Report From WOLA (Washington Office on Latin America)

Losing Ground: Human Rights Advocates Under Attack in Colombia
     October 1997
     Executive Summary
     
        This is the executive summary of a 61 page investigative report 
     entitled Losing Ground: Human Rights Advocates Under Attack in 
     Colombia.
     
        On May 19, 1997, four men burst into the home of Mario Calder?n and 
     Elsa Alvarado and gunned them down.  Elsa's father, Carlos Alvarado, 
     was also killed in the attack.  The couple had worked for many years 
     as researchers at one of Bogot?'s best known think-tanks and human 
     rights organizations, the Jesuit-run Center for Research and Popular 
     Education (CINEP).  Both participated in an environmental project in a 
     town neighboring Bogot? and taught in local universities.  Their 
     deaths have left many -- among them environmental activists, human 
     rights defenders, community leaders, professors, and Jesuits -- in 
     mourning, and deeply frightened.  Most see this killing as a clear 
     warning of things to come.  Indeed, in the months following the 
     murders, there was a wave of death threats against human rights 
     activists in Bogotá, forcing several prominent human rights defenders 
     into exile.
     
        While international attention has focused on these murders, this 
     incident was only the most recent of many attacks on human rights 
     activists, ranging from threats and harassment to assassinations.  
     Since October 1996, four nationally-known human rights defenders 
have 
     been killed, as have 14 members of local human rights committees 
     throughout Colombia and five local human rights ombudsmen.  In 
     statements to the press, military and government officials have 
     repeatedly accused human rights activists of being involved with 
     guerrilla movements.  These accusations have helped to create a 
     climate of fear and suspicion regarding human rights work in general, 
     and encourage members of paramilitary groups and security forces to 
     view human rights activists as military targets.  In some cases, these 
     accusations have led to charges being brought against human rights 
     activists and to their detention and imprisonment. 
     
        Over the last decade, as attacks against human rights activists 
     have mounted, human rights offices in many regions of the country 
have 
     been forced to close their doors.  Often operating in a virtual "no 
     man's land," local human rights groups -- and the population at large 
     -- are provided with no basic security or policing by the state, 
     leaving them vulnerable and without the means to protect themselves.  
     Paramilitary and military operations have successfully prevented 
human 
     rights work from going forward in significant areas of the country, 
     such as the Meta region, described in detail in this report.  As a 
     result, it is extremely difficult to obtain human rights-related 
     information throughout key areas of Colombia.  Colombian human rights 
     activists fear that the paramilitary groups have now turned their 
     sights on Bogot?.  The murders of Mario Calder?n and Elsa Alvarado, 
     and the wave of death threats thereafter, indicate that even in the 
     capital, human rights workers have reason to fear for their lives.  
     
        Government human rights advocates face death threats and attacks as 
     well, forcing some to leave the country.  Particularly at risk are 
     investigators with the Human Rights Unit of the Attorney General's 
     office, or Fiscal?a, and those working with the Ministry of the 
     Interior's social welfare programs for the internally displaced.  On a 
     local level, the most vulnerable government human rights agent is the 
     personero, the official within local municipal governments responsible 
     for human rights education and the registration of complaints of human 
     rights abuses.  Personeros also assist with criminal investigations.  
     Since March 1996, five personeros have been killed.  Most recently, on 
     August 8, 1997, Gustavo N??ez, the personero of San Alberto, Cesar, 
     was killed, only two weeks after publicly denouncing increasing 
     paramilitary activity in his region and criticizing the government for 
     failing to support and protect personeros.  His predecessor was killed 
     by alleged members of a paramilitary group in 1995.  To date, neither 
     the President nor members of the Cabinet have spoken out consistently 
     or aggressively in support of their threatened functionaries, nor have 
     they offered them adequate protection, reflecting the larger failure 
     by the government to support and protect human rights work.  
        
