When lucrative investment opportunities are offered in a country rich in resources but poor in respect for human rights, history teaches us a lamentable lesson. Too often, vicious repression and injustice become inconvenient truths to be downplayed, denied or obscured.
This week, the Canadian Council for the Americas will honour Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos as “Statesman of the Year” at a gala for which tickets cost no less than $1,000 ($25,000 buys an exclusive reception with the president). It’s likely no coincidence the award comes just weeks after Santos and Prime Minister Stephen Harper inaugurated a new free trade agreement.
Colombia’s human rights and humanitarian crisis is staggering in scale. Amidst a long-running armed conflict, millions of women, men and children have been forcibly displaced, unlawfully killed, tortured, raped, taken captive or been the victims of enforced disappearances. Violence, or the threat of it, forced more than 280,000 people to flee their homes in 2010 alone, bringing the number of displaced people over the last 25 years to between 3 million and 5 million. Guerrilla groups, paramilitaries and state security forces all continue to be responsible for serious and widespread human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes.
The deliberate and systematic failure to distinguish between civilians and combatants has been a consistent feature of the conflict in Colombia. All of the warring parties continue to employ military strategies that focus on undermining what they perceive to be the civilian population’s support for the “enemy,” targeting communities simply on the basis of where they live.
The result of labelling such communities as “sympathetic” to the enemy has been a pattern of often systematic abuses against human rights defenders, community leaders, trade unionists, peasant farmers, indigenous and Afro-descendent communities and those living in areas of strategic importance to the warring parties or of interest to national and multinational mining, agro-industrial and energy concerns.
Santos, who assumed office in August 2010, said he would prioritize human rights and the fight against impunity. Yet Amnesty International has yet to see this translated into practical improvements for those who are at risk of human rights violations. The reality is that threats against and killings of leaders of displaced communities and of those seeking the return of lands misappropriated during the conflict, mainly by paramilitary groups, have increased during the Santos government. Meanwhile, those involved in human rights related criminal investigations, such as victims, witnesses, lawyers, prosecutors and judges, continue to be threatened and killed.
Human rights defenders, trade unionists and community leaders also continue to be threatened and killed, mainly by paramilitary groups despite government claims about the success of its demobilization policy. Indeed, there is credible evidence that paramilitary groups have expanded in different parts of the country. While some have evolved into criminal gangs involved in drug trafficking, others continue to play a direct role in counter-insurgency strategies or in advancing economic interests. They control territory and use the threat of force and actual violence to further their economic and political objectives, sometimes with the collusion of state security forces.
Concerted action is needed to address this ongoing crisis with thoughtful support from the international community and governments like ours. Such support requires an honest acknowledgement of the situation rather than whitewash or accusations that those who denounce human rights abuses do so because they are anti-free trade.
For example, the intensification of threats and violence against indigenous leaders and their communities is nothing short of a human rights emergency, fuelled by abject failure on the part of Colombian authorities to bring the perpetrators to justice. It is more than a decade since Canadian MPs called on the Colombian government to take swift action in response to the enforced disappearance of respected indigenous leader Kimy Pernía Domicó. Yet no one has been brought to justice for that crime and today Kimy’s people, the Embera, are among dozens of indigenous nations reported to be at risk of extinction. Colombia’s Constitutional Court issued a landmark ruling in 2009, calling on Colombian authorities to implement a protection plan to guarantee the rights of displaced and endangered indigenous peoples. The ruling and the protection plan have yet to be implemented.
Changing this unacceptable record needs to be a top priority. Santos must also implement without delay an action plan to end widespread and systematic sexual violence against women and girls, who continue to be treated as trophies of war by all the warring parties in the ongoing armed conflict. Canadian support for such initiatives is crucial, along with firm pressure on Colombia to comply with calls by the UN high commissioner for human rights to purge discredited military intelligence files used for spurious criminal proceedings against human rights defenders. Real progress on these vital issues would be cause indeed for celebration.
Alex Neve is secretary general of Amnesty International Canada.