Colombia’s Peace Movement: “Arauca Deserves True Peace and Democracy”

“Defend the Peace”

The first weekend of 2022 saw one of the most serious humanitarian situations in recent years in Arauca—a department in Northeastern Colombia that borders Venezuela. Armed confrontations among illegal armed actors, believed to be members of the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional, ELN) and dissidents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC), left at least 23 people killed and several others displaced. Details surrounding the situation are still emerging.

On January 3, Defend the Peace Colombia (Defendamos La Paz Colombia, DLP) published a statement calling on all armed actors to cease their hostilities and to respect the lives and dignity of the communities, organizations, and leaders impacted by the confrontations. DLP further reiterated the importance of advancing a peace process with the ELN, addressing the dynamics brought forth by the FARC’s dissidents, and ratifying a humanitarian accord to bring an end to cycles of violence.

An English-language translation of the statement is below:

Defend the Peace observes with great concern the sensitive situation occurring in Arauca. The ongoing insecurity further reiterates the importance of advancing a peace process with the ELN, handling the dissidents of the FARC who continue their armed actions, and ratifying a global humanitarian accord to move away from these relentless cycles of armed conflict.

Given this situation of ongoing confrontations and the repercussions on communities and their organizations, we are grateful for all the humanitarian action and accompaniment of both national organizations with legal capacities and the international community, as accompaniment to the communities must always be a priority.

Arauca will only find a path of coexistence and true democracy if agreements are reached to leave behind more than four decades of armed conflict.

We call on the ELN and FARC dissident structures to cease their armed confrontations and respect the communities, their organizations, and their leadership.

Tags: Civil Society Peace Movement, Dissident Groups, ELN, Human Rights, Security Deterioration

January 4, 2022

Advance the Promises of the 2016 Peace Accord: Civil Society Perspectives on Peace in the Chocó

Read the full report

Between February 2021 and May 2021, the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) worked with Colombia-based consultants and partners to gather the perspectives of people at the community level about their experiences with the implementation of Colombia’s historic 2016 peace accord.

While there are good academic, statistical, and investigative reports on different aspects of Colombia’s peace, WOLA gathered perspectives on how various civil society actors were viewing the implementation of the 2016 peace on the ground. For peace to be properly consolidated on the ground, understanding how those most affected by the conflict is key and their viewpoints are vital to guaranteeing that peace is successful. Colombia’s regions are each unique with their own historical, cultural, geographic and ethnic differences and the conflict has played itself out differently throughout the country, which has resulted in distinct dynamics on the ground.  

Our research covered four different regions of Colombia—Arauca and Catatumbo in the northeast, Chocó in the northwest, and northern Cauca in the southwest. For people to speak candidly without fear of reprisals, there is no direct attribution of the sources of the information in this report.

The report, “Advance the Promises of the 2016 Peace Accord: Civil Society Perspectives on Peace in the Chocó,” summarizes the findings of WOLA’s work with partners in Chocó and includes recommended actions voiced by the communities themselves. This collaboration also sought to identify recommendations for the United States’ and international community’s support for the peace accord and its implementation.

When persons interviewed were asked what can the U.S. government and civil society organizations do to support peace efforts in the region, the following proposals were made:

Recommendations

1)    Support the creation of a Commission that can dialogue directly with U.S. policymakers

The U.S. government and civil society organizations should support the creation of a binational commission that serves as an interlocutor with U.S. policymakers to advance peace accord implementation in the Chocó. The Commission would include the U.S. government, Chocoan civil society, U.S. civil society and experts chosen due to their expertise). By helping create this commission, the international community can ensure the 2016 peace accord’s Ethnic Chapter is prioritized, and that peace is implemented in Chocó with a differentiated ethnic, gender, and disability approach. This commission should also incorporate the peace-related demands from various social movements that have formed in the department to petition the government. These include civic strikes (paro civicos) and Indigenous collective peaceful protest actions known as Mingas, all of which urge for the Ethnic Chapter’s comprehensive implementation.

2)  Closely monitor the implementation of the Territorially Focused Development Plans (PDETs)

The full and comprehensive implementation of the PDETs, a central commitment of the peace accord’s first chapter, can help transform the structural obstacles to consolidating peace in Colombia. For these plans to function as envisioned by the peace accord, international actors need to closely monitor and advocate for their implementation to help guarantee their advancement and to address complications that may arise. All proposals and projects related to the PDET Chocó must fully integrate an ethnic and gender approach and include the full participation of beneficiary communities. An ethnic approach does not mean superficially placing Afro-Colombian and Indigenous individuals in key positions; rather, only by integrating ethnic communities into all levels of participation and governance at the national level can the PDET truly address on-the-ground realities. As for implementing a gender approach, women and LGBT+ individuals from the territories must be included in the PDET as designers, implementers, and beneficiaries. Finally, the PDET must seek to activate local economies by supporting economic projects proposed by the community councils and the cabildos.  Supporting the projects designed by the communities themselves will transform the rural countryside and foment peacebuilding among receptor communities.

3)    Send resources directly to civil society organizations

At the moment, resource allocation is at the whim of who holds political office, which often results in alleged embezzlement practices. Civil society organizations have noted suspicious instances where funds are channeled to individuals who actively supported the political campaigns that elected those who hold political office. Therefore, to ensure resources and funds truly meet the needs of implementing the peace accord, international resources to support Colombia’s peace should be administered directly by communities in the Chocó who uphold the well-being of the community. This means empowering civil society organizations to administer resources. These organizations, made up of and elected by the communities themselves, have a wide breadth of experience working to solve the department’s challenges.  As such, they hold a deep understanding of the needs of the communities and are beholden to them. Directly allocating much-needed resources to these civil society organizations provides stronger guarantees of transparency and accountability, increasing the likelihood that the resources will be used as intended and preventing their diversion when changes, inevitable in a politicized local context, occur in municipal and departmental governments. 

4)   Help develop an alliance among victims, ex-combatants, and civil society to demand and monitor the peace accord’s implementation 

To advance peace accord implementation at the departmental level, a transformative pedagogy of peacebuilding is required. This strategy must move beyond its current emphasis on university professors and students. It should prioritize the participation of victims of the internal armed conflict, former combatants who are signatories of the peace accord, and diverse sectors of civil society like territorial leaders, social leaders, women, LGBT+ leaders, and youth representatives. 

These different sectors already exist in some form. However, they must unify their efforts by forming an alliance that advocates for the peace accord’s full implementation. For such an alliance to form, and for it to be effective, these sectors should join together in solidarity and ensure their communities understand what the peace accord stipulates and how they can demand the implementation of what the state is obligated to fulfill.  This alliance should carry out broad-based education campaigns about the stipulations of the peace accord and how state institutions, including the National Police and the judicial and legislative branches, can be used as tools to guarantee short- and long-term compliance to what was agreed to in the 2016 peace accord. 

5) Advocate for the Humanitarian Accord Now Chocó!

To sustain the 2016 peace accord and for it to be fully implemented, the other illegal groups operating in the region need to be addressed. The optimal solution would be for them to be addressed via a politically negotiated solution and/or disarmament. Since such solutions have not advanced in the past decade, Chocoan civil society is proposing that all armed groups support the humanitarian minimums found in the Humanitarian Accord Now Chocó!. This Accord seeks to place limits on the internal armed conflict and violence linked to illegal armed groups.  It guarantees better protection for civilians stuck in the middle of all these groups and respect for international humanitarian law. It is an effort by coalitions of local civil society organizations and religious entities to step in where the government has failed to ensure guarantees for the lives and physical integrity of civilians living in the area. Its intent is to minimize the impact of the conflict on civilians and to help pave the way for future and continuing dialogues. However, for such an accord to be realized it requires support from the international community, in particular the United States. 

Tags: Chocó, Human Rights, Illicit Crop Eradication, Security Deterioration, Transitional Justice, U.S. Policy

December 17, 2021

Patriarchy in Action: The Struggle to Center Women’s Experience in Colombia’s Armed Conflict

By: Yadira Sánchez-Esparza, Fall 2021 Mexico & Colombia Intern

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Photo by Ryan Brown via Flickr

Women accounted for a significant percentage of victims of the violence from Colombia’s armed conflict—an unequal distribution of pain and overall suffering. Even 40% of the FARC guerrillas ranks were women, yet they remained excluded from the initial negotiations that led to Colombia’s 2016 peace accord. This intentional silencing reflects a larger pattern of structural violence that existed prior to the armed conflict, which is taught in the home, reinforced in society, and ultimately legitimized by the state. Yet, despite this oppressive status quo, women in Colombia have been active participants in advocating for themselves, their communities, and the peace process by institutionalizing their respective emotions.

Women’s groups across Colombia are leading peacebuilding efforts to bring to light the disproportionate, gendered impact of the internal armed conflict’s violence. For instance, Colombian feminist organization Casa de la Mujer, in collaboration with a series of other organizations, published their recent report entitled TruthIs: Politicizing Women’s Pain and Emotions. The report, filled with sobering testimonies and concerted recommendations by victims of gender-based violence, was submittedtothe Truth Commission—an entity that forms part of Colombia’s tripartite transitional justice system and is responsible for clarifying the truth of what occurred during Colombia’s decades-long internal armed conflict. Three of Colombia’s departments—Meta, Córdoba, and Cauca—have dedicated chapters in the report, as they are home to many Indigenous and Afro-descendants who were disproportionately affected by the conflict. With the report’s submission to the Truth Commission, these women’s groups are contributing to implementing the 2016 peace accord’s trailblazing gender provisions, urging they be used as mechanisms for justice.

Women and the Peace Process

Reports like TruthIs are possible because of the efforts placed forth to include a gender approach in the peace process. The inclusion of the peace accord’s innovative gender provisions was no easy feat. When peace negotiations began between the Colombian state and FARC guerrillas, women were not granted a seat at the table to participate and it took the intentional efforts of about 450 women’s organizations to push then-Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos to allow for two seats. In September 2014, a gender subcommittee was launched that included five members in total from the FARC and the government. But nonetheless, the gender provisions that resulted from the subcommittees’ contributions received significant pushback, mainly due to an opposition movement that labeled the recognition of LGBTQ+ and women rights as a “gender ideology”. This push came mainly from evangelical factions who sought to hinder advances in protecting different gender identities and sexual orientations. Unfortunately, this opposition movement succeeded in helping deter support to the peace accord and help the plebiscite fail, resulting in the “no” vote succeeding by a margin of less than 1 percent.

Despite these setbacks, women’s eventual integration allowed them to play an essential role in the delegations of victims, where women represented 60% of the members. This integration has led the Colombian government and the FARC to release statements that reflected positively on women’s rights, inclusivity, and diversity. The largest impact can be seen in legislation around sexual violence in which many agreements have a gender focus and sexual violence is listed as a crime that can not be amnestied under the accord. Essentially, the peace process without women is not adept to face the dynamic problems that face civil society and the Colombian government.