        Colombia's two main guerrilla groups -- the Revolutionary Armed 
     Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) -- 
     are responsible for a litany of  abuses as well, including the 
     arbitrary or selective killing of civilians.  Those targeted for 
     execution by the guerrillas include people resisting kidnap attempts, 
     local government officials, electoral candidates, demobilized 
     guerrillas, and others accused of collaborating with the military.  
     Like the paramilitary groups, the guerrillas target civilians believed 
     to be sympathetic to or in collaboration with the perceived  enemy.  
     This has led to widespread killings of civilians by guerrillas, 
     particularly in areas of the country where paramilitary expansion is 
     taking place.
     
        Paramilitary organizations -- groups of armed civilians carrying 
     out armed actions, often in partnership or working directly with 
     members of the Colombian security forces -- appear to be behind most 
     of the violence against human rights advocates.  They have 
     dramatically increased their activities in recent years.  Benefitting 
     from the political crisis and institutional inertia generated by the 
     corruption scandal engulfing the Samper administration, these groups 
     have expanded territorial control over vast sections of the country 
     and, for the first time, appear to be operating with a unified 
     national structure.  In a marked departure from their previous tactic 
     of developing locally-based groups of armed civilians, recently large 
     paramilitary units have been carrying out offensive campaigns, 
     including military operations in new areas of the country, and have 
     established training camps.
     
        Mounting evidence indicates that paramilitary groups operate with 
     the complicity, and in some regions the direct support, of the 
     Colombian armed forces.  Numerous eyewitness accounts have reported 
     joint patrols, as well as the planning and execution of military 
     operations, by Colombian military and paramilitary forces.  Throughout 
     the country, few paramilitary leaders have been detained or prosecuted 
     for their crimes.  One of the most important paramilitary leaders, 
     wanted for questioning in eight cases of murder, was interviewed in a 
     June 2, 1997 article in Newsweek, yet authorities claim to have no 
     information on his whereabouts.  Security forces have also failed to 
     combat paramilitary groups with the force with which they attack 
     guerrilla movements.  To date, there have been next to no reported 
     instances of combat between paramilitary groups and the Colombian 
     armed forces.
     
        Particularly troubling is the Colombian government's creation of de 
     facto paramilitary groups as Convivir, groups of civilians who are 
     authorized to carry military weapons and collect military 
     intelligence.  WOLA has evidence that in at least one case, a person 
     identified by the Colombian Judicial Police as a well-known 
     paramilitary leader has been legally incorporated into these groups.  
     Human rights groups have received growing numbers of complaints of 
     abuses by members of the Convivir,  including threats against local 
     inhabitants and even murder.  In mid-August, President Samper himself 
     questioned the role that some Convivir are playing and ordered them to 
     be  evaluated.  At best,  by creating the structure for networks of 
     armed civilians, these groups facilitate paramilitary actions.  At 
     worst, the Convivir are themselves an integral part of the 
     paramilitary strategy, as is evident in some regions of the country 
     where the Convivir act in coordination with paramilitary groups. 
     
        The creation of the Convivir is but one indication of the failure 
     of the Samper administration to adequately address human rights 
     concerns.  Two key measures of the government's political will to 
     confront human rights violations are: 1) investigations and sanctions 
     of those responsible, and 2) the provision of protection and 
     guarantees to human rights organizations such that they can 
     effectively carry out their work -- a basic tenet of a democratic 
     society.  Not only does impunity reign for cases of human rights 
     violations committed by state agents, but the Colombian armed forces 
     systematically impede such investigations and, until now, have 
     routinely absolved their own in sham military trials.
     
        The Samper administration does deserve credit for a number of 
     initiatives.  The Colombian government has created an impressive 
human 
     rights bureaucracy on paper, has arrested a handful of mid-level 
     paramilitary leaders, and has accepted the office of the UN High 
     Commissioner for Human Rights.  Additionally,  the Samper government 
     formally adopted Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions and approved 
     Law 288, legislating compensation for victims of human rights abuses 
     in cases brought before international bodies.
     
        Yet when presented with concrete recommendations for action by 
     Colombian human rights groups, the Samper government has often 
     responded with vague promises and limited measures, ensuring the 
     continuing peril of engaging in human rights work in Colombia.  The 
     Colombian government's response to the proposals of non-governmental 
     organizations (NGOs) raises concerns about the government's political 
     will to address human rights concerns in a timely and serious fashion 
     and to implement adequate measures for the protection of human rights 
     monitors.  While a range of programs exist on paper for protecting 
     human rights monitors, in practice they have been under-funded and 
     poorly designed for the needs of the human rights community.  The 
     number of human rights advocates killed in Colombia over the last year 
     provides sad testimony to the failure of these programs.
        
