

At that hearing, Defense Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo—a politician who was a leading voice urging a “no” vote in the October 2016 plebiscite on the peace accord—suggests looking into “whether or not it would be appropriate to make some changes” in the accord’s implementation, without affecting its text.

Tags: Compliance with Commitments, Politics of Peace

May 18, 2020

May 18, 2020

A court in Nariño orders a halt to virtual online consultations with communities in remote areas to discuss the environmental impact of renewed aerial herbicide eradication of coca. The court was responding to a complaint filed by communities fearful of being fumigated with herbicides without proper consultation. In order to restart the U.S.-backed fumigation program, Colombia’s Constitutional Court had required the environmental licensing agency ANLA to consult with communities on an eradication plan. COVID-19 had made those consultations impossible to carry out in person, so the agency had sought to perform them over internet, even though many of the affected rural communities have little or no internet access. The court’s order may delay the reinitiation of fumigation, originally expected for mid-2020.

Photo source: ANLA.

Tags: Illicit Crop Eradication, Justice System, Public Health

May 18, 2020

May 18, 2020

Security forces kill Digno Emérito Buendía, a coca-growing campesino, during an eradication operation in the rural zone of Cúcuta, Norte de Santander. Three other campesinos are wounded.

Tags: Civil-Military Relations, Human Rights, Illicit Crop Eradication, Norte de Santander

May 18, 2020

Webinar on Tuesday: Colombian Military Espionage—An Attack on Post-Conflict Reformers and the Free Press

Cross-posted from WOLA’s website. RSVP for the online event there.

Join the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), the Witness for Peace Solidarity Collective (WFP), the Latin America Working Group (LAWG), the International Institute on Race, Equality, and Human Rights, the Colombia Human Rights Committee, the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), and Amnesty International USA for an online forum.

On May 1, 2020, the Colombian weekly news magazine Semana revealed that Colombian military intelligence units carried out illicit surveillance on more than 130 individuals between February and December 2019.  Among those targeted were human rights defenders, Colombian and international journalists, politicians, labor leaders, and members of the military. Several were targeted for reporting, documenting, or representing families of victims of extrajudicial killings, and for bringing to light other grave abuses.

This illegal espionage is not a new phenomenon. In 2011, Colombia’s former intelligence agency, the Administrative Security Directorate (DAS), was dismantled after revelations in 2009 that it was illegally wiretapping and monitoring the activities of civil society leaders, judges, and politicians. The recent revelations by Semana raise the question: why is this a recurring problem in Colombia, and what needs to happen to secure accountability and at last bring about much-needed reforms to Colombian army intelligence and military doctrine?  

Journalists, human rights defenders, and military whistleblowers are carrying out crucial work to advance peace and uphold democratic practices amid a fragile security situation in post-conflict Colombia. When units in the military criminalize this work, it undermines efforts to build a more peaceful, democratic Colombia. What should be done to guarantee the end to illicit surveillance of social leaders? What role can the U.S. government play in achieving accountability, given its status as Colombia’s top military donor and trainer? How can the Organization of American States and the United Nations guarantee protection, justice, and non-repetition of such crimes? What are the implications of these revelations for Colombia’s 2016 peace accord?

To help answer these questions, we invite you to join us for a webinar with individuals targeted by this illegal surveillance and with Colombia human rights experts.

Event Details:

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. GMT-4 (Washington, D.C.)

12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. GMT-5 (Bogotá, Colombia)

*RSVP Required*

Featuring:

Danilo Rueda

Inter-Ecclesial Commission for Justice and Peace

WOLA Human Rights Award Winner 2015

César Jerez

Land rights leader

Jomary Ortegón

José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective (CCA-JAR)

Iván Cepeda

Senator, Senate of the Republic of Colombia

John Otis

Colombia-based journalist for NPR and WSJ

Nicolas Bedoya

Photojournalist, VELA Collective

Commentaries by:

Adam Isacson

Director for Defense Oversight, Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA)

Viviana Kristicevic

Executive Director, Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL)

Lisa Haugaard

Executive Director, Latin America Working Group (LAWG)

Moderated by:

Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli

Director for the Andes, Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA)

Simultaneous interpretation into English and Spanish will be available.

Instructions for webinar access will be emailed to registered participants.

Tags: Civil-Military Relations, Military and Human Rights, Press Freedom

May 17, 2020

May 16, 2020

The Colombian newsweekly Semana reveals the existence of “Operación Bastón,” a counterintelligence effort that sought to root out corruption inside the country’s army. The operation found 16 of the Army’s 63 generals involved in suspicious behavior, including one who likely helped the FARC for years. The magazine alleges that Operación Bastón—begun in response to a house-cleaning recommendation from NATO when Colombia affiliated itself as a partner of the alliance—was greatly weakened by the high command that President Duque named at the beginning of 2019.

Photo source: Semana.

Tags: Civil-Military Relations, Corruption, Military and Human Rights

May 16, 2020

May 15, 2020

“Operation Orion V,” a Colombian-led, multinational naval drug interdiction operation inaugurated on April 1, comes to an end. “Orion V” was launched alongside “Enhanced Counter Narcotics Operations, a U.S.-led, multinational naval drug interdiction operation also inaugurated on April 1. The U.S. operation continues. U.S. Southern Command lists 26 participant countries in Orion V, including the United States and Colombia.

Photo source: Diálogo (U.S. Southern Command).

