Freedom in the World 1999 - Colombia

1999 Scores

Status: Partly Free
Freedom Rating: 4.0
Civil Liberties: 4
Political Rights: 4

Ratings Change

Colombia's political rights rating changed from 3 to 4 due to the increasing amount of national territory now under the control of undemocratic forces and criminal elements.

Overview

Efforts by Colombian president Andrés Pastrana to make peace with the country's largest guerrilla group – the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) – moved forward fitfully throughout 1999, the object of waning faith from a war-weary public. As the government moved very slowly to reign in spiraling right-wing paramilitary violence, the negotiating guerrillas offered frequent tests of will, including armed offensives, that jeopardized the talks. Meanwhile other, leftist rebel groups spurned the parley and kept fighting. (According to the Colombian army, the FARC and smaller National Liberation Army raided 67 towns and villages in the first 11 months of 1999, compared to just 27 attacks during the same period last year.) Meanwhile, improvements in military intelligence gathering and ground troop coordination have bolstered army morale. In October a major blow was struck against regrouping remnants of the Medellín and Cali drug cartels, although its practical effects on illegal narcotics trafficking was uncertain. According to the Gen. Barry McCaffrey, U.S. drug czar, coca leaf production has doubled in the past three years.

Following independence from Spain in 1819, and after a long period of federal government with what are now Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama, the Republic of Colombia was established in 1886. Politics have since been dominated by the Liberal and Conservative parties, whose leadership has largely been drawn from the traditional elite. Under President César Gaviria (1990-1994) of the Liberal Party a new constitution was approved that limits presidents to a single four-year term and provides for an elected bicameral congress, with a 102-member senate and a 161-member chamber of representatives.

Modern Colombia has been marked by the corrupt machine politics of the Liberals and Conservatives, left-wing guerrilla insurgencies, right-wing paramilitary violence, the emergence of vicious drug cartels, and gross human rights violations committed by all sides.

In the 1994 legislative elections, the Liberals retained a majority in both houses of congress. Ernesto Samper, a former economic development minister, won the Liberal presidential nomination. The Conservative candidate was Pastrana, a former mayor of Bogota and the son of a former Colombian president. Both candidates pledged to continue Gaviria's free-market reforms.

Samper won in a June 1994 runoff election, with 50.4 percent, besting Pastrana by 1.8 percent. With strong U.S. encouragement, Samper presided over the dismantling of the Cali drug cartel, most of whose leaders were captured in 1995. The arrests, however, netted persuasive evidence that the cartel gave $6 million to the president's campaign, with Samper's approval. In February 1996 the country's prosecutor-general formally charged Samper with illegal enrichment, fraud, falsifying documents, and cover up of his campaign financing. In June the house, dominated by Samper's Liberals, voted 111 to 43 to clear Samper on grounds of insufficient evidence.

The murder of journalists and human rights workers, repeated humiliation of the military by leftist insurgents, a continued upswing in paramilitary violence linked to the military, and army claims of the subversive intent of unarmed groups dominated much of the news from Colombia in 1997. In the June 21, 1998, election, Pastrana won the presidency of Latin America's third most populous country in an impressive victory over the Liberal Party candidate, interior minister Horacio Serpa. In an effort to consolidate the peace process, in November Pastrana oversaw the regrouping by FARC guerrillas in, and the withdrawal by a dispirited military from, a so-called demilitarized zone of five southern districts. The move, strongly resisted by the military, gave the guerrillas de facto control over a territory the size of Switzerland.

In 1999, talks with the FARC sputtered along, burdened by the sweeping political, social, and economic reforms being demanded by the rebels and by the government's inability to reign in the paramilitaries, as well as by military reluctance to grant the FARC concessions beyond the de facto partitioning of the country. (Guerrilla groups now control some 40 percent of the national territory.) In September a right-wing death squad murdered Jesús Béjarano, a former government peace advisor. The governments of neighboring Panama, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Brazil also expressed concern about the deadly violence spilling over into their countries. Colombia resumed extradition of its nationals after a nine-year hiatus, handing over two top drug suspects to U.S. authorities. In August, Moody's Investor's Service stripped Colombia of its prized investment-grade credit rating, severely affecting the country's economic reputation.