Women’s lives before the armed-conflict

The report brings attention to the continuum of violence that existed prior to the known inception of the armed conflict. The pre-established systems of oppression against women were deeply ingrained from interpersonal relations and into the larger structure of financial, economic, and physical oppression in Colombian society. The harmful ideology of machismo upholds and perpetuates a traditional expression of masculinity and femininity, which is simultaneously tied to a rigid gender binary in which women are inferior to men.

“Habia una buena relación, las mujeres eran sumisas porque el que mandaba era el marido”145

“There was a good relationship, the women were submissive because the husband was in charge “145

Beyond this, machismo minimizes and normalizes violence against women often becoming internalized in men and women. Throughout the interview process, women shared that they found their relationships to their spouses, families, and communities to be generally positive in terms of their quality of life. However, In the same recounting of events they would include anecdotes of violence within families, partners, and insecurity for women in general:

“En alugnas familias había conflictos ecónomicos y pasionales cuando un hombre cela a una mujer, también en las familias había maltrato y violencia…no dejaban salir a la mujer por celos y golpes” (145, TruthIs)

“In some families, there were economic conflicts and conflicts of passion when a man was jealous of a woman, in families, there was mistreatment and violence…they did not let the woman go out because of jealousy and beatings” (145, TruthIs).

Additionally, there was an extreme division of labor and enforced subordination in which women had no rights to education or entrepreneurship. This, in turn, would not only confirm the biases against women but limit women to vulnerable socio-economic situations. The intentional retraction of resources was a manifestation of how little value women held in Colombian society thus making it easier for perpetrators to dehumanize and enact intimate and familial violence on them. The TruthIs report provides insight that before the conflict these girls and women had already been reduced to public commodities instead of dignified humans. Sexual violence was already systematically being practiced by perpetrators who exploited the physical and bodily autonomy of women:

[…] “antes de llegar los paramilitares, los ricos compraban a las niñas, la gente que tenía plata compraba a las niñas a sus padres: dos, tres vacas; tres, cuatro, diez mil pesos por una niña, y entonces se la llevaban a vivir uno, dos meses, y ahí la dejaban y salían y compraban otra.” (Narrativa de líder de Córdoba-68).

[…] “before the paramilitaries arrived, the rich people bought girls, those who had money bought the girls from their parents: two, three cows or three, four, ten thousand pesos for a girl. They took her to live with them for one or two months. They would leave her there and go out and buy another one.” (Narrative of a leader from Córdoba-68)

Ultimately, the qualitative research provided in the report demonstrated the extent of the normalization of violence in communities that would later be appropriated by various armed actors to use women as pawns for dominance.

Women’s experiences in the armed conflict

The TruthIs report highlights that the larger struggle during the armed conflict is impossible to understand without understanding how women experienced gender-based violence, a reality supported by the Constitutional Court’s report that sexual violence was a ‘systematic, habitual and generalized practice’ appropriated by all armed groups in the Colombian conflict. Estimates include that armed groups were responsible for the rape of 12,809 women, the forced prostitution of 1,575, the forced pregnancies of 4,415 women, and the forced abortions of 1,810 women. Both the falsehood of security and the unstable security vanished leaving only extreme direct violence, a reality that became unavoidable from the youngest child to elderly mothers. This new milieu instilled fear that did not allow them to live their lives as they had before, new biopolitics was being forcibly instilled in communities across Colombia.

“Mi mamá no me hizo fiesta de quince porque decía que eso era darles aviso a los hombres armados de que ya se lo podían comer a uno.”36

“My mother didn’t throw me a quinceañera because she said that would be a warning to the armed men that they could have me. “36

The TruthIs report highlighted how Afro-descendant and Indigenous women were disproportionately impacted not only because of the regions in which they live but the many dimensions of discrimination that they face. And so, Colombia’s history with slavery and oppression of bodies continued to burden those who have historically been disregarded. Sexual violence was used to control and dominate physically, culturally, economically, and territory for the larger perceived purpose of the conflict. For example, guerrillas have used sexual violence in the forced recruitment of girls as combatants, girls as sex slaves, and as payment to protect other family members.

“Ya el pensamiento era de oder que la mujer conquistara al que tiene el poder…cuando empezaron a llegar los grupos armados, más que todo los paramilitares y los soldados…ya no se buscaba marido por amor sino alguien que nos protegiera”. 38

“The idea was that the woman should conquer the one in power…when the armed groups began to arrive, especially the paramilitaries and the soldiers…they were no longer looked for a husband for love, but for someone who would protect us. “38

State Security Forces’ have been distinctively damaging as the civilian population has no mechanism for justice. These militias’ essential position is to protect and support civilians’ rights to a life free of violence. However, as described by many victims, these entities often took advantage of the chaos to extend harm on vulnerable populations exercising violence against women on a mass scale. Unlike FARC or ELN groups targeted by the government, the State Security Forces were never held accountable for their actions since they operated as the rule of law in these sometimes remote areas. The impunity surrounding State Security Forces has protected many individuals and battalions from being held accountable for the crimes committed against their civilians.

The significance of a report like TruthIS being presented to the Truth Commission

  • It’s innovative, it highlights not only the perseverance of women’s resistance but how women in these communities utilized their pain and emotions to contribute to the peace process. This report refutes the machismo mindset, that normalizes victim-blaming, and minimizes the suffering of women instead highlighting how women can strengthen peacebuilding efforts.
  • It’s intentional, the report is taking advantage of the gender provisions in order to create a historical record nationally and internationally affirming the violence committed against women in the context of the armed conflict. It demonstrates how important it is for women to be integrated into the peacebuilding process since their participation also promotes gendered provisions. The regional focus on the Pacific Coast is to emphasize that Afro-descendant and Indigenous women were impacted in specific and targeted ways.
  • It’s an example, using testimony as an integral component in communicating the differentiated impact the internal conflict had on women. These individuals’ experiences centered on sexual and physical violence but also brought to light how women experienced forced disappearances, forced displacement, forced recruitment, and psychological trauma. The report also includes the experiences of trans individuals and those with different sexualities which as previously discussed are realities that are often overshadowed.

The struggle to end sexual violence continues

While this report is an exceptional demonstration of how far women’s engagement has come in terms of their healing, liberation, and role in the peace process, it can’t begin to entirely eclipse the intricacies of trauma that remains in the wake of the armed conflict. The recent webinar hosted by Oxfam, WOLA, and the Latin America Working Group provided space for women to share in their own words how they experienced violence and the intergenerational trauma felt in their families and communities. The sheer courage displayed moving and the overall message that the fear and continued instability are incredibly prevalent. The women shared a general desire for their daughters and sons to live in reality free of violence, a dream that seems almost unattainable in the current reality.

Presently, the Pacific Coast home to the Cauca and Cordóba departments continue to be disproportionately impacted by violence against women as the demobilization of guerrillas and the increase of militarization in areas previously abandoned by the state has maintained the armed conflict’s violence continuum as young women are still forced into armed prostitution and sexual abuse. Nationally, UN Women reported that 37% of women in Colombia will experience physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence at least once in their lifetime, and over 50% of Colombian men surveyed for a 2010 UN study admitted to abusing their female partners. This violence has continued to be exacerbated following COVID-19 the FISCALIA reported 60.581 cases of domestic violence across the country.

Women’s Resistance

The silencing of women’s voices and experiences has been constant before, during, and after Colombia’s armed conflict. However, new forms of advocacy and resistance have forced attention onto wounds that many responsible and complacent actors would rather ignore. Of these actors, the Colombian state should grant a public apology to victims of sexual violence experienced by girls, women, and those with different sexual orientations and gender identities. In addition, the international community should hold the Colombian state accountable for implementing the gender provisions of the 2016 Peace Accord that focus on women’s rights, gender, and their social and political participation. Ultimately, the resistance of female victims and community non-profits such as Casa de la Mujer is integral in pushing forward narratives deserving of public attention and justice. Therefore, defending and amplifying the voices and experiences of women that have endured Colombia’s armed conflict is not only a peace mechanism but an active step towards protecting women’s dignity and autonomy.

“Bueno yo pienso que al principio pues no éramos visibles, éramos invisibles para todo el mundo porque la mujer no se tenía en cuenta para nada, pero a raíz de todo lo que nos pasó yo creo que reaccionamos y dijimos que Dios nos dejó por algo, y yo pienso que tenemos que dejar una huella de bien en la comunidad, en la sociedad, en nuestra familia, que nos empoderemos en muchos espacios y en muchas cosas. Ver tantas mujeres asesinadas, desaparecidas y uno que ha logrado superar esas cosas es una razón para que otras mujeres vivan a través de nuestra experiencia, que se den cuenta [de] que sí vale la pena luchar y cambiar este país. Los grupos, fundaciones y todo eso nos ayudan a superarnos emocional y económicamente, y si lo hacemos unidas, mejor.” (Narrativa de mujer del Meta-143).

“Well, I think that at the beginning, we were not visible. We were invisible to everyone women were not taken into account at all. But as a result of everything that happened to us, I think we reacted, and we said that God left us for something, and I think that we have to leave a mark of good in the community, in society, in our families, and our world. We empower ourselves in many spaces and in many things. Seeing so many women murdered, disappeared, and even one woman who has managed to overcome these despite it all is a reason for all of us to overcome. It is a reason for other women to live despite our experiences, to realize so that they realize [that] it is worth fighting and changing this country. The groups, foundations, and all that help us overcome ourselves emotionally and economically and help us better ourselves emotionally and financially, and if we do it united, all the better.” (Narrative of a woman from Meta-143)

Tags: Gender Perspective, Human Rights, Transitional Justice, Victims

December 17, 2021

The meaning of the FARC’s removal from the U.S. terrorist list

This article appeared December 6 at the Colombian analysis site Razón Pública as “¿Qué implica que las FARC ya no estén en la lista de terroristas de Estados Unidos?“

The meaning of the FARC’s removal from the U.S. terrorist list

Adam Isacson, Director for Defense Oversight, Washington Office on Latin America

At least in the 20 years since “Plan Colombia,” it’s been rare to see the U.S. and Colombian governments disagree in public about something. Even during the worst days of police abuses during the Paro Nacional protests earlier this year, Washington’s expressions of concern were remarkably mild.

That’s why it was surprising to hear President Iván Duque express disagreement with a step that the Biden administration took to coincide with the five-year anniversary of Colombia’s peace accord. “We understand and respect this information from the United States, but we would have preferred a different decision,” he said on November 29, the day before the State Department removed the FARC from its list of foreign terrorist organizations.

