Republic of Colombia

Head of state and government: Andrés Pastrana Arango
Capital: Santafé de Bogotá
Population: 36.2 million
Official language: Spanish
Death penalty: abolitionist for all crimes
1999 treaty ratifications/signatures: Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture

Against a background of a continuing escalation in the long-running armed conflict, serious human rights violations increased. The parties to the conflict intensified their military actions throughout the country leading to widespread violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. The principal victims of political violence continued to be civilians, particularly community leaders, living in areas disputed between government forces and allied paramilitaries, and armed opposition groups. Trade unionists, political and social activists, academics, human rights defenders, judicial officials, church workers and journalists were among those targeted. More than 3,500 people were victims of politically motivated violence, scores "disappeared" and an estimated 250,000 people were forced to flee their homes. At least 1,000 people were kidnapped by armed opposition groups and paramilitary organizations and held for ransom or for political reasons. Mass kidnappings of civilians by armed opposition groups increased. Torture – often involving mutilation – remained widespread, particularly as a prelude to murder by paramilitary forces. Children suffered serious human rights violations, particularly in the context of the armed conflict. "Death squad"-style killings continued in urban areas. New evidence emerged of collusion between the armed forces and illegal paramilitary groups. Important progress was made in some judicial investigations, but impunity for human rights abuses remained the norm. The government vetoed a bill designed to bring national legislation closer into line with international standards.

Background

In a series of unprecedented demonstrations throughout the country, millions of people peacefully marched to call for an end to political violence and human rights violations. Despite progress made in the peace process, however, no cease-fire was agreed and the armed conflict continued to escalate and to extend to new areas of the country. Regions particularly affected included North Santander, Antioquia and Córdoba in the north, the south of Bolívar department in central Colombia and Valle del Cauca and Putumayo departments in the south. The conflict continued to be characterized by gross and massive violations of human rights and humanitarian law. According to the National Human Rights Ombudsman in 1999, 402 massacres of civilians occurred, a significant increase on the previous year. All parties to the conflict were responsible for serious human rights violations – including massacres – but the majority were carried out by illegal paramilitary groups which systematically targeted the civilian population. AI continued to urge all parties to the conflict to observe basic humanitarian standards.

Peace process

Progress was made in preparing peace talks with the two main armed opposition groups: the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, and the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), National Liberation Army. A third group, the Ejército Popular de Liberación (EPL), Popular Liberation Army, also announced its interest in peace talks with the government.

The government extended the temporary demilitarization of five municipalities in Meta and Caquetá departments which remained under the de facto control of the FARC. Formal talks between the government and the FARC, originally scheduled to begin in January, finally began in October, although no substantive talks had taken place by the end of the year.

Growing tensions between the armed forces and the government over the peace strategy came to a head in June with the resignation of the Defence Minister and 17 senior generals. All the generals subsequently withdrew their resignations. A series of contacts between government representatives and the ELN in the second half of the year gave rise to hopes that the long-stalled peace process would be reactivated. However, preconditions for the start of talks had not been agreed by the end of 1999.

Those working for peace continued to face serious dangers; "death lists" containing the names of prominent peace activists and human rights defenders were publicly circulated in September. Several were killed.

  • Mass demonstrations followed the murder of political humorist Jaime Garzón Forero in August. Jaime Garzón was a member of a commission appointed by the government in an attempt to revive the stalled peace process with the ELN. Shortly before his death Jaime Garzón had told friends that he had been threatened by senior military and paramilitary commanders. Investigations failed to establish responsibility for the murder by the end of 1999.

Paramilitaries

Paramilitary action was characterized by a succession of atrocities against the civilian population during military offensives to expand territorial control. Attacks against non-combatant civilians were routinely justified by claiming victims were "guerrillas in civilian clothing". The attacks continued throughout the year as paramilitary forces opened new fronts of conflict in Valle del Cauca, Casanare and North Santander departments. Guerrilla forces retaliated by targeting civilians considered to be collaborating with the paramilitaries. Repeated paramilitary atrocities drew little or no reaction from the authorities. Despite repeated commitments to create special military task forces to combat paramilitary forces, no such unit was deployed and paramilitary forces continued to act with impunity throughout the country.

  • More than 150 civilians were killed in January as units attached to the national paramilitary organization Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), United Self-Defence Groups of Colombia, swept through villages in several regions, torturing and murdering suspected guerrilla collaborators, stealing livestock, burning entire villages and displacing the population.
  • Nearly 200 civilians were killed between May and September when AUC forces launched an offensive in the Catatumbo region of North Santander department on the border with Venezuela. In an attempt to wrest control of the area from the ELN, FARC and EPL, the AUC carried out a series of massacres of civilians in the towns of La Gabarra, Tibú, the departmental capital Cúcuta, and surrounding communities.

