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Eradicate poverty, negotiate war
Alberto Yepes; Rubén Fernández
Corporación Región
Enjoyment of full human security cannot be guaranteed while the war escalates, and the poverty and inequality generated by neoliberal policies continue. Human security and human rights cannot be viewed as contradictory.
The events of
11 September 2001 have ushered in a new world order in which security has become
a key issue in national and international policies. But although security is one
of the most essential public assets of a society, it has been adulterated and
reduced to a set of rules and procedures based on fear and mutual distrust,
granting security forces the power to set up mechanisms for social control and
to impose restrictions on civil and political liberties and guarantees, which
are the basis of a functional democracy.
A more secure
world, in contrast, requires the recovery of the idea of security in the
broadest sense, as the guarantee of a favourable environment for the full
expression of human life and dignity, putting people
at the centre of public policies. Security is expressed in the conditions of
everyday life (food, housing, employment, health, public safety) that benefit
all human beings, without discrimination of any kind. While it is true that
legally constituted authority must take action against all criminal acts that
threaten people’s lives, safety, freedom and property, these actions cannot run
counter to the principles that ensure enjoyment of all human rights by all human
beings, namely, their human security.
The thousand fronts of the internal war
The internal war, poverty and increasing inequality, which violate human rights
and civil liberties, are the main factors threatening human security in
Colombia. As stated by the Ombudsman’s Office (Defensoría del Pueblo), “violent
death, arbitrary loss of freedom and social inequality prevent the vast majority
of people from determining their own future and living with anything more than
the most basic necessities”.
Colombia has
been living in the midst of an armed internal conflict for over 40 years. In the
last few years the war has escalated, leaving thousands of victims murdered,
mutilated, exiled, displaced or missing. Intervention by the United States in
the war against drugs and the so-called war against terrorism, defined in the
national Plan Colombia, the Democratic Security Policy of President Álvaro Uribe
Vélez and the pro-war attitude of the insurgent groups, especially the Armed
Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC), has led to an increase in certain
styles of military confrontation and generated new violations of human rights
and international humanitarian law (IHL), making a negotiated political solution
to the conflict less likely.
Colombia today
faces a severe social and economic crisis, due to the worsening of several
concurrent conflicts. Poverty affects 60% of the population, 25% are extremely
poor, and 61% of the economically active population are in the informal sector.
Forced internal displacement has affected more than 2.5 million people. Profound
social exclusion denies basic human rights to large sectors of the population:
“The country still has some 1,800,000 children (taking into account new school
places created in 2003) outside the educational system”
and 48% of the population lack health care.
Concentration
of wealth and income are the flip-side of this situation. The richest 20% of
households receive 52% of income, and earn 26.3 times more than the poorest 20%.
In the countryside, where 80% of the population are poor and 60% live in extreme
poverty, concentration of land ownership means that 1.1% of landowners hold over
55%
of arable land.
Corruption, drug trafficking and violence as ways of accumulating and stripping
people of their land and wealth, have fostered the idea held by certain members
of the elite that the State is part of their personal patrimony, to be placed at
the service of the private interests of a privileged few. Along
with the
internal war and the drug
trade, corruption has become one of the most destructive problems affecting the
country.[5]
Breathing is in
jeopardy
In 2004, the US
intervention in Colombia will command a budget of approximately USD 700 million,
approved as part of the
Department of
Defence’s Foreign Operations budget.[6]
This intervention puts large sectors of the rural, indigenous and Afro-Colombian
populations at increased risk in areas where war is being waged on coca leaf
growers. About 400,000 families are being subjected to
the harmful effects of the aerial spraying of toxic substances, which is
affecting life and health, water, animals and crops.