        The Samper government, however, has the opportunity to modify its 
     track record.  First, in mid-September it presented a new military 
     penal code to the Colombian Congress which excludes human rights 
     violations -- such as extrajudicial executions, disappearances, 
     torture, and rape -- from the military court system.  If adopted and 
     enforced, the new penal code could significantly scale back the 
     present level of impunity for human rights violations committed by 
     state agents in Colombia.  Second, in June 1997 Colombian human rights 
     groups presented the Samper government with concrete 
recommendations 
     for reforms and initiatives to protect human rights monitors.  
     Consequently, the Samper administration now has the opportunity to 
     work with the Colombian human rights community to implement the 
     proposed measures, which at the time of this writing are still under 
     discussion.  
        
        The human rights crisis in Colombia has generated significant 
     concern within the international community.  Human rights 
     organizations and international bodies have produced a myriad of 
     reports on the human rights situation in Colombia, accompanied by long 
     lists of recommendations for promoting improvements.  The vast 
     majority of these recommendations go unheeded.  As a result of 
     international concern, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has 
     opened an office in Colombia -- one of only two such local offices in 
     the world -- to monitor the human rights situation and promote 
     reforms.  
        
        In contrast to many European governments, however, the response of 
     the U.S. government to Colombia's human rights crisis has been less 
     consistent.  For many U.S. policy-makers, promoting human rights in 
     Colombia is perceived as detrimental to Washington's top priority, 
     fighting the war on drugs.  Since the Andean Antinarcotics Initiative 
     was launched in 1989, successive U.S. administrations have downplayed 
     human rights concerns in Colombia so as not to jeopardize 
     antinarcotics assistance and cooperation.  All too often, the United 
     States remains silent in the face of both individual atrocities and 
     the continuing deterioration of the human rights situation.  At times, 
     though, the administration has spoken out more forcefully  -- for 
     example, over the first half of 1997 as a result of its efforts to 
     implement stricter human rights conditionality on U.S. antinarcotics 
     assistance laid out in fiscal year 1997's foreign aid bill.  
     
        But the administration often backs down when faced with criticism 
     on Capitol Hill, where key committee and subcommittee chairmen are 
     prone to lavishing praise on the Colombian police and armed forces for 
     their antinarcotics efforts.  The Clinton administration, fearful of 
     being viewed as "soft on drugs," has responded to such criticisms by 
     dramatically increasing financial support for those institutions.  The 
     Colombian security forces are slated to receive approximately $100 
     million in U.S. antinarcotics support for fiscal year 1997 alone.  The 
     nature and extent of U.S. security assistance to Colombia is extremely 
     troubling in light of Colombia's abysmal human rights record.
     
     Policy Recommendations
     
        WOLA urges the Clinton administration and the U.S. Congress to 
     place higher priority on human rights concerns in Colombia.  We 
     believe the following are the initial steps that should be taken by 
     the Colombian government -- and encouraged by the U.S. government -- 
     to reverse the deteriorating human rights situation in that country.
     
     1.  Legislation allowing for the formation of the Convivir should be 
     abolished and those Convivir in existence should be demobilized.  With 
     regards to paramilitary groups:  
     
        a)  the Colombian government should actively pursue, detain, and 
     try paramilitary leaders for whom arrest warrants have been issued 
and 
     should actively move to disband existing paramilitary groups; and 
     
        b)  military and police personnel implicated in paramilitary 
     activity should be investigated, sanctioned appropriately if found 
     guilty, and removed from active service.
     
     2.  Measures should be taken to strengthen the investigation of human 
     rights abuses by all sides in the Colombian conflict.  These include: 
     
        a)  making the Human Rights Unit of the Fiscal?a (Attorney 
     General's office) a permanent body constituted by law; and
        
        b)  expanding the investigative capability of the Unit by 
     allocating more investigators and a larger budget, to allow it to 
     increase its technical capacity and undertake investigations in remote 
     regions.
     