Armed forces

The armed forces carried out disproportionate and indiscriminate attacks resulting in civilian loss of life. The armed forces were also responsible for the selective killing of people considered to be guerrilla sympathizers or collaborators. According to the National Human Rights Ombudsman, the Colombian army was responsible for five massacres of civilians during the first nine months of 1999.

Further evidence emerged of the active or tacit support of the armed forces for illegal paramilitary groups.

  • Following the paramilitary massacres of civilians in the region of Catatumbo, North Santander department, the regional army and two regional police commanders were relieved of their posts. Initial investigations established that the police commander of Tibú had given logistical support to the paramilitaries. In August General Alberto Bravo Silva was relieved of his command of the army's 5th Brigade by the Minister of Defence and then sacked three days later by President Andrés Pastrana Arango for having failed in his duty to protect civilians in North Santander from paramilitary attack.

Government orders to the armed forces to combat paramilitary groups generally went unheeded and no action was taken against national paramilitary leaders. However, in an exceptional case in June, the army announced that it had killed paramilitary leader Pedro González Velásquez, accused in judicial investigations of responsibility for a number of massacres.

Armed opposition

Armed opposition groups were responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law, including indiscriminate attacks against military targets which caused civilian casualties; deliberate and arbitrary killings; and hostage-taking. At least 800 civilians were believed to have been kidnapped by armed opposition groups during 1999.

  • In April the ELN hijacked an internal Colombian flight and kidnapped the passengers and crew. Although several passengers were released within days, and others during the course of the year, 14 passengers and crew were still held at the end of the year. One passenger died of a heart attack while in captivity.
  • In May the ELN abducted some 180 churchgoers during a mass in a Catholic church in Cali, Valle del Cauca department. The guerrillas shot and killed the bodyguard of one of the churchgoers before driving the hostages into nearby mountains. Eighty hostages, the majority women and children, were released within hours and others were released in the following months. Relatives of the abducted churchgoers reported that they were forced to pay ransoms. All of the churchgoers had been released by the end of the year.
  • In August the EPL abducted the Catholic Bishop of Tibú, José de Jesús Quintero, and demanded that an international verification commission visit the Catatumbo region to document human rights violations against the civilian population. Bishop Quintero was released unharmed in mid-September.

Consistent reports emerged of serious violations of international humanitarian law by the FARC in the demilitarized area.

  • The FARC summarily executed at least six people they accused of being military infiltrators. The whereabouts of a further 12 people remained unknown after they were illegally detained by the FARC in the demilitarized area.
  • The FARC also acknowledged responsibility for the killing in May of 13 members of a Gnostic community in the municipality of Puerto Rico, Caquetá department.

Children as young as 13 were routinely recruited by the FARC in breach of international standards. In July the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported that more than 6,000 children were fighting with the armed opposition groups or with paramilitary forces.

Displacement

The mounting ferocity of the conflict continued to drive thousands of families from their homes. Some were casual victims caught up in hostilities, but in many cases displacement was a deliberate strategy employed by paramilitary forces to "cleanse" the civilian population from areas of guerrilla influence.

Internally displaced communities who returned to their lands and declared themselves "peace communities" continued to be attacked by paramilitary forces and by armed opposition groups.

The government failed to fulfil its commitments to maintain the security in the area of the peace communities and in other areas where internally displaced people attempted to return to their communities.

Human rights defenders

Human rights defenders continued to face harassment, intimidation and violent assaults. In response to the relentless persecution, the government took some steps to improve the protection of human rights defenders and in September President Pastrana issued a directive recognizing the legitimacy of their work. However, despite these measures, attacks against human rights defenders continued throughout 1999 and little progress was made in identifying and holding accountable those responsible.