The removal of the FARC, or rather the ex-FARC, should be uncontroversial. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia on the U.S. list doesn’t exist, and hasn’t since August 2017. Of its 13,600 members who underwent demobilization, more than 90 percent haven’t carried out an act of organized violence in more than five years. They are playing by the rules and integrating themselves into civilian life.

A few continue to engage in violence against civilians. These are mainly members of Colombia’s two main ex-FARC dissident networks, the one headed by “Gentil Duarte” and the one known as “Nueva Marquetalia,” which either refused to demobilize in 2016 or abandoned the process later. Most of these groups’ members are new recruits with no guerrilla background; many weren’t even adolescents yet when the peace accord was signed. The Biden administration added these groups to the State Department’s list, in the FARC’s place.

The step taken on November 30, then, was less a “removal” of the FARC than an updating of the terrorist list to reflect reality.

As the list was being interpreted, “Gentil Duarte” and “El Paisa” were in the same category as former fighters now raising children and going to schools, starting their own businesses, or participating in competitive rafting teams. That was absurd.

But that was the reality. Under the “material support for terrorism” provisions in U.S. law, as they were being interpreted, it has been a crime—punishable with fines or up to 15 years in prison—for U.S. citizens to provide any demobilized FARC members with money, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, communications equipment, facilities, or transportation.

The U.S. government was interpreting this very strictly. It has literally been illegal even to buy them a cup of coffee, much less include them in development meetings or—as in the case of Humanicemos, a group of ex-FARC deminers who were unable to get any U.S. aid—to instruct them in a skill like landmine removal.

In off-the-record conversations going back to 2017, U.S. officials have told of incidents in which former low-ranking guerrillas have been barred from Colombian government meetings to plan Territorially Focused Development Plans (PDETs) or to consult with communities about government services, just because the U.S. government was partially or fully covering the meetings’ cost.

In some cases, U.S. officials only found out afterward that low-level former guerrillas had attended U.S.-funded events. When that has happened, because that ex-guerrilla may have eaten a snack provided by the conference organizers, or may have received some knowledge by attending the event, U.S. officials have had to endure numerous subsequent meetings with State Department lawyers, going over every detail to document and understand what happened, what the organizers knew, and whether it was punishable.

The delay in removing the FARC not only undermined U.S. programming, though. It made the U.S. government look out of date, unaware that the FARC on the list didn’t exist anymore. It even made the U.S. government appear actively hostile to the entire peace process, echoing the notion—expressed this year by Foreign Minister Claudia Blum and Defense Minister Diego Molano—that the Comunes party and the dissident groups (which, in fact, often target Comunes members) are somehow linked. Either way, the message Washington sent by keeping the FARC on the list was toxic.

It is great news that this step has finally been taken. But the Biden administration certainly could have rolled it out better. News of the impending decision leaked to the Wall Street Journal very early, on November 23, perhaps from an individual who opposed removing the FARC from the terrorist list. The explanation, with fuller context, did not come from the State Department and White House for days afterward, in part because November 25 was a major national holiday in the United States.

As a result, the initial reaction from many colleagues and journalists in Colombia was confused. Those of us who work on Colombia policy here in Washington got a lot of questions. Here are answers to a few of them.

Why did it take so long to take the FARC off the list, especially if it was causing so many problems for U.S. programming? There is no great answer to this, other than that while it is easy to add a group to the State Department’s list—all you need is a few attacks on civilian targets—it is hard to remove it. Revocation of a “terrorist” status requires a deliberative process within the State Department in which all interested actors have to reach consensus. The AUC formally demobilized in 2006 but remained on the list until 2014. Peru’s MRTA barely existed after the 1997 Japanese embassy fiasco, but was on the list until 2001. The Washington Post reported that each group’s terrorist designation usually gets reviewed every five years, and that the FARC had last been considered in April 2015. A fresh review of the FARC didn’t happen in 2020 because of the pandemic.

Does this mean FARC leaders are no longer wanted by U.S. justice? Nothing changes about extradition requests for FARC members. They are wanted in U.S. courts either for sending cocaine to the United States or for kidnapping or killing U.S. citizens. These are specific crimes, not the vague charge of “terrorism.” Those processes continue, so former FARC leaders wanted by U.S. justice still face risks if they travel internationally. Because he was arrested in Ecuador in 2004 while apparently serving as an intermediary for talks about three U.S. citizen defense contractors whom the FARC was holding at the time, Simón Trinidad remains imprisoned in the state of Colorado for his role in that specific case.

Is this an insult to the FARC’s victims? Annette Taddeo, a Democratic Party state senator in Florida, emigrated from Colombia when she was 17, after the FARC kidnapped her father. “For me and many of us, this is painful and very personal,” she tweeted. The FARC upended the lives of thousands of Colombians; many of them, and their loved ones, are no doubt outraged to see any sign of conciliation like a U.S. recognition that those leaders are no longer behaving as terrorists. The fact, though, is that the top non-dissident ex-FARC leadership appears truly to have renounced terrorism. They remain guilty of many things, and must answer to their victims and the transitional justice process. But the “terrorist” label no longer sticks.

What about Sen. Marco Rubio’s complaint that any U.S. money that benefits ex-FARC members should go through the Colombian government? The Colombian government “doesn’t want the delisting,” Sen. Marco Rubio (Republican of Florida), who is close to Uribismo, told U.S. radio. “What they wanted was, to the extent that you’re going to provide assistance to these people who abandoned the guerrilla fight, laid down their weapons, become politically engaged, we want you to run that assistance through the democratically elected government of Colombia, not unilaterally.” This argument is confusing. Most US assistance with ex-combatants’ participation—reincorporation, rural development, demining—would go hand-in-hand with the efforts of Colombian government agencies. U.S. aid almost never goes to such agencies directly as cash payments.

Why is Cuba still on the list of state sponsors? Before leaving office in January 2021, the Trump administration re-added Cuba to its list of state sponsors of terrorism, alongside Iran, Syria, and North Korea. The main reason cited was Cuba’s refusal to extradite ELN leaders who had been in the country for peace talks with the Colombian government, a move that would have violated those talks’ protocols. That the Biden administration hasn’t taken steps to remove Cuba, even as it removes the FARC, probably owes more to the politics around U.S.-Cuban relations. It would be very difficult to take Cuba off of the list—or perform any other act of engagement—in the weeks after Cuba’s government aggressively suppressed a citizen protest movement.

Why was the announcement rolled out this way? When we heard that the FARC were being taken off, why didn’t we know right away that the dissident groups would be added? There is no great answer to that. The impending decision was leaked, possibly by a hostile party. But for days, the Biden administration offered no new context, so many actors were left think that all of the FARC was being taken off of the list, and even that FARC leaders were no longer wanted by U.S. justice.

The rollout of this news was not graceful. In today’s climate, when a lie travels around the world before the truth can even get its running shoes on, that does damage. Still, there is only so much that the Biden administration could have done. Many sectors of our societies will always be determined to believe what they want, regardless of the facts we present to them.

There is a communications lesson here, though—one that recalls the plebiscite debacle of 2016. It is crucial to get out ahead of a story as much as possible, so that when it breaks, the response can be nimble, and people who are open to the truth—the majority of people, still—can get the context quickly.

Tags: Counter-Terrorism, U.S. Policy

December 8, 2021

WOLA Report: A Long Way to Go: Implementing Colombia’s peace accord after five years

November 24 is the five-year anniversary of a landmark peace accord that ended a half a century of fighting in Colombia. While there are aspects worth celebrating, this is a far less happy anniversary than it promised to be.

The 2016 accord ended the most violent facet of a multi-front conflict that killed 260,000 people, left 80,000 more missing, and led to more than 9 million of Colombia’s 50 million people registering with the government as conflict victims. The months after November 2016 saw the disarmament and demobilization of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the largest guerrilla group, though smaller armed groups remain.

For a time after the FARC left the scene, battered rural areas notorious for violence and illicit drug production experienced a moment of calm. A historic window of opportunity opened for Colombia to break its recurrent cycles of violence.

Five years later, the window is closing. Implementing the peace accord has gone more poorly than anticipated. A new report from the Washington Office on Latin America, “A Long Way to Go,” examines the experience of the past five years, presenting a wealth of data about each of the 2016 accord’s six chapters. While there are some positive developments, WOLA finds, Colombia is well behind where it should be.

It was up to Colombia’s government to preserve the peace, by fully implementing the commitments it made in the ambitious 300-page accord. That document promised not just to end the FARC, but to undo the causes underlying more than a century of rural strife in Latin America’s third-largest country: unequal land tenure, crushing poverty, an absent government, and impunity for the powerful.

That hasn’t happened. Parts of Colombia’s government acted, but what they did wasn’t enough. Opponents of the accord came to power in August 2018 and allowed many commitments to languish, keeping investments well below the necessary tempo and encouraging skepticism through messaging that regularly disparages the agreement.

10 notable facts from “A Long Way to Go: Implementing Colombia’s peace accord after five years”
1. As of March 2021, Colombia was 29 percent of the way into the peace accord’s implementation timetable, but had spent just 15 percent of what implementation is expected to cost.
2. One third of the way into the implementation process, the PDETs—the vital plans to bring the government into historically conflictive areas—are only one-seventh funded, and that’s according to the most optimistic estimate.
3. A nationwide mapping of landholdings, expected to be complete by 2023, was only 15 percent done as of March 2021.
4. 2021 is on pace to be Colombia’s worst year for homicides since 2013, and worst year for massacres since 2011.
5. Analysts’ estimates coincide in finding significantly less than 10 percent of demobilized ex-FARC members taking up arms again. “Dissident” groups’ membership is mostly new recruits.
6. Estimates of the number of social leaders murdered in 2020 range from 133 to 310. But the justice system only managed 20 convictions of social leaders’ killers that year, while the Interior Minister argued that “more people die here from cell phone thefts than for being human rights defenders.”
7. Of coca-growing families who signed up for a “two-year” package of crop substitution assistance three or more years ago, just 1 percent had received a complete package of payments by the end of 2020.
8. If the transitional justice tribunal is correct, half of the Colombian military’s claimed combat killings between 2002 and 2008 may have been civilians whom soldiers executed and then falsely claimed were members of armed groups.
9. 20 of the transitional justice tribunal’s 38 magistrates are women. 4 of 11 Truth Commissioners are women.
10. Since accord implementation began in fiscal 2017, U.S. assistance to Colombia has totaled about US$3.1 billion, roughly half of it for the military and police.

Read the report

In historically conflictive territories all around the country, violence is on the rise again. New armed groups are quickly filling the vacuums of authority that the government would not or could not fill on its own. As massacres, displacements, and confrontations increase again, in too many regions—including many Afro-descendant and Indigenous communities—it no longer makes sense to speak of a “post-conflict.”