Tags: Cocaine, Drug Policy, U.S. Policy

May 15, 2020

May 15, 2020

Citing health and COVID-19 concerns, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) grants conditional release from prison to retired Gen. Jesús Armando Arias Cabrales, who led the Army’s Bogotá-based 13th Brigade during the 1985 M-19 guerrilla takeover of, and subsequent military assault on, the Palace of Justice in the city’s center. Gen. Arias Cabrales had been jailed for the torture and disappearance of civilians during that operation.

Tags: Civil-Military Relations, JEP, Military and Human Rights, Transitional Justice

May 15, 2020

May 15, 2020

Colombia’s Supreme Court opens a new investigation of former president and ruling-party Senator Álvaro Uribe. The Court begins looking into allegations that Uribe may been the beneficiary of military units’ illegal intelligence-gathering activities against civilians, carried out throughout 2019 in what has become a major scandal. The Court is already investigating the former president for allegations of encouraging witnesses, some of them former paramilitary members, to give false testimony against a political rival.

Tags: Civil-Military Relations, intelligence, Justice System, Military and Human Rights

May 15, 2020

May 15, 2020

Citing recent captures of mid-level leaders and demobilizations of a few dozen fighters, High Commissioner for Peace Miguel Ceballos calls on the ELN “to make a clear political decision: whether it wants to continue with peace or not.”

Tags: ELN, ELN Peace Talks

May 15, 2020

May 14, 2020

Colombia’s air force bombs an ELN encampment in southern Bolívar department. The think tank CERAC, which maintains a database of conflict events, finds this to be the security forces’ first offensive operation against the ELN in 63 days. (In May, though, CERAC records “11 non-violent security force operations in which at least 20 guerrillas were captured.”)

Tags: Bolivar, ELN, Security

May 14, 2020

May 14, 2020

Photo source: Tweet from Andrés Stapper @AFSTAPPER

A virtual 109th meeting of the National Reincorporation Council, which approved two productive projects for ex-combatants in Tolima. Pictured, clockwise from top left, are Consolidation and Stabilization Advisor Emilio Archila; National Reincorporation Agency Director Andrés Stapper; FARC representative Pastor Alape Lascarro; and FARC representative Luis René Medina.

Tags: Reintegration

May 14, 2020

May 14, 2020

Photo source: Tweet from Andrés Stapper @AFSTAPPER

“The cattle-raising project was formulated by six ex-combatants from the “Gapasur” association, it will be developed in La Vereda hamlet of the municipality of Prado, Tolima, and intends to produce nearly 43,000 liters of milk and 2,800 kilos of meat in its first year.”

Tags: Reintegration, Tolima

May 14, 2020

May 14, 2020

Photo source: Tweet from Andrés Stapper @AFSTAPPER

“The Sacha Inchi project brings together 35 ex-combatants who live in the former La Fila ETCR in Icononzo, Tolima, who all consolidate a sustainable 14-hectare crop and the building of a basic plant for processing its vegetable oil in bottles.”

Tags: Reintegration, Tolima

May 14, 2020

May 13, 2020

The U.S. State Department adds Cuba to its list of “Countries Certified as Not Cooperating Fully With U.S. Counterterrorism Efforts,” for the first time since 2015. This listing, while not as severe as that of the State Department’s “terrorist-sponsoring states” list, carries strong symbolic weight. The main reason cited for Cuba’s addition to the list: its refusal to turn ELN negotiators over to Colombian justice in January 2019, after a guerrilla bombing of Colombia’s police academy brought an end to peace talks that the government of Juan Manuel Santos (2010-2018) had been carrying out in Havana. Santos government negotiators had signed protocols for those talks stipulating that, should they break down, the ELN negotiators would be allowed to return to Colombia. The Duque government rejected those protocols and demanded the extradition of the ELN negotiators, who remain in Havana. The State Department finds that Cuba’s honoring of the protocols “demonstrates that it is not cooperating with U.S. work to support Colombia’s efforts to secure a just and lasting peace, security, and opportunity for its people.”

High Commissioner for Peace Miguel Ceballos celebrates the U.S. government’s addition of Cuba to the “not cooperating fully” list, calling it “a huge support from the U.S. government to the Colombian government’s, President Duque’s and the Foreign Ministry’s insistent request that these people be turned over to Colombian justice.” He tells El Espectador, “The United States doesn’t recognize the protocols.”

Photo source: Office of the High Commissioner for Peace.

On May 14, in response to Ceballos’s comments in support of the U.S. move, the FARC suspends its participation in the joint body for verification of the 2016 peace accord’s implementation (Commission for the Follow-up, Promotion and Verification of the Implementation of the Final Agreement, CSIVI), demanding that the government clarify its position about Cuba’s status as a guarantor country. Cuba’s representative also refuses to attend a meeting of the CSIVI.

On May 16 the former chief government negotiator during the FARC peace process in Havana, Humberto de la Calle, publishes a column lamenting the U.S. government’s move, defending Cuba’s honoring of the protocols, and criticizing Ceballos’s statements.

On May 20, Norway’s ambassador to Colombia, John Petter Opdahl, tells El Tiempo that Cuba acted correctly in honoring the protocols for the end of the ELN negotiations. Norway and Cuba served as the two guarantor countries for the ELN talks, as well as the 2012-16 FARC process.

Tags: Counter-Terrorism, Cuba, ELN Peace Talks, High Commissioner for Peace, Politics of Peace, U.S. Policy, Verification

May 13, 2020