By Horacio Arango, S.J.
Executive Secretary
Programa por la Paz (Program for Peace of the Society of Jesus)
Santafe de Bogota
August 22, 1996
Since the month of July, several marches of peasants and colonists have occurred in several regions of Colombia. The marchers are protesting the forcible measures of the National Government in its policy of eradicating unlawful crops [e.g. coca and poppies], and are equally protesting the restrictions on the liberties of citizens as part of the declaration of special zones of public order.
In relation to this matter, the Program for Peace of the Society of Jesus publicly expresses the following:
The conflict is fundamentally social, not criminal.
Thousands of peasants, colonists, and indigenous persons have found in these illegal products the possibilities of well-being and development which legal crops and subsistence crops have not offered them. What is involved here is a social problem of great magnitude, which is expressed in the number of persons involved, and which requires a treatment different from that of force.
The State is responsible for its absence and abandonment of the problems of the population.
Throughout decades those territories have been consigned to the periphery of being forgotten in plans of development, excluded from programs of public investment which would answer the basic necessities of the population. The reality would be different in these regions if the State would have provided infrastructure, technology and resources for them, which would permit them to connect their production to the economic circuits with competitive costs.
Illegal crops have a long history, and their transformation ought to be a process.
For more than the past 20 years, illegal crops have existed. During this long time of planting and harvesting illegal crops, several generations have been formed in the midst of a flourishing economy. You cannot transform in one fell swoop, through poisons, gunfire, and other repressive means, an economy and forms of life which are clandestine and illegal, \ which have been in existence for such a long time. It is necessary to conceive a gradual plan of eradication of crops, with viable proposals for crop substitution.
The conflict ought to be resolved by national interests.
President Samper is under enormous pressure to show results of the struggled against drugs. In Colombia, drug trafficking and illegal crops constitute a problem which affects us in multiple ways, and which has social dimensions much beyond the criminal tags with which the peasants and colonists are identified in the Departments of conflict. We ask the National Government to give a social and political treatment to the present conflict, above the rapid and immediate results demanded by the United States government.
In zones of conflict different types of violence cross paths, but one must differentiate between the actors in these distinct conflicts.
It is possible to establish ties between the dynamics of the war and the profits of the illicit crops and the processing of coca paste. There are reports of cases in some regions in which the insurgency [guerrillas] has required the peasants to leave their homes, while in others the rural laborers are mobilized to protest the forced eradication and the abuses by public forces. The marches are located in territories of armed conflict. However, it is disproportionate and badly intentioned not to differentiate among the different conflicts.
Even if there are infractions of law, the peasants have rights as citizens.
Under the protection of the state of internal commotion, the public forces [police and army] have been given power to restrict the rights of movement and residence in special zones of public order. These measures undermine constitutional rights which permit Colombians to move freely throughout the national territory and to reside where they wish without requesting the permission of any authority.
According to testimony of a commission of sixteen non-governmental organizations which visited the Department of Guaviarae, there are serious reports of abuse by the public forces -- acts of physical aggression, theft, burning of homes, etc.
Considering the serious conflict in the regions where there are illegal crops, the PROGRAM FOR PEACE calls upon the parties to use prudence in confronting this problem. It seems to us convenient to focus attention upon the following aspects:
The public forces [police and army] should not overlook the rights of citizens.
The fundamental rights of persons do not disappear in the case of the disturbance of public order, nor under measures of the 'State of exception'. It is not adequate to leave in the hands of the public forces the resolution of a conflict which is eminently social.
Insurgent groups ought to respect social mobilizations.
The marches of peasants, stirred up by the conflict, have the right to be considered as peaceful mobilizations of civil disobedience. The infiltration and utilization of the marches on the part of insurgent organizations constitutes a violation of humanitarian law and is irrespectful of the rights of citizens. We ask that the insurgency respect these marches.
The marches ought to remain at the margin of the war and should be classified as a social movement of peaceful protest.
Recognition of the rights of citizens and the requirements of a social solution to the conflict, are incompatible with the deliberate acts of violence and attacks against the public forces. Their spokespersons have the responsibility of infusing these movements of protest with a spirit of autonomy against the pressures which they could receive from armed groups.
A return to the dynamics of negotiation and of gradual plans of eradication of crops.
The solution is -- ought to be -- peaceful, by means of negotiations which reach an agreement. These agreements for a lasting peace ought to contemplate the commitment of peasants and colonists to eradicate illegal crops, but also to establish alternative crops, with a specific budget for that, distinct from the budgets assigned and in force by municipalities and departments.
Suspension of the spraying of crops with herbicides.
According to spokespersons for the peasants, there are regions where the spraying of crops has passed from 10 liters per hectare to 40, which shows a treatment that is highly damaging to the environment. On the other hand, there are complaints about the use of spraying of crops of rubber, yucca, corn and sugar cane, as well as spraying above livestock. These rivers of poison are being converted into an instrument of aggression, and can bring hunger to the regions of unlawful crops. Even the peasants who are infringing the law have the right to be secure in their food.
Creation of measures for verification of the agreements.
To prevent the breaking out of new conflicts, the accords ought to bring with them the creation of committees of verification.
Differentiation of conflicts, and non-criminalization of protest.
Finally, we insist upon these two aspects of the conflict. It is absolutely essential to distinguish between the problem of illegal crops and the struggle against the insurgency. Without denying the links between the drug trafficking and the illicit crops, in some regions and in diverse ways, with the guerrillas, we cannot make these two problems equivalent. The peasants who grow coca and poppies are not guerrillas; their social protests are not necessarily an expression of forced or voluntary commitments with the guerrillas. Although the insurgency may make use of the mobilizations of peasants and may provide them with support, or may try to infiltrate them, the national government cannot de-legitimatize the social protests, nor are the public forces authorized to use barbaric methods and arbitrary means in addressing this problem. The problem, given its dimensions, is above all social.
Horacio Arango, S.J.
Executive Secretary, Program for Peace
Santafe de Bogota, August 22, 1996