Under the Plan
Colombia, at least 29,980 people were expelled from the fumigation zones, while
2,831 indigenous people fled from their territories and around 40,500 members of
Afro-Colombian communities were forced to leave during the first nine months of
2003, according to a report by the Consultancy for Human Rights and Forced
Displacement (Consultoría para los Derechos Humanos y el Desplazamiento Forzado,
CODHES). During the same period an estimated 20,727 people moved into 45
municipalities along Colombia’s border with neighbouring countries, while about
15,000 Colombian citizens sought refuge in Ecuador, Venezuela and Panama.[7]
This anti-drugs
policy creates new factors of human insecurity among small-scale coca leaf
growers, as they are given no other alternative for survival.
Security policy versus civil liberties
The wearing and
demoralising effects on the civilian population of the frequent and serious
violations of IHL committed by all the armed parties in the conflict, have
fostered the desire among the public for a quick solution to the war, even at
the cost of restricting human rights. The defeat of the guerrilla organisations
and the conquest of security have been promoted as goals that can be achieved in
the medium term by means of the so-called War on Terrorism, the Democratic
Security Policy and the US aid and military cooperation.
However, the
lack of respect for internationally recognised principles of human rights and
the arbitrary abuses committed by all sides are daily sources of insecurity and
terror in wide sectors of the population. The guerrillas, paramilitary groups
and government forces have continued to perpetrate serious violations of IHL and
abuses against the civilian population. Between July 2002 and June 2003, 2,501
people were kidnapped, most of them by guerrilla organisations. At the same
time, the excesses of the Democratic Security Policy have been notoriously more
brutal among the poorer sectors and communities in both the countryside and
cities. Forcible disappearances have increased: between January and August 2003,
684 people were reported missing, an increase on the previous year’s figure.
Arbitrary mass arrests have increased to alarming levels. The Commander General
of the Police acknowledged that in 2003 125,000 people had been arrested.[10]
Many who had been detained after being named by anonymous informers later had to
be released because of lack of evidence.
The
Government’s own evaluation of its security policy has been positive, pointing
to achievements such as a reduction in homicides, massacres and kidnappings. The
main highways in the country are now under the control of the authorities, and
the National Police has established a strong presence in most of the country’s
municipalities. These government gains, however, must be contrasted with the
increasing militarisation of society and the erosion of civil liberties ratified
in several international treaties, as well as with the growth in military
spending which has aggravated the fiscal crisis, while social investment, which
would promote recognition of the population’s economic and social rights, is
underfinanced.
Rule of law
undermined
Rights
violations in recent years have led the United Nations’ human rights body and
the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to make a number of observations
and recommendations to the Colombian State and to the armed groups with the aim
of overcoming the humanitarian crisis. In July 2003 the European countries’
Panel of Donors made its aid and cooperation conditional on fulfilment of the
recommendations of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Out of 24 recommendations that the State promised to implement, 17 have not been
complied with, 7 have been partially carried out, and measures are being taken
against 10 of them.
The illegal armed groups (guerrillas and paramilitaries) have totally ignored
the three recommendations made to them, concerning kidnappings, massacres,
protection of civilians and, in general, respect for IHL.
Acting against
the recommendations of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights,
the government sent Congress a constitutional reform bill (passed in December
2003) which ignores mandates on human rights contained in international treaties
signed by Colombia. The reformed Constitution grants new powers to the armed
forces to detain people for 36 hours, carry out house raids, tap telephones and
record and intercept communications without a warrant, on the basis of
accusations by the military and with no need for proper and impartial judicial
inquiries. The armed forces may also carry out functions of the judicial police,
including the use of forensic methods and interrogation of suspects.
Furthermore,
nearly half the articles of the present Constitution are being rewritten to
accommodate government strategy, in an attempt to strengthen presidential
powers, eliminate judicial checks on the actions of the Executive and the armed
forces, while restricting the independence of the other state powers. State
responsibilities such as security, satisfaction of basic needs and justice are
being devolved to community level, so that the majority of state resources can
be channelled into financing the war and paying state creditors.
The crowning
event undermining the rule of law is the Government’s proposal to reform the
justice system, preventing the protection of economic, social and cultural
rights being invoked through the legal system, eliminating the Acción de
Tutela (writ of injunction), and restricting the powers of the
Constitutional Court to reach verdicts which interfere with government
decisions.