The “Long Way to Go” report walks through many of the most important commitments Colombia’s government made, evaluating the extent to which each is truly being implemented after five years. The discussion passes through 17 sections.

  • The first looks at the overall budget and use of resources, finding that Colombia is well behind where it should be after five years.
  • The next four cover commitments to Colombia’s countryside, like addressing land tenure, making rural economies viable, and improving security and governance. These commitments, too, are falling alarmingly behind: state presence has not been increasing, land tenure programs are struggling, and violence indicators are worsening.
  • The sixth, seventh, and tenth sections explore commitments to expand political participation and protect social leaders. Despite some important steps forward, the continued pace of attacks and killings and occasional government displays of indifference show how much remains to be done.
  • The eighth and ninth evaluate assistance and security for demobilized ex-combatants. Assistance efforts have been worthy, but security lags amid a low probability of killers being brought to justice
  • The remaining seven sections look at separate sets of commitments: crop substitution, transitional justice, inclusion of ethnic communities, the accords’ gender focus, laws that remain to be passed, verification mechanisms, and the U.S. government’s role. There are positive notes here, like the transitional justice system’s performance, useful external verification, and a more supportive tone from the Biden administration. For the most part, though, these seven sections sound alarms as ground continues to be lost.

Finally, WOLA’s new report explains why, despite the many setbacks documented here, this is absolutely not the time to give up on the peace accord and its promise. Instead, WOLA expects this five-year evaluation to motivate and inform the government that will take power after Colombia’s May 2022 elections, which will need to redouble implementation together with international partners.

Although many findings in “A Long Way to Go” are grim, the report also upholds the bright spots of the past five years. More than nine in ten demobilized guerrillas remain committed to the peace process. The special post-conflict justice system is functioning, earning recent praise from the International Criminal Court. Though beleaguered by threats and attacks, Colombia’s civil society and free press remain vibrant, and the country is headed into 2022 elections with a broad spectrum of candidates.

The window has not closed all the way. All is not lost yet. By taking the temperature of implementation at the five year mark in the most clear-eyed possible manner, WOLA hopes to contribute to Colombians’ effort to resume and rethink their fight to curb the conflict’s historic causes.

Tags: Coca, Human Rights, Implementation, Stabilization, U.S. Policy, WOLA Statements

November 24, 2021

Podcast: Colombia’s peace accord at five years

(Cross-posted from wola.org)

Colombia’s government and largest guerrilla group signed a historic peace accord on November 24, 2016. The government took on many commitments which, if implemented, could guide Colombia away from cycles of violence that its people have suffered, especially in the countryside, for over a century.

Five years later, is the peace accord being implemented? The picture is complicated: the FARC remain demobilized and a transitional justice system is making real progress. But the countryside remains violent and ungoverned, and crucial peace accord commitments are going unmet. WOLA Director for the Andes Gimena Sánchez joins host Adam Isacson for a walk through which aspects of accord implementation are going well, and which are urgently not.

Download the episode (.mp3)

Listen to WOLA’s Latin America Today podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or wherever you subscribe to podcasts. The main feed is here.

Tags: Human Rights, Implementation, Podcast

November 24, 2021

Recommendations from the Black, Afro-Colombian, Palenquero, and Raizal People’s 2021 Summit

On October 21 and 22, 2021, representatives from five macro regions in Colombia held the Black, Afro-Colombian, Palenquero and Raizal People’s Summit in Santiago de Cali, Valle del Cauca department. They engaged in collaborative work and analysis to advance their common objectives at a time when their communities and territories face serious challenges. These challenges stem from a historical and systematic marginalization; the resurgence of armed conflict and widespread violence, forced internal displacement, and dispossession of their territories and natural resources; the COVID-19 pandemic; and Colombia’s national strike, which brought to light the severity of these ongoing situations.

The summit resulted in a concerted set of recommendations that urge for the comprehensive implementation of the 2016 peace accord and its Ethnic Chapter, the active enforcement of the Afro-Colombian collective land ownership Law 70 of 1993, the declaration of humanitarian emergencies in Afro-descendant territories, the need to promote economic reactivation targeted towards Black communities, a protection strategy that focuses on social investment, among other key issues.

In view of the absence of high-level government officials at the summit, members plan to go to Bogotá to deliver these demands and recommendations personally to President Iván Duque.

You can read unofficial, English-language translations of the recommendations here and here.

Tags: Afro-Descendant Communities, Displacement, Human Rights, Security Deterioration

November 1, 2021

Report Submitted to Colombia’s Truth Commission Centers the Experiences of Gender-Based Violence Victims During the Internal Armed Conflict

Join Oxfam, the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), and the Latin America Working Group (LAWG) on October 28 at 11:00 a.m. EDT for a webinar about the report. Sign up here:
Colombian Women Speaking Truth to End Violence: Testimonies and Recommendations to Colombia’s Truth Commission under the Peace Accord.

Many women and their organizations across Colombia have come together to document their own experiences with violence during the country’s internal armed conflict, share their testimonies, offer an analysis of the structural roots of violence against women in a patriarchal society, and provide recommendations to ensure such violence does not recur. These efforts resulted in a published report—by Colombian feminist organization Casa de la Mujer, in colloboration with local organizations in Cauca, Córdoba, and Meta departments—entitled “TruthIs: Politicizing Women’s Pain and Emotions.” 

These women’s organizations submitted their report to Colombia’s Truth Commission, which was created in the historic 2016 Peace Accord to uncover the truth about human rights violations during the conflict, promote recognition of the victims and the responsibilities of those in the conflict, and foster coexistence in order to ensure such violence is not repeated. The report discusses the importance of politicizing women’s pain and emotions as a means to raise public awareness about the conflict’s violence against women and provide guarantees these harmful acts will not be repeated. It contains chapters dedicated to the Meta, Córdoba, and Cauca departments that outline women’s rights before armed actors arrived, women’s experiences after they arrived, the acts of violence committed against women, women’s emotions and resistance, and the patriarchal logic and practices of violence perpetrated against women.

The report’s recommendations are vital to addressing all forms of violence against women and ensuring a strong gender approach for understanding the conflict and building lasting peace. Therefore, delivering the report to the Truth Commission is important because it highlights the trailblazing gender provisions in the Peace Accord and urges they be used as mechanisms for justice.

The women’s organizations call on the international community to:

  • Urge the Colombian state to advance the integral implementation of the Peace Accord, in particular with regard to women’s and a gender perspective, demilitarize the response to social protest, and guarantee women’s right to social and political participation;
  • Support the design and implementation of programs and actions aimed at guaranteeing the non-repetition of acts of violence experienced by women;
  • Accompany the process of widely distributing the Truth Commission’s final report when it is published in mid-2022; 
  • Consistently follow-up, through international monitoring, on the implementation of the Truth Commission’s recommendations for coexistence and non-repetition; 
  • Support peacebuilding initiatives led by civil society organizations, especially those led by women.

Below you will find an unofficial translation of a summary of the report.

TruthIs: Politicizing Women’s Pain and Emotions

To guarantee acts of violence perpetrated against women are not repeated, it is necessary to carry out initiatives for coexistence, reconciliation, and peacebuilding.  These initiatives require the inevitable ethical and political responsibilities of explaining how the violence of Colombia’s internal armed conflict, as well as overarching patriarchal and capitalist ideologies, have caused suffering for women. With these responsibilities in mind, the truth narrated by women must contribute to a recognition by Colombian society that their lives are valuable and that this violence against women is a societal concern.  Addressing violence against women at the societal level serves as a step towards healing for women victims of the armed conflict. To politicize the pain and emotions of women is to recognize, understand, and explain the suffering of women; it is accepting that the loss of their lives has not been considered a reason for social or collective mourning, given the unequal distribution of suffering in which women’s pain has not been and is not socially recognized or amplified (Butler, 2006, p. 16). 

Therefore, we hope that our report “TruthIs: Politicizing Women’s Pain and Emotions” will contribute to politicizing both the roots of the patriarchy and the socio-political structures in which we live. We also strive to explain why some lives are more protected than others and why some are more exposed to violence and more susceptible to suffering. Additionally, we also explore why some women manage to process and give a collective and political meaning to their pain through forms of resistance. For example, they accompany other women, promote organizing among women, and demand the building of a society where women are equal and have the same opportunities as men, free from violence.

The report contains a prologue that discusses the importance of politicizing women’s pain and emotions as a means to raise public awareness,  ensure these harmful acts are not repeated, and build lasting peace. The report’s introduction presents the principles, methodology, purpose, and the conceptual elements that guide the information collection and its subsequent analysis. The report then focuses on three of Colombia’s departments: Meta, Córdoba, and Cauca. Each of these chapters addresses women’s rights before armed actors arrived, women’s experiences after armed actors arrived, the acts of violence committed against women, women’s emotions and resistance, and the patriarchal logic and practices of violence perpetrated against women. Additionally, each chapter includes the most relevant dynamics of the armed conflict that help explain the intersection and intertwining of the violence women experienced.

The last chapter analyzes the patriarchal ideology of violence used against women and its expansion, its continuities and discontinuities, and its displacement from private life to the public realm and from the public realm to the private sphere. It includes the practices, stereotypes, and evaluations about women and feminized bodies. The chapter ends with recommendations to Colombia’s Truth Commission to guarantee non-repetition and coexistence.

Women victims from the following groups and regions present recommendations that they hope will contribute to the Truth Commission’s work,  and ultimately contribute to responding to the expectations and needs of women victims: 

  • Women from Caldono, Santander de Quilichao, Lorica, Montería, Tierralta, Valencia, and Granada.
  • The Association of Women of Ariari- Association of Women Building Development for the Region of Ariari Asomuariari
    (Asociación De Mujeres Construyendo Desarrollo para la Región del Ariari, Asomuariari).
  • The Association of Victims of the Internal Armed Conflict of Lorica
    (Asociación de Víctimas por el conflicto armado interno de Lorica, Asovilor).
  • Foundation for Social Development and Agricultural Research
    (Fundación para el Desarrollo Social y la Investigación Agrícola, Fundesia).
  • Network of Social Organizations of Communal and Community Women of Monteria (Red de Organizaciones Sociales de mujeres, Rosmuc).
  1. With regard to interpreting the violent acts against women during the internal armed conflict, we suggest that the Truth Commission:
  • Take into account the existing relationships among armed conflict, patriarchy, and capitalism, and how these contribute to violence against women; that is, creating cartographies that demonstrate the intersection of structural violence with the violence experienced by women because they are women, in all their diverse identities;
  • Recognize that violence against women is fundamental to the mapping of geographies of power, control, and masculinized “disciplining” of women’s bodies and territories; 
  • Highlight the importance of deconstructing the patriarchal and capitalist ideologies that place women’s lives in a place of precariousness that is exacerbated within a scenario of armed confrontation; 
  • Recognize women as holders of rights, in all their diverse identities; implying that the recommendations should ensure that the state guarantee enabling conditions for the effective enjoyment of rights for all women, without any distinction whatsoever. Additionally, it means changing the perspective that all women have the same needs, instead understanding that women victims have individual experiences and rights, allowing them to demand that the state comply with its constitutional and internationally recognized responsibilities.
  1. In order to politicize women’s pain and emotions, we suggest the Truth Commission give a privileged place in its report for women’s pain and emotions. Such pain and emotions are linked to the ruthless exercise of power by men—armed and unarmed—over women, the violence against them, and the dispute over their bodies, their territory. 

