INTER-PRESS SERVICE

Friday, 31 July 1998


                Displaced demand role in peace process
                --------------------------------------


BOGOTA -- Colombians displaced by the armed conflict --more than one
million over the past decade-- should be granted a role in the budding
peace process, say local non-governmental organizations.

A report released this week by the Consultancy for Human Rights and Forced
Displacement (Codhes) said the "voluntary return of the displaced to their
homes" will be inextricably linked to "respect for humanitarian law by the
warring factions." Codhes insists that the return of displaced populations
would contribute to "generating social investment" in conflict areas.

The rebel National Liberation Army (ELN) and the paramilitary Self-Defence
Units of Colombia (AUC), both of which have separately declared themselves
ready to engage in peace talks, committed themselves in writing to
preventing the armed conflict from affecting the civilian population,
which has borne the brunt of decades of violence.

The Codhes report says the number of people displaced by the violence
reached a new high in the first half of the year --150,000.  Codhes
director German Rojas told IPS that 29,000 families, mainly peasant
farmers, fled their homes because of about 20 massacres --defined as the
murder of more than four persons in the same place-- which left a total of
276 dead.

The displaced flee conflict zones and "disperse throughout the territory,
in a state of utter marginalization and against the backdrop of precarious
attention and a lack of protection from the government," said Rojas.

Yesterday, outgoing President Ernesto Samper attributed the massacres of
49 people committed from 1991 to 1993 --prior to his term-- to the "action
or failure to act" of government officials.

Studies indicate that from 1985 to 1994, close to 600,000 people were
displaced from their homes. But that figure has nearly doubled over the
past four years because of increased violence.

Colombia's Silent Crisis, a report released in April by the U.S. Committee
for Refugees (USCR), says more than one million Colombians have been
forced by political and drug-related violence to flee their homes and
communities over the past decade.

The report adds that the displaced, most of them are women and children,
are victims of one or more of the three major armed groups in Colombia
--the military, paramilitary forces which have been linked to the army and
the land-owning elite, and the three guerrilla groups.

"Colombia is being ripped apart, its people butchered and uprooted, by
sweeping brutal violence associated with multiple conflicts; rampant
institutionalized human rights abuse; impunity;  private groups'
(including narco-traffickers) efforts to expand their economic power; and
lawlessness," says the report's author, Hiram Ruiz.

Bogota attracts the largest number of displaced, but Codhes pointed out
that in the first half of the year the flow increased towards areas like
the state of Narino in the south, Guajira in the north, and Quindio,
Caldas and Risaralda in the center. But the majority of those fleeing
violence head to the regions of Cundinamarca in central Colombia,
Atlantico in the north, Santander in the northeast and Meta in the
southeast.

Yesterday, 12 peasant families occupied the San Francisco Church in
downtown Bogota, urging the government to help them settle in other cities
and grant them credit for a subsistence project. Dozens of displaced
people, meanwhile, took refuge in a Catholic seminary in Bogota this week,
and another group, which fled under threats from supposed paramilitary
groups, has been camping out in protest in front of the U.S. embassy since
last week.  The Colombian armed forces are by far the largest recipient of
U.S. assistance in the Americas.

Another group of peasants fleeing paramilitary groups sought refuge in the
municipality of Usme, on the outskirts of Bogota.

Local authorities warn that the port and oil town of Barrancabermeja in
Santander is facing a potentially explosive health crisis due to the large
influx of displaced people fleeing threats by alleged paramilitary groups
in the region of Bolivar.

The government blamed the protests on guerrilla groups, which it claims
are using the displaced persons for political ends in order to protest the
presence of paramilitary groups. "I sincerely lament that the issue of the
displaced is being exploited" in many cases to create situations of chaos
and uncertainty among these poor people "who some are threatened and
others displaced," said President Samper.

Pilar Umana, a psychologist who works with the non-governmental 
Colombian
Social Foundation (Cedavida) which provides support to victims of the
armed conflict, said people abandon their homes mainly due to threats from
guerrillas or paramilitary groups, which accuse them of helping the other
side.

But according to analysts with the Center of Popular Education and Culture
(Cinep), displacement is the result of a variety of causes, which all
entail however a broad range of violations of the  basic rights of people.
In some cases, Cinep says, displacement is a consequence of the armed
conflict.  But in others it is a result of "violent concentration of
capital, forced purchases of land, mega development projects (dams,
aqueducts) or social conflicts." NGOs estimate that up to 97 percent of
human rights violations committed in Colombia go unpunished.

        Copyright 1998 IPS/GIN