Political Rights and Civil Liberties

Citizens can change their government through elections. The 1991 constitution provides for broader participation in the system, including two reserved seats in the congress for the country's small Indian minority. Political violence, and a generalized belief that corruption renders elections meaningless, has helped to limit voter participation, although an impressive 60 percent voted in the 1998 presidential contest. In 1998, Pastrana proposed a broad reform of the political system designed to combat corruption and promote greater public participation in decision making. He also offered the guerrillas a presidential pardon and guarantees for their post-peace participation in legal political activities.

The justice system remains slow and compromised by corruption and extortion.

Strong evidence suggests that the Cali drug cartel, through its lawyers, virtually dictated the 1993 penal code reform to congress. It allows traffickers who turn themselves in as much as a two-thirds sentence reduction and the dismissal of any pending charges in which they do not plead. In the past eight years, 290 judges have been assassinated. The civilian-led Ministry of Defense is responsible for internal security and oversees both the armed forces and the National Police; civilian management of the armed forces, however, is limited. The country's national police, once a focal point of official corruption, have been reorganized and are now Colombia's most respected security institution. Colombia's 165 prisons, which were built for 32,000 people but hold more than 47,000, are frequent sites of murders and riots.

Constitutional rights regarding free expression and the freedom to organize political parties, civic groups, and labor unions are severely restricted by political and drug-related violence and the government's inability to guarantee the security of its citizens. Colombia is one of the most violent countries in the world, and in 1999 alone had more than 2,200 kidnappings and 25,000 murders unrelated to the rebel insurgency. Political violence in Colombia continues to take more lives than in any other country in the hemisphere, and civilians are prime victims. In the past decade an estimated 35,000 have died and about 1.5 million have been displaced from their homes, 308,000 in 1998 alone. More than 90 percent of violent crimes go unsolved.

Human rights violations have soared to unprecedented highs, with atrocities being committed by all sides in the conflict. Human rights workers in Colombia are frequently murdered by an underfunded military frequently lacking in personal and tactical discipline, and by rightist paramilitary forces. The growth of the paramilitary groups, in the pay of narcotics traffickers and large landowners and protected by the military, is out of control. Athough since taking office Pastrana has sacked four generals accused of paramilitary ties, government efforts to sever ties to the right-wing militia remain tepid, and these groups operate freely at the local level. In May 1999, police shut down a huge paramilitary drug laboratory. Left-wing guerrillas, some of whom also protect narcotics production facilities and drug traffickers, also systematically violate human rights, with victims including Sunday churchgoers and airline passengers. The FARC guerrillas also regularly extort payments from hundreds of businessmen throughout the country. All sides operate with a high degree of impunity.

Journalists are frequently the victims of political and revenge violence. More than 120 journalists have been murdered in the past decade, and many were killed for reporting on drug trafficking and corruption. Another category of killings is known as "social cleansing" – the elimination of drug addicts, street children, and other marginal citizens by vigilante groups often linked to police.

There are approximately 80 distinct ethnic groups among Colombia's 800,000-plus indigenous inhabitants. These Native Americans are frequently the targets of violence despite their seeking to remain neutral in the armed conflict. In 1998, some 700 indigenous people were murdered. In 1999, FARC guerrillas kidnapped three U.S. Native American rights activists and killed them. Indian claims to land and resources are under challenge from government ministries and multinational corporations.

Murders of trade union activists continued, as Colombia remained the most dangerous country in the world for organized labor. More than 2,500 trade union activists and leaders have been killed in the last 12 years. Labor leaders are targets of attacks by paramilitary groups, guerrillas, narcotics traffickers, and other union rivals. According to the United Nations, some 948,000 Colombian children under the age of 14 work in "unacceptable" conditions.