Therefore, we suggest the Truth Commission urge the Colombian state to: 

  • Design and agree on national and territorial plans for the psychosocial accompaniment of victims by women’s and victims’ organizations and provide the needed economic and professional resources. Plans should emphasize strategies that focus on women’s pain and care for the body, promoting reflection on the deprivatization of pain, self-care, self-esteem, and autonomy in all their diverse identities. The national and territorial plans should include ancestral knowledge and practices of care and self-care; 
  • Design, coordinate, and implement communication, cultural, and educational strategies that transform images and stereotypes that uplift the value, life, and dignity of women in all their diverse identities; 
  • Build monuments and public parks to honor the memory of women victims and declare sites linked to the violence committed against women during the armed conflict as spaces of memory (after putting together an inventory of sites in consultation with women’s organizations); 
  • Recognize the responsibility of the state, armed actors, and civil society organizations in the territories for the violence committed against women and for the pain caused because they did nothing to stop, denounce, investigate, and punish this violence. They failed to protect women; 
  • Apologize to the victims of sexual violence, especially women and girls, and other people of different sexual orientations and different gender identities for the grave violations committed against them.

In regard to guarantees for non-repetition and reconciliation, we suggest the Colombian Truth Commission: 

  • Immediately comply with the Peace Accord and, in particular, with measures focused on women’s rights and a gender perspective;
  • Design and implement programs and actions that help guarantee non-repetition. They should aim to recognize the experiences and authority of women, as well as remove the structural causes of oppression and subordination, injustices and exclusions, and the violence women experience in public and private spheres; 
  • Give full support and legitimacy to the work of individuals, institutions, and organizations that defend women’s human rights, feminist organizations, and victims’ organizations;
  • Provide support to collective memory initiatives proposed by local institutions, women’s organizations, and communities affected by severe violations of women’s human rights—in all their diverse identities—and international humanitarian law; 
  • Design, coordinate, and implement, in public and private educational centers, a pedagogy for reconciliation based on the recognition of and respect for otherness, dialogue as an option for dealing with public and private conflicts, solidarity and cooperation, as well as the need to legitimize and grant authority to the experience of women in all their diverse identities. The construction of peace and reconciliation requires the transformation of social norms and the material and symbolic elements that reproduce war, discrimination, and privileges for political, economic, social, ethnic, and sexual reasons; 
  • Guarantee the equal participation of women in all their diverse identities in the mechanisms adopted to follow up on the implementation of  the Truth Commission’s recommendations. 

We call upon the international community to: 

  • Urge the Colombian state to advance the integral implementation of the Peace Accord, in particular with regard to women’s rights and a gender perspective, demilitarize the response to social protest, and guarantee women’s right to social and political participation.
  • Support the design and implementation of programs and actions aimed at guaranteeing the non-repetition of acts of violence experienced by women;
  • Accompany the process of widely distributing the Truth Commission’s final report when it is published in mid-2022. 
  • Consistently follow-up, through international monitoring, on the implementation of the Truth Commission’s recommendations for coexistence and non-repetition. 
  • Support peacebuilding initiatives led by civil society organizations, especially those led by women.

Tags: Gender Perspective, Transitional Justice

October 25, 2021

17 U.S. Civil Society Organizations Urge Secretary Blinken to Prioritize Peace and Human Rights in Colombia

(Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Pool via AP)

On October 18, the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), alongside 16 other U.S. civil society organizations, sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urging him to use his travel to Colombia as an opportunity to press the Colombian government for progress on peace accord implementation, among other critical human rights matters. Secretary Blinken is set to travel to Bogotá on October 20, where he will meet with President Iván Duque and Vice President-Foreign Minister Marta Lucía Ramírez, co-lead a migration ministerial, open the U.S.-Colombia High-Level Dialogue, engage in a conversation on democracy and human rights with youth leaders and civic activists, and participate in an event about tackling the climate crisis.

The letter expresses disappointment with the Biden administration’s position on Colombia-related matters thus far. They encourage Secretary Blinken to “avoid public statements that praise the U.S.-Colombia partnership while skirting over the deeply disturbing patterns of human rights violations that should be a major focus of U.S. concern and diplomacy.” These matters of concern include the serious problems of police brutality and racial injustice, addressing the needs of low-income and landless farmers, improving the dire situation of social leaders, advancing ethnic rights, and fully and comprehensively implementing the historic 2016 peace accord. The organizations provide detailed recommendations that should guide the State Department’s foreign policy on and engagement with Colombia.

Read the full letter here.

Tags: Human Rights, U.S. Policy

October 18, 2021

Human Rights Groups in Colombia Urge U.S. Senate to Include Anti-Aerial Fumigation Amendment in 2022 NDAA

On September 30, hundreds of Colombian civil society organizations and individuals lauded the U.S. House of Representatives’ decision to pass a Colombia-related amendment in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, which prohibits U.S. defense-budget funding to aerial fumigation of illicit crops in Colombia. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced the amendment alongside two other Colombia-related amendments. These amendments, approved through a larger bloc of amendments, will still need to survive approval by the U.S. Senate then the Conference Committee.

The September 30 statement called on the U.S. Senate to maintain the anti-aerial fumigation amendment in the final bill and urged the U.S. Congress to also ensure funds are not allocated to finance the practice during collaborative efforts between the State Department and Colombia. The organizations and individuals underscored the detrimental social, health, and environmental effects of using aerial fumigation with glyphosate and also outlined how the Colombian government has failed to maintain its 2016 peace accord commitments to advance voluntary crop substitution programs. They noted how these failures helped spur the wave of protests that occurred in Colombia in May 2021.

An unofficial translation of the letter is available here.
The original Spanish version is here.

Tags:

October 1, 2021

How Harold Ordóñez’s Case Raises Concerns for Colombia’s Peace Process

(El Colombiano)

On September 2, La Silla Vacía—an investigative Colombian news site—published an article about the case of Harold Ordóñez, a former FARC combatant, who, despite actively participating in the peace process, was indicted on trumped-up charges, or a “judicial false positive” (falso positivo judicial).

Colombia’s Attorney General’s Office is accusing Ordóñez of conspiring to commit a crime, illegally possessing a weapon exclusively used by the armed forces, and aggravated homicide, all with the premise that he is alias ‘Óscar,’ a commander of the former Central Block armed group. As the article notes, the charges are based on circumstantial evidence and more substantial evidence demonstrates his innocence.

The case raises larger concerns for Colombia’s peace process. Ordóñez is a left-leaning campesino leader, father, student, and an advocate for social dialogue who is helping advance the provisions in the 2016 peace accord. As the article points out, it seems that the objective of these charges are not to render justice or combat rampant crime, but to socially eliminate any political opposition. This behavior is dangerous for Colombia’s peace, as it may incentivize recidivism among former combatants.

Read an unofficial, English translation of La Silla Vacía’s article here.

Tags: Protection of Excombatants, Social Leaders

September 8, 2021

Colombia Peace Update: September 4, 2021

Security deteriorates along the Colombia-Venezuela border

The ELN’s “Camilo Torres Urban Warfare Front” took credit for a bomb that detonated outside a police station in Cúcuta, the largest city along Colombia’s border with Venezuela, on the morning of August 30. The device wounded 14 people, among them 12 police, in Cúcuta’s Atalaya neighborhood.

“Cúcuta is subject to these types of terrorist acts and violence in its rural zones due to the presence of no less than 20 foreign criminal groups,” said Jairo Tomás Yáñez, the mayor of the city of half a million people. While Venezuelan organized crime operates in the area, particularly a band calling itself the Tren de Aragua, it’s not clear why the mayor would have specified “foreign” groups. Colombian groups active in Cúcuta, the conflictive nearby Catatumbo region, and on the Venezuelan side of the border include the ELN, ex-FARC dissidents, at least two groups descended from the paramilitary networks of the 1990s and 2000s (the Gulf Clan and Rastrojos), a criminal group descended from the long-demobilized EPL guerrillas which the government calls the “Pelusos,” and smaller local bands.

The latest attack follows two high-profile events in June: a car bomb on the premises of the Army’s 30th Brigade headquarters in Cúcuta on June 15, and President Iván Duque’s helicopter being hit by gunfire as it overflew the region 10 days later. Colombia’s Prosecutor-General (Fiscalía) has arrested and charged several people, including a former Army captain, for both crimes, alleging their affiliation with the “33rd Front” ex-FARC dissident group.

These incidents, including the August 21 killing of the vice president of a Junta de Acción Comunal (local advisory board) in rural Cúcuta, “are a small sample of the complexity that the area is experiencing,” warns a Peace and Reconciliation Foundation analysis of Cúcuta, which sees the situation worsening as Colombia’s 2022 presidential and congressional elections draw near. “Some of the factors affecting this reality have to do with the closing of the border [both during and before the pandemic], the reconfiguration of armed actors, and the increase in cocaine cultivation and processing” in this region, “a zone without the rule of law or institutional presence.”

Cúcuta, the capital of Norte de Santander department, is just south of Norte de Santander’s Catatumbo enclave, a cluster of about a dozen barely governed municipalities that currently grows more coca than any other region of Colombia. The region “effectively exists outside the presence of the Colombian state,” reads an analysis by Joshua Collins at The New Humanitarian. Catatumbo has easy access to Venezuela through the large border municipality of Tibú and the presence of all of the above-mentioned armed groups, while one of Colombia’s main oil pipelines (the Caño Limón-Coveñas) runs across its territory.

Catatumbo has strong campesino, Indigenous, and other organizations, including eight former FARC women, profiled this week in a lengthy Vorágine article, leading local reintegration efforts near the site where they demobilized. It has always been a dangerous place to be a social leader, though. This week, the “Madres del Catatumbo por la Paz,” a women’s organization, denounced that its entire leadership had received new and serious threats.