     3.  Military and police personnel found to be responsible for human 
     rights violations should be removed from active service and receive 
     punishments commensurate with the gravity of the crimes committed.  
     Toward that end: 
     
        a)  the Colombian Congress should approve the new military penal 
     code presented by the Samper government, which should strongly 
     advocate its adoption; and 
     
        b)  the Colombian government should ensure that the new military 
     penal code, if passed, is effectively enforced.
     
     4.  Civilian oversight of the police should be strengthened through 
     the placement of the National Police under the Ministry of the 
     Interior, rather than under the Ministry of Defense as is currently 
     the case.
     
     5.  Given the gravity of the situation of internally displaced persons 
     in Colombia, guarantees should be provided to communities under 
threat 
     that further displacement will be prevented.  Those who are displaced 
     should be provided with special protection and adequate economic 
     resources.
     
        To provide for the protection of human rights advocates and to 
     ensure that they are effectively able to carry out their work, the 
     Colombian government should:
     
     1.  Adopt in full the proposals presented by the Colombian NGO 
     community to the Colombian government on June 16, 1997 to prevent 
and 
     investigate attacks on human rights monitors, to provide effective 
     protection to people at risk, and to educate the public and government 
     employees about human rights work. 
     
     2.  Issue public statements repudiating unfounded accusations by 
     government officials or members of the security forces linking human 
     rights workers with guerrilla movements.  Should evidence of any such 
     links exist, it should be presented to the appropriate judicial 
     authorities and investigated accordingly.  The Colombian government 
     should also take actions to prevent intelligence agencies from 
     targeting legitimate human rights work.
     
     3.  Increase the resources allocated to government human rights 
     offices so that they have the budgetary capacity to fulfill their 
     functions, particularly with regards to developing and implementing 
     effective protection programs for human rights defenders.
     
        With regards to U.S. policy toward Colombia, WOLA makes the 
     following specific policy recommendations:
     
     1.  The U.S. government should speak out forcefully and consistently 
     on human rights concerns in Colombia, maintaining the pressure exerted 
     during the first half of 1997.  
     
     2.  The U.S. government should also actively encourage the Colombian 
     government to adopt the NGO proposals for protecting human rights 
     advocates, should speak out in defense of Colombian human rights 
     activists under threat, and should include a specific section on the 
     situation of human rights monitors in Colombia in the State 
     Department's annual human rights report. 
     
     3.  No U.S. assistance should be provided to the Colombian army or 
     units of other branches of the armed forces or police implicated in 
     human rights abuses until the above recommendations have been 
adopted 
     and adequate sanctions have begun to be imposed on members of the 
     security forces -- military and police -- responsible for committing 
     human rights violations. 
     
     4.  The Clinton administration should not approve further sales of 
     helicopters or lethal equipment to the Colombian army, currently 
     provided for counternarcotics purposes, until the above conditions are 
     met.

     5.  The U.S. government should provide political and financial 
     assistance to the Human Rights Unit of the Fiscal?a and the Office of 
     the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
     
     6.  The U.S. State Department should provide the U.S. Congress and 
     Colombian and U.S. NGOs timely information on which units of the 
     Colombian armed forces are receiving U.S. assistance, should share the 
     results of end-use monitoring efforts, and should allow the GAO to 
     comply with its congressional functions without interference.
     
     7.  The Clinton administration should continue to apply the "spirit" 
     of the Leahy amendment to all forms of U.S. antinarcotics-related 
     security assistance and to counternarcotics assistance provided 
     through the Department of Defense.  
     
     8.  The provisions laid out in the Leahy amendment should be expanded 
     to include all forms of military and police assistance and should be 
     adopted into permanent law.
     
     
     Endnotes
     
     1.  WOLA interviews.  2-20 June 1997.  Unless named in the text, 
     individuals interviewed requested anonymity for reasons of personal 
     security.
     
     2.  The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has five local offices.  
     Three of these were created without a specific mandate from the UN 
     Commission on Human Rights; two others -- in Colombia and the former 
     Yugoslavia -- were created with a direct mandate from the Commission.