Eradicate
poverty, negotiate war
The standpoint
taken by the recent
National Human Development
Report 2003 for
Colombia
Understand in
Order to Transform the Local Roots of Conflict
presented by UNDP argues that we are all losers in the war, and it contains
proposals about which thousands of Colombian citizens and institutions were
consulted. These should be taken into account by the democratic sectors and the
international community in pressing for advances towards a negotiated outcome to
the conflict.
The only way to
ensure human security, democratic rule and lasting peace in Colombia is through
a negotiated end to the war, a reformed economic model that will reverse the
process of impoverishment and concentration of income and productive assets, the
defence and extension of the rule of law, and the creation of a new social pact
that will guarantee human welfare, employment and the enjoyment of social rights
in an environment where human rights and democratic participation are fully
respected. Further requirements are a reduction in the cost of servicing the
national debt through better conditions, lower interest rates and longer
repayment schedules, and a gradual lowering of the debt owed to private
creditors, in order to make financial resources available to address the social
needs of the 60% of the population who live in poverty.
Notes:
Defensoría del Pueblo.
Seguridad y libertades individuales. Bogotá: Alfaomega Colombiana S. A.,
April 2003, p. viii.
Garay, Luis. “Políticas públicas y garantía de los DESC”, in El Embrujo
Autoritario. Primer año de Gobierno de Álvaro Uribe Vélez. Bogotá:
Plataforma Colombiana de Derechos Humanos, Democracia y Desarrollo, pp. 33-44.
Data from the Ministry of Education taken from: “Este año se abrirán 370.000
cupos”. El Colombiano newspaper, 18 January 2004, p. 6A.
Garay, op cit.
[5]
According to official figures, corruption makes away with over COP 14.5 billion
(USD 5,385 million) per year, while the budget for social investment is only COP
9 billion (USD 3,342 million).
In “Contra la corrupción”.
Editorial. Diario El país-Cali newspaper, 13 August 2003.
“Aprobada Ayuda de Estados Unidos a Colombia”. El Tiempo newspaper. 8
December 2003.
CODHES Informa.
No. 46.
December 2003.
The Democratic Security Policy provides for strengthening security forces (from
240,000 to 400,000 members), setting up a network of one million paid informers,
coordinated by the security forces and at their service, creating citizen
security squads and adding 100,000 peasant militias to the army.
Declaration of Colombian NGOs to the UN Human Rights Commission, 60th Session,
March-April 2004.
“Ponen en duda las cifras oficiales sobre muertes y desmovilizados en la
guerrilla”, El Tiempo, 16 September 2003.
See: Oficina en Colombia del Alto Comisionado de las Naciones Unidas para los
Derechos Humanos.
“Recomendaciones
para Colombia 2003”. Bogotá, March 2003,
www.hchr.org.co
[12]
According to an evaluation carried out by more than 150 social organisations,
trade unions, rural, ethnic, community, development, women’s, human rights and
environmental organisations and peace initiatives, participating in three broad
networks: the Alliance for Cooperation for Peace and Democracy,
Colombia-Europe-United States Coordination, and the Platform for Human Rights,
Democracy and Development.
“Colombia se raja en derechos humanos ante la ONU”. See:
www.viaalterna.com.co/index2.htm
This report contains proposals which aim to: a) prevent extension of the
conflict to new victims and regions; b) reduce the number of illegal combatants
and people affected; c) prevent outrages subsequent to action; d) achieve
respect for IHL and human rights, while the confrontation lasts; e) compensate
innocent victims; f) punish those responsible for criminal behaviour; g) reduce
the harmful effects of the conflict on human development; h) shorten the
conflict and put an end to armed action; i) ensure that the final solution to
the conflict complies with the standards of justice and causes the least
possible harm to or has the best possible impact on Colombia’s future; and j)
secure a firm and lasting peace, i.e. demobilisation of the armed groups with no
new such groups emerging to replace them.
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