South and east of Norte de Santander, the oil-producing border department of Arauca is also seeing increased tensions. The department has been under heavy ELN influence since the 1980s, endured a bloody mini-war between the ELN and FARC in the 2000s, and is now seeing a growing presence of ex-FARC dissidents. In Saravena, Arauca’s westernmost border municipality, members of an armed group this week stopped employees of the Unit for the Search for the Disappeared (UBPD, an agency created by the 2016 peace accord) and demanded that they hand over their official vehicle. Municipal authorities meanwhile held an “extraordinary security meeting” after an ex-FARC dissident group calling itself the 28th Front threatened local Indigenous communities, accusing them of petty theft.

An internal dispute between leaders of the 10th Front, a large and fast-growing ex-FARC dissident group, brought a jump in homicides in Arauca in August: at least 28 in a department of 230,000 people. La Silla Vacía notes how the dissidents have increased their territorial control on the Venezuelan side of the Arauca river. Across from the departmental capital, “We can stop at the river’s edge and look them in the face,” said Arauca’s chief of police.

Corruption enables this on both sides of the border. “In Arauca,” on the Colombian side, “there are rumors that all spheres of power are permeated by the dissidents,” La Silla notes. “The most frequent [rumor] is that a good part of the political class of the department works with them.” In the departmental capital, the accusations “even touch the municipality’s security forces.”

Relations between the ELN and local government have been alleged for decades in Arauca. This is the region of Colombia that the ELN, through its powerful Domingo Laín front, is believed to control most tightly. While the dissidents’ presence grows, though, the ELN “has been conspicuous by its absence,” La Silla Vacía observes. “According to a source close to a commander of that group, they continue in the tone of not confronting them in order to avoid a guerrilla war like the one the region suffered ten years ago. However, the tension between them continues to grow.”

Reuters reporter Sarah Kinosian documents the extent to which the ELN and dissidents have increased their territorial control on the Venezuelan side of the border. In a village in Zulia—across from Colombia’s department of Cesar, which lies north of Catatumbo—ELN members from Colombia “function as both a local government and a major employer,” recruiting people—including children—to work in Colombian coca fields, Kinosian writes. “Rebels who once hid from Colombia’s military in Venezuela’s jungles,” mainly ELN and ex-FARC dissidents, “have moved into population centers, ruling alongside Maduro’s government in some places, supplanting it in others.” ELN leader Pablo Beltrán, speaking from Havana where he was a negotiator until peace talks ended in January 2019, told Reuters that while guerrillas cross into Venezuela, he denies that they are present with the permission of Nicolás Maduro’s regime.

Gen. Montoya will not be indicted in regular justice system

In a decision that, El Tiempo reported, “didn’t cause surprise for the majority of sectors,” Bogotá’s Superior Tribunal refused to allow the Prosecutor-General’s Office (Fiscalía) to charge or indict Gen. Mario Montoya, the commander of Colombia’s army between 2006 and 2008, for human rights crimes. The court ruled on August 30 that Colombia’s regular criminal justice system, led by the Fiscalía, may continue to investigate Gen. Montoya’s role in the military’s numerous killings of non-combatants during his tenure. But while his case remains before the 2016 peace accords’ special transitional justice system (Special Jurisdiction for Peace, or JEP), the Fiscalía cannot separately charge him or bring him to trial.

Gen. Mario Montoya, now 72, faces allegations of creating a command climate and incentive structure that led soldiers to kill thousands of civilian non-combatants. Throughout the country, under pressure to increase “body counts,” officers claimed falsely that civilian victims were armed-group members killed on the battlefield. The JEP is investigating these abuses, known as “false positives,” and has charged former commanders in two regions of the country so far. It surprised the country earlier this year by releasing a very high estimate of the number of civilians killed by the military: 6,402 between 2002 and 2008, which would be well over 40 percent of the armed forces’ claimed combat kills during those years.

A highly decorated officer whom many Colombians associated with the country’s security gains of the mid-2000s, Gen. Montoya resigned in November 2008 after a particularly egregious example of “false positive” killings came to light, blowing the scandal open after years of human rights groups’ denunciations. Former subordinates have portrayed the general as a key architect of the incentive system that encouraged officers to pad their units’ body counts even if it meant paying criminals to kill the innocent.

In 2018, Gen. Montoya agreed to have his case tried in the JEP instead of the regular justice system, even though the Fiscalía at the time was barely moving on its investigation of him. In his appearances before the transitional justice tribunal so far, Montoya has insisted on his innocence. This is risky: if he were to confess to his role in false positives and take actions to make amends to victims, Gen. Montoya would most likely be sentenced to up to eight years of “restricted liberty”—not prison. However, if he pleads “not guilty” and the JEP determines otherwise, he could go to regular prison for up to 20 years. The JEP has not yet formally charged Montoya with anything.

The Fiscalía, led by chief prosecutor Francisco Barbosa, surprised many in July when it announced it would seek to indict Gen. Montoya for his role in 104 “false positive” killings that took place after a 2007 order requiring the military to de-emphasize body counts. With his case already moving in the JEP, it was not clear whether the regular justice system had the legal standing to issue charges against Gen. Montoya at the same time. On August 30, Judge Fabio Bernal decided that it did not.

For now, Gen. Montoya’s case will proceed in the transitional justice system. While the Fiscalía is not appealing the August 30 decision, relatives of some “false positive” victims plan to do so, because they believe that separate charges in the regular justice system would increase the chances of the General being held accountable. According to Sebastián Escobar of the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective, who represents some of the victims, a Fiscalía indictment would have helped because of Gen. Montoya’s reticence so far before the JEP:

If the Fiscalía were to continue with these investigations and charge him for at least some of these acts, it would contribute to the participants reaching a scenario of recognition [of responsibility for crimes]. In the case of Montoya, although he submitted voluntarily to the JEP, because his case was not advanced in the regular justice system, he has come to the [transitional] jurisdiction with an attitude of denying his participation in the policy that promoted these acts, and of not recognizing his responsibility from any point of view.”

Government blames Nariño violence on court-ordered freeze in coca eradication

A firefight between anti-narcotics police and members of the “Óliver Sinisterra” ex-FARC dissident group left 14 police wounded in a rural zone of Tumaco, Nariño, not far from the Ecuador border, as they sought to raid a cocaine laboratory on August 20.

This is part of a worsening climate of violence in Nariño’s Pacific coast region, in Colombia’s far southwest, which is one of the country’s busiest and most fought-over drug trafficking corridors. The same municipalities host coca fields, processing laboratories, and coastal transshipment points. Just north of Tumaco, in the “Telembí Triangle” region, fighting between various armed groups, most of them ex-FARC dissidents, has displaced over 21,000 people—a large part of the population—so far this year.

Reporting from El Tiempo mentions fighting between three factions of ex-FARC dissidents, mostly derived from former Tumaco-area FARC militia members who did not demobilize: the “Óliver Sinisterra,” whose highest profile leader, alias “Guacho,” was killed in 2018; the Guerrillas Unidas del Pacífico; and more recently members of the Putumayo-based “Comandos de la Frontera,” a group made up of former guerrillas, former paramilitaries, and organized crime. The latter group is apparently aligned with the “Segunda Marquetalia,” the dissident faction founded by former chief FARC peace negotiator Iván Márquez and other top ex-FARC leaders.

All the armed groups “are looking to control coca crops and production,” a “church spokesperson who knows the region” told El Tiempo. “Everyone here has a Mexican ally, from a cartel, that’s what I’m talking about.”

Defense Minister Diego Molano is blaming increased violence on a court ruling. In May 2021, in response to a judicial appeal (tutela) from the Nariño Pacific Human Rights Network, which represents several Afro-descendant and Indigenous communities, the Superior Tribunal of Pasto prohibited all coca eradication—including that done by manual eradication teams—until the government engages in prior consultation with affected communities. The court ordered the Interior Ministry to carry out consultations within 100 days, with a possible 60-day extension. It is not clear how much progress the Ministry has made, if any, on consultations with residents of these remote, poorly governed zones.

Since May, then, coca eradication has been on hold in much of 10 municipalities along coastal Nariño. This includes Tumaco, which ranks second in coca acreage among Colombia’s 1,100 municipalities. Nariño, however, has seen a decline in coca cultivation, from nearly 42,000 hectares in 2018 to 30,751 in 2020, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Long the number-one coca-growing department, Nariño has been surpassed by Norte de Santander (see the Venezuela discussion above). About one-fifth of Nariño’s coca is planted in indigenous reserves, the UNODC estimates.

Molano, the defense minister, calls the result of the court order “a case of national security,” adding that “denying the possibility of manual eradication in 10 municipalities of Nariño has had an impact on the increase in homicides and forced displacements in that area.”

The communities themselves, though, blame a near-total absence of government presence, including security and other basic services. “We have been negotiating with the governments in power for almost 26 years, and we have not been able to get roads we need to transport our legal products,” a leader of Nariño’s Juntas Comunales La Cordillera organization told El Tiempo. “We have no roads, we have no schools. We want to substitute [coca], but they do not present us with options.” Community leaders note that the government is badly behind on payments promised to those who voluntarily eradicate their coca, in the framework of a program set up by the 2016 peace accords.

Unable to eradicate coca in coastal Nariño, “the authorities have opted for a path that, paradoxically, is the one that many experts recommend because of its effectiveness: attacking other links, such as inputs or capital for the purchase of coca leaf and coca base,” reads an El Tiempo editorial. It is not clear how energetically the government is pursuing these alternative measures, though, or whether they could possibly be enough to substitute for state presence in a climate of worsening combat between guerrilla dissidents and other armed groups.

Links

  • WOLA’s latest alert details numerous cases of human rights abuse committed around the country during July and August.
  • VICE reports on the National Police’s practice, during the April-June Paro Nacional protests, of taking arrested protesters to unofficial “black sites” in Cali, where hundreds were beaten and forced to make false confessions.
  • Colombia’s universities “were not exempt from the conflict, and were stigmatized. When I was director of police intelligence, I contributed to stigmatizing it, because I considered them to be related to armed groups and that guerrilla fighters were linked to them. What a big mistake,” said former National Police chief and vice president Gen. Oscar Naranjo, in an appearance before the Truth Commission.
  • Colombia and Panama have agreed to limit, to 500 people per day, the flow of migrants from other countries traveling northbound from Colombia through Panama’s dangerous Darién Gap jungle region. “So far this year, Panama estimates more than 50,000 migrants have come through the dangerous Darien route,” the Associated Press reports, adding, “An estimated 15,000 migrants are currently en route through Colombia heading for Panama.”
  • U.S. Army South, the Army component of U.S. Southern Command, held a two-day seminar for members of the 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade (SFAB), who will soon deploy to Colombia, Panama, and Honduras for a lengthy military training mission. The SFAB’s first visit to Colombia, between May and October 2020, generated much publicity and some controversy.
  • An investigation by La Silla Vacía finds that the Land Restitution Agency—a body created in 2011 by the government of Juan Manuel Santos—has recently been inaccurately inflating the amount of land that it has been distributing to small farmers dispossessed by the conflict.
  • Interviewed by the New York Times, President Iván Duque said “he had done more than his predecessor, Juan Manuel Santos, to put in place the peace deal’s landownership overhauls and development plans that would give poor farmers and former rebels jobs and opportunities.”
  • WOLA laments the unexpected and premature death of our longtime colleague and friend Yamile Salinas, a great and generous legal mind, teacher, and fighter for land rights and human rights in Colombia’s countryside.