  • Two members of the Committee of Solidarity with Political Prisoners (CSPP) – Everardo de Jesús Puerta and Julio Ernesto González – were killed in January. The two men were shot dead after the bus in which they were travelling was intercepted by two heavily armed men and a woman who picked them out from among the passengers. Following the killings, the CSPP closed all its offices.
  • Four members of the Popular Training Institute (IPC), including its director Jairo Bedoya, were abducted from the IPC office in Medellín, Antioquia department. The national commander of the AUC, Carlos Castaño Gil, announced they were being held as "prisoners of war" and that his forces would "purge" human rights organizations of "guerrilla infiltrators". Following intense national and international pressure, all four were released in February.
  • Three US environmental activists taking part in an international campaign to support the U'wa indigenous community in northeastern Colombia – Ingrid Washinawatok, Lahe'ena Gay and Terence Freitas – were abducted by members of the FARC's Eastern Bloc on 25 February. Their bound and blindfolded bodies were found on 4 March over the border in Venezuela. All three had been shot in the head. Although the FARC initially denied involvement, an internal investigation identified a group of FARC combatants responsible for the killings. A judicial arrest warrant was issued against the FARC's regional commander on charges of having ordered the murder of the three US citizens. However, the FARC refused to hand him over to be tried in the national courts. In October FARC commanders told an AI delegation that internal disciplinary proceedings were at a preliminary stage and that three FARC members would face "revolutionary courts martial".

'Social cleansing'

The killing of so-called "disposables" – homosexuals, prostitutes, petty criminals, drug dealers and vagrants – by police-backed "death squads" and urban militias linked to armed opposition groups continued.

  • In June an association of more than 300 prostitutes wrote to the National Human Rights Ombudsman after 19 prostitutes had allegedly been murdered in three months in Bogotá by a "death squad" calling itself "Clean City". They also reported routine arbitrary detention and ill-treatment by the national police.

Justice and impunity

The vast majority of perpetrators of human rights violations continued to evade accountability. Despite outstanding arrest warrants, no attempt was made by the armed and security forces to capture paramilitary leaders responsible for widespread human rights violations. In October judicial authorities reported that there were more than 300 outstanding arrest warrants against paramilitary members. However, the Attorney General's office made progress in a number of key cases.

  • Arrest warrants were issued against AUC paramilitary leader Carlos Castaño Gil for the abduction of the four IPC members and Senator Piedad Córdoba; the massacre of 18 civilians in Puerto Alvira, Meta department, in May 1998; the murder in 1990 of Carlos Pizarro León Gómez, leader of the recently demobilized M-19 opposition group; the abduction of the sister and brother of an ELN commander in April 1997; and the massacre of 20 civilians in El Aro, Ituango, in October 1997. Despite these and previously outstanding arrest warrants, no attempt was made by the armed forces to capture Carlos Castaño Gil and other paramilitary leaders.
  • Colonel Bernando Ruiz Silva, former commander of the army's intelligence brigade, was arrested in April and formally charged in connection with the murder of leading conservative politician Alvaro Gómez Hurtado in November 1995.
  • General Jaime Humberto Uscátegui was arrested in May, accused of failing to prevent a massacre of up to 30 civilians by paramilitary forces in Mapiripán, Meta department, in July 1997, when he was commander of the 7th Brigade. In August General Uscátegui's case was passed to the military justice system in breach of the 1997 Constitutional Court ruling that excluded serious human rights violations from military jurisdiction. In November a military judge ordered his provisional release. General Uscátegui was dismissed in November following a disciplinary investigation by the Procurator General for failing to support a judicial commission which was attacked by paramilitary forces in San Carlos de Guaroa in 1997; 13 members of the commission died in the attack.

Legislation

In June the regional justice system (also known as the "faceless justice" because of the anonymity of judges) was restructured and renamed the Specialized Justice System. Some of the serious concerns repeatedly expressed by the UN and other international organizations about the regional justice system were addressed in the restructured system. However, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia said that the new Specialized Justice System still fell short of international standards.

A new Military Penal Code introduced important modifications, including allowing civilians to act as plaintiffs in military penal proceedings and prohibiting commanding officers from sitting as judges in cases involving military personnel under their command. However, the new law failed to restrict military jurisdiction to crimes directly related to "acts of service" as defined by the Constitutional Court or to exclude "due obedience" as a defence plea. Moreover, the bill was not due to come into effect for at least 12 months.

A bill designed to incorporate the crimes of forced disappearance, genocide and forced displacement into the Penal Code was passed by Congress in November. However, in December, President Pastrana vetoed the bill on the grounds that it was "inconvenient and unconstitutional".

UN Commission on Human Rights

AI's concerns about Colombia were addressed in a statement by the Chairman of the UN Commission on Human Rights. The Commission welcomed the extension of the mandate of the permanent Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia until April 2000.

AI country reports and visits

Reports

  • Colombia: Repression of human rights defenders (AI Index: AMR 23/016/99)
  • Colombia: Barrancabermeja – a city under siege (AI Index: AMR 23/036/99)

Visits

AI delegates visited Colombia twice and during a meeting with the Vice-President in October reiterated AI's call to the government to end human rights violations.

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