Tags: Weekly update

September 7, 2021

National Indigenous Organization of Colombia Appeals to President Duque for Serious Dialogue on Biodiversity

On August 30, Colombian President Iván Duque and administration officials hosted a hybrid Biodiversity PreCOP event in Leticia, Amazon department to discuss priorities and expectations for a post-2020 global biodiversity framework.

A controversial image, however, drew widespread attention: the president, accompanied by Minister of Environment, Carlos Correa, appeared seated at a main table without masks, while some Indigenous people with masks were seated on benches, lower down. Others were seen standing at the back.

In response to the event, the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (Organización Nacional Indígena de Colombia, ONIC) published a statement addressed to President Duque appealing for a serious dialogue on biodiversity. According to the ONIC, the Colombian government hosted this event with the Jusy Monilla Amilla Indigenous Community in the Colombian Amazon, a community that promotes tourism and is not an official political representative of the ONIC. As the national authority for Indigenous governance, the ONIC claimed the government “hired a tourist services operator to create an image of inclusion and dialogue with Indigenous communities.”

The ONIC’s statement recognized the serious need to address the climate crisis and advance a political agenda with the generational and traditional knowledge of Indigenous peoples and nations. In the face of what they deemed a ‘spectacle’, the ONIC affirmed the national government is failing to protect the lives of Indigenous and environmentalists. In 2021 alone, the ONIC has recorded 56 threats against and 33 murders of Indigenous leaders by armed actors throughout Colombia.

The ONIC called on President Duque to convene the Permanent Roundtable for Consultation with Indigenous Peoples (Mesa Permanente de Concertación, MPC) to seriously discuss issues on biodiversity and the 2018-2022 National Development Plan. They invite President Duque “to sit down and talk with the Indigenous authorities and not with tour operators, so [they] can have a direct dialogue about biodiversity.”

An unofficial, English translation of the ONIC’s statement is available here.

Tags: Environment, Indigenous Communities

September 3, 2021

Colombia Peace Update: August 28, 2021

Ex-president Uribe proposes an amnesty

Former president Álvaro Uribe, the country’s most vocal opponent of the 2016 peace accord with the FARC guerrilla group, met at one of his ranches on August 15 with the president of the Truth Commission created by that accord, Fr. Francisco de Roux, along with two other commissioners. Uribe, who faces questions about human rights abuses committed during his time as governor of Antioquia (1995-1997) and president (2002-2008), spoke at great length during the meeting, with little pushback from the commissioners.

The ex-president surprised many by calling for an amnesty for human rights and other crimes committed during the armed conflict. “Perhaps this country will need a general amnesty, almost a clean slate,” he told Fr. de Roux. This would appear to contradict one of Uribe’s many criticisms of the peace accord: that, in his view, it confers “impunity” on ex-guerrillas who (along with military personnel) will receive light sentences if they make full confessions and reparations.

On August 26 Uribe presented a draft amnesty law to legislators of his Centro Democrático party, a bill “to overcome judicial asymmetries and asymmetries in access to government employment.” Under the proposal, those accused of conflict-related crimes would receive a full amnesty if they ask forgiveness, recognize what they did “or, failing that, contribute to the truth, without this implying self-incrimination.”

Members of the military would be released from prison and allowed to hold office. A new chamber of the post-conflict transitional justice tribunal (Special Jurisdiction for Peace, or JEP) would be set up to judge military personnel separately. Anyone who in the past has investigated, denounced, or made public statements about these military human rights crimes would be disqualified from serving as a judge in that chamber.

Uribe’s proposal makes no distinction between commanders and subordinates involved in past crimes. He would not amnesty people accused of “war crimes, crimes against humanity, or public corruption.” The current list of non-amnistiable crimes that must go before the JEP, however, is longer and more specific: “War crimes, crimes against humanity, extrajudicial executions, child recruitment, rape and other forms of sexual violence, genocide, hostage taking or other serious deprivation of liberty, torture, enforced disappearance, child abduction, and forced displacement.”

“Let’s not talk about general amnesty, let’s talk about amnesty as a strong word to generate a national debate and look for a solution,” Uribe said last week. A national debate is very much underway, as the ex-president’s proposal has generated strong reactions.

“People can’t be ‘washing their faces’ with total amnesties, this will not happen as long as I am prosecutor, I will not allow this to go forward,” said the prosecutor-general (fiscal general), Francisco Barbosa, who is close to President Iván Duque, who in turn is a member of Uribe’s party.

The lead government negotiators in the 2012-16 talks that led to the FARC peace accord issued a 12-point document rejecting Uribe’s proposal. Humberto de la Calle and Sergio Jaramillo argue that it “would undermine the investigation and prosecution of those most responsible for serious violations, and victims’ rights to truth, justice and reparation.” They recalled having to explain to the FARC negotiators in Havana, “in January 2015, one of the most difficult moments in almost five years of negotiations,” that Colombia’s international commitments (the 2002 Rome Statute, the Inter-American human rights system) prohibited amnesties.

Were Uribe’s proposal to go into effect, the former negotiators add, “the first victims, in addition to the conflict victims of course, would be the members of the armed forces and other agents of the state who are currently participating in the transitional process and who will see their legal security disappear.” Notes Gustavo Gallón of the Colombian Commission of Jurists, “His [Uribe’s] argument is that they [the military] must not be equated with guerrillas. But it is the crimes they have committed that make them equal. In addition, in his effort to favor them, he would do them harm: the [peace] agreement and the JEP are more lenient than the ordinary justice system, in theory.”

Álvaro Uribe faces human rights questions ranging from many political associates’ sponsorship of paramilitary groups, to those groups’ rapid growth during his tenure as governor, to the military’s killings of several thousand civilians during his presidency (discussed in the next section). Jaramillo, the former negotiator—who served as vice-minister of defense under Uribe—told Colombia’s Blu Radio that Uribe “has long been seeking a general amnesty and a clean slate. This is something that has been on his mind for a long time and he will continue to insist on it.”

Attorney-General seeks to charge ex-army chief for “false positive” killings

Colombia’s Prosecutor-General’s Office (Fiscalía) is seeking to indict retired Gen. Mario Montoya, commander of the Army between 2006 and 2008, for his role in the military’s so-called “false positive” killings during the armed conflict. A hearing took place on August 25 before a Bogotá judge who will decide on August 30 whether Montoya may be indicted.

If Judge Fabio Bernal gives a green light, Montoya will be the highest-ranking military figure to face justice for these killings in the civilian criminal justice system. He could also become the first person with a case before both the post-conflict transitional justice system (JEP) and the regular criminal justice system. What that means is not entirely clear.

The term “false positives” refers to soldiers, apparently under heavy pressure to produce results measured in body counts, killing several thousand civilians and falsely presenting the murders as combat deaths. The JEP has estimated that as many as 6,402 false positive killings took place just between 2002 and 2008, Álvaro Uribe’s first seven years in office. If accurate, that number would be equivalent to about half of the 12,908 armed-group members whom Colombia’s Defense Ministry claimed to have killed during those years.

Gen. Mario Montoya was a key figure during this period. A U.S.-trained officer, he commanded the “Joint Task Force South” that carried out U.S.-backed counter-drug operations during the first years of “Plan Colombia” in the early 2000s. He went on to command the Army during the height of the Uribe government’s anti-guerrilla offensive, including the triumphant July 2008 rescue of 15 FARC hostages known as “Operation Jaque.” (“As their bonds were cut free, the former hostages were quietly told that the Colombian Army had just freed them,” reads an account of the rescue. “Then, the recovery team began to chant, ‘Uribe! Uribe! Uribe!’ followed quickly by ‘Montoya! Montoya! Montoya!’”)

Just a few months later, in November 2008, Gen. Montoya was forced to resign. The triggering event was the revelation that 22 men who disappeared from the poor Bogotá suburb of Soacha had turned up dead hundreds of miles away, in Ocaña, Norte de Santander. The men had been lured with offers of employment, taken away and killed, only to be presented as armed-group members killed in combat. The Soacha case capped years of human rights groups’ denunciations—long denied by the Uribe government—that the military had been falsifying combat kill totals by murdering civilians.

Gen. Montoya has been under a cloud ever since, and in 2018 he agreed to have his case heard in the JEP. The transitional justice court is approaching “false positives” in a bottom-up fashion, starting with some of the most serious cases and working toward top commanders. That means it could be some time before the transitional justice court indicts Montoya, if it finds enough evidence to do so.

While Montoya has appeared before the tribunal, so far he has denied any responsibility for the killings. In an early 2020 appearance, the general sparked outrage by blaming soldiers from poor backgrounds: “those kids didn’t even know how to use forks and knives or how to go to the bathroom.”

The JEP is looking into whether commanders like Montoya created a climate, and set of incentives, that encouraged officers to rack up large body counts even if it meant killing non-combatants—and whether the commanders knew that so many combat kills were falsified. The Fiscalía is more specifically seeking to charge Montoya with responsibility for 104 killings, including 5 children, that took place in 2007 and 2008. That is the period after the issuance of a military directive to prioritize guerrilla demobilizations and captures over killings, which the Fiscalía contends that Montoya ignored.

He “allegedly pressured all division, brigade and battalion chiefs to follow a different strategy that reportedly rewarded and awarded decorations to commanders and groups that reported deaths,” according to the prosecutor’s office. “Commanders of his subordinate units knew that Montoya did not ask for (but) demanded combat kills.” A soldier who says he was kicked out of the force for disobeying these orders claimed that Montoya demanded “rivers of blood,” a phrase the General denies using.

Colombia’s civilian criminal justice system could have acted on the allegations against him at any time since 2008. In fact, as El Espectador explains, “a process against Montoya for false positives committed under his command was announced in 2016. The proceedings were suspended and then, with the arrival of Néstor Humberto Martínez at the Fiscalía [a chief prosecutor with little interest in military prosecutions] and the signing of the Peace Accord, it was left in limbo.”

Martínez’s successor, Francisco Barbosa, announced his intent to revive Gen. Montoya’s indictment on August 12. In the regular criminal justice system, the General could face up to 50 to 60 years in prison if found guilty. Montoya’s case is principally before the JEP, though, where he would face 5 to 8 years of “restricted liberty” if he admits to crimes and provides reparations, or up to 20 years in regular prison if he refuses to admit responsibility but is found guilty.

Colombia is still working out what it means to have two parallel justice systems considering war crimes. In 2018, the Constitutional Court ruled that prosecutors in the regular justice system could continue investigating crimes in parallel. In 2019, the prosecutor in Montoya’s case decided that this meant the general could be investigated, but not indicted, while his case remained before the JEP. Barbosa, the current chief prosecutor, later altered that interpretation, claiming that he had the power to indict Montoya—though the case could not go to trial in the regular justice system.

Gen. Montoya’s lawyers dispute that. So does the government’s internal affairs branch, the Procuraduría, which argues that the JEP has primacy because Montoya has agreed to have his case heard there and has attended all his hearings.

In any case, an indictment without a trial is largely symbolic. Still, the Fiscalía cites declarations from JEP officials who have supported its ability to continue investigating. Lawyers representing victims of false positives have also been supportive: Sebastián Escobar of the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective told El Espectador, “it has been the JEP itself that has insistently asked the Fiscalía not to abandon the investigations, but to continue them until they are completed.” Germán Romero, an attorney who represents 12 false positive victims, added, “This is a real and concrete investigation… it is impossible and it could be understood as a substantial affectation to the rights of the victims if this indictment doesn’t happen.”

Some Colombian legal experts, though, are concerned and wonder why the Fiscalía is acting now. While the regular justice system’s prosecutors may continue investigating military and police officials’ alleged crimes, they “cannot rule on their responsibility since that decision corresponds to the JEP,” writes Rodrigo Uprimny, co-founder of the DeJusticia think tank. “The Fiscalía cannot charge them, which is an attribution of responsibility, but must refer those investigations to the JEP.”

Uprimny, writing in El Espectador, wonders what Fiscal Barbosa may actually have in mind with an indictment in the Gen. Montoya case.

Its basis is bizarre and could have very serious implications. According to Barbosa, Montoya is being charged because he continued to demand combat kills after November 2007, disobeying Directive 300-28 of that date, which prioritized demobilizations and captures over casualties. That is why the Fiscalía will charge him with “only” 104 executions that occurred after that directive, when there were thousands of false positives in previous years and Montoya was already commander of the Army and demanded casualties.

Does this mean, then, that for Barbosa the thousands of false positives perpetrated when the previous directive was in force, which favored casualties, do not involve any responsibility of senior officers, even though they demanded casualties at all costs as an operational result? If that is so, who should answer for those false positives perpetrated in previous years? Only the soldiers who perpetrated them, but not those who incited those deaths because they were following a directive? And what responsibility, then, according to Barbosa, is incumbent on those who drafted and promoted the previous directive?

We will know more after the judge rules on May 30. Meanwhile, human rights organizations are calling on the JEP to eject another retired senior military officer, former Col. Publio Hernán Mejía. One of the Colombian Army’s most highly decorated officers, Col. Mejía was sentenced to 14 years in prison for conspiring with paramilitaries and involvement in false positive killings. He was released when he moved his case to the JEP, but has been uncooperative and has been making very aggressive statements on Twitter and considering a far-right run for the presidency next year.

Police reform and accountability debates, 4 months after Paro Nacional

On August 26, four months after the April 28 launch of protests that went on for several weeks, several thousand protesters took to the streets of Bogotá, Cali, and a few other cities. The day was mostly peaceful, according to the National Police.

Fallout continues, however, from the Paro Nacional protests of April through June, when some protesters caused property damage and an often vicious police response killed 43 people, according to the NGO Temblores, while dozens more remain disappeared. While victims continue to seek justice, the authorities have been quietly cracking down on people whom they believe to have played leading roles in protest-related disorder, often charging them with “terrorism.”

  • An El Espectador analysis detailed several cases of very likely killings of civilians at the hands of police in Cali, none of which has been investigated.
  • Police have now captured 165 people they allege to have been leaders of the “Primera Línea”—young people who occupied the “front line” of protests—in several cities. Many face terrorism charges.
  • Among them is Juan Fernando Torres, a 25-year-old Medellín primary school teacher who became known as “El Narrador” because he documented protests, and confrontations with police, on video, posting them to his social media accounts. While the videos record him shouting rude epithets at the police, they do not appear to show Torres taking part in violence. Nonetheless, at 5:00 in the morning of July 29, police broke down his door and took him away while his family looked on.
  • A well-known student protest leader in Popayán, Estéban Mosquera, who had lost an eye to a tear-gas canister shot by a riot policeman during a 2018 protest, was shot to death on August 23 by two men on a motorcycle.
  • Thirty social leaders, human rights defenders, and former combatants in Tolima department say they have received death threats during the past seven weeks. Some say the threats began to escalate after the Paro Nacional began.
  • Relatives of people killed by police during earlier protests—after a September 9, 2020 episode of police brutality in Bogotá—say that they are receiving death threats and experiencing aggressive behavior from police in their neighborhoods. “In an intimidating message, in which several relatives of September 9 victims were mentioned, a person implied that he has already identified the people involved in the commemorative acts and, in addition, left a sentence via text message: ‘let’s see if you want the game to start, we will gladly start.’ The message dates to August 3.”
  • In a bit of encouraging news, the Constitutional Court ruled that the military justice system does not have jurisdiction over the May 1, 2021 police killing of protester Santiago Murillo in Ibagué, Tolima. The Court found no evidence that the accused policeman, Maj. Jorge Mario Molano, fired his weapon in self-defense or to protect anyone else. His case will be tried in the regular civilian criminal justice system.
  • As Colombia’s national debate over police reform continues, the Ideas for Peace Foundation and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Colombia released a report, based on inputs from 11 experts, about what obstacles stand in the way of meaningful reform to Colombia’s National Police force. The report highlights the need for civilian leadership of reform and of citizen security policymaking, which in turn requires a larger number of civilians educated and trained in the field.

Links

  • The Truth Commission is three months away from a November 28 deadline to finish its work and publish a report, but Colombia’s Constitutional Court is considering its request for an extension, as the COVID-19 pandemic severely affected the Commission’s work, especially field research. Juanita León at La Silla Vacía believes that enough judges on the Court are in favor of permitting a deadline extension for seven or eight months, into the period between the election (May 2022) and inauguration (August 2022) of Colombia’s next president. The Inspector-General’s Office (Procuraduría), in its opinion sought by the Court, requested that the Truth Commission be granted seven more months to work. The Duque government, arguing that only the Congress has the power to grant it, has opposed an extension.
  • The Duque government promulgated, after much delay, a law foreseen by the peace accord that will create 16 special congressional districts for victims’ representatives, increasing Colombia’s House of Representatives from 171 to 187 members between 2022 and 2030. This law, bitterly resisted by peace accord opponents, only passed after years of legal wrangling over whether a sufficient quorum existed during the Senate’s 2017 approval. This week, some retired officers demanded that a few victims’ seats be reserved for military personnel who suffered abuses, like kidnapping, at the hands of guerrillas.
  • Citing a paramilitary plan to assassinate him and insufficient protection from the national government, the governor of the Caribbean department of Magdalena, Carlos Caicedo, left the country. Caicedo leads a local center-left political movement that has won the past three mayoral elections in Magdalena’s capital, Santa Marta. Caicedo is asking the OAS Inter-American Human Rights Commission to issue precautionary measures for his protection.
  • The mayor of Segovia, Antioquia denounced that police in his municipality are cooperating with the Gulf Clan paramilitaries, for instance by leaking information about imminent counter-drug operations.
  • “The Colombian military is the best partner force that I’ve worked with in 18 years,” U.S. Army Lt. Col. David Webb said at the conclusion of a joint exercise in Tolemaida, Tolima. “I pray for peace, but I’m always ready for war. If I do have to fight a war, I would be proud to serve with each and every one of you.”
  • A key reason the UN/Colombian government estimate of coca cultivation is currently so much lower than the U.S. estimate is that it “subtracts the [eradicated] hectares reported by the field teams, but does not verify the effectiveness of the intervention,” writes Sergio Uribe at Razón Pública.
  • According to a Human Rights Ombudsman (Defensoría) report, Antioquia may have displaced Cauca as the department where the largest number of social leaders were killed during the first six months of 2021. A report from the Electoral Observation Mission (MOE), blaming the proximity of campaigning for 2022 elections, found a 15.7 percent increase in aggressions against political leaders during the first six months of 2021, compared to the same period in 2020.
  • The week saw many reports of violence in Pacific coast zones where armed groups are disputing control over drug trafficking routes.
    • In Tumaco, Nariño, fighting between counternarcotics police and members of the local “Oliver Sinisterra” ex-FARC dissident group left 13 dissidents and one police agent wounded. On the other side of the international border from Tumaco, the fighting placed Ecuador’s security forces on alert.
    • Just north of Tumaco, in Nariño’s Telembí Triangle region, Doctors Without Borders estimates that fighting displaced over 21,000 people and confined 6,000 others—combined, nearly 30 percent of the region’s population—during the first six months of the year.
    • Further north, in northern Cauca, Indigenous organizations denounced several alarming events from the past week, pointing a situation of “generalized violence.”
    • Further north, 4,679 people in 14 Indigenous communities are confined by fighting between the ELN and the Gulf Clan in southern Chocó’s Bajo Baudó river region. Fighting between the same groups displaced over 1,500 people in Chocó’s lower San Juan River region.
    • Further north in Chocó, where the Bojayá river flows into the Atrato—site of a historic FARC massacre in 2002—the population lives in fear of three armed groups plus the security forces, El Espectador reports. Organized crime activity is causing extensive deforestation in Chocó, reported Cuestión Pública and La Liga Contra el Silencio.
  • A devastating analysis by Camilo Alzate at El Espectador details the government’s failure to implement collective protection measures for threatened social leaders and ethnic communities along the Pacific coast.
  • Tensions continue to increase along the Colombia-Venezuela border.
    • In Arauca, fighting between the 10th Front ex-FARC dissident group and the Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan organized crime group, appeared to have killed at least 13 people in a single week.
    • In the department of Norte de Santander, which includes the convulsed Catatumbo region, 50 non-governmental organizations denounced the killing of 22 social leaders and the death of 36 people in 8 massacres in the department since January 2020. Analyst Luis Eduardo Celis described deteriorating security in the departmental capital, Cúcuta, which borders Venezuela.
    • The Colombian government meanwhile claims that captured computers included evidence of contacts between Venezuelan government officials and “Gentil Duarte,” the maximum leader of the largest current network of ex-FARC dissident groups.
  • “We are facing an increasingly parochialized insurgency that, for the most part, concentrates its strength and armed action on the Colombian-Venezuelan border, but which operates under different logics on both sides,” reads an analysis of the ELN by Andres Aponte, Charles Larratt-Smith, and Luis Fernando Trejos at La Silla Vacía.

Tags: Weekly update

August 30, 2021