On Tuesday, July 19, 2011 the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Washington Office on Latin America, the Latin American Working Group, and the Center for Justice and International Law co-hosted an event on “Current Perspectives on Human Rights and the Victims and Land Restitution Law in Colombia.” The aforementioned law was passed by the Colombian Congress and signed into law on June 11, 2011, and constitutes the first piece of legislation enacted under the administration of President Juan Manuel Santos to redress the suffering caused to millions of victims and internally displaced persons by the country’s internal conflict.

The event, which was held at the Center for Justice and International Law, featured Kimberly Stanton, Executive Director of Project Counseling Service (PCS), and Rafael Barrios Mendivil, President of the Colectivo de Abogados José Alvear Restrepo (CCAJAR), two leading Colombia-based human rights defenders who are also husband and wife.

Rafael Barrios began the discussion with an analysis of current trends in human rights in Colombia.  Mr. Barrios welcomed President Santos’ affirmation of respect for the work of human rights defenders, but cautioned that the treatment of human rights defenders has not measured up to the improved discourse.  Despite a marked shift in rhetoric from the administration of former President Alvaro Uribe, the risks that human rights defenders face in Colombia remain grave; indeed, aggressions against human rights defenders have significantly worsened in the period since Mr. Santos assumed power. Mr. Barrios clarified that the definition of human rights defenders is broad and includes those who work in human rights organizations or in social organizations, as well as indigenous and Afro-descendent organizations.  He noted as well that the Colombian state has the duty under the Colombian Constitution and international treaties to which Colombia is a signatory to guarantee the life and physical integrity of all human rights defenders.  

Mr. Barrios cited statistics compiled by  Somos Defensores, a non-governmental initiative that partners with the Colombian state’s protection programs, that indicate that documented 174 aggressions against human rights defenders during 2010--one every two days.  Of these, 63% were threats and 18% were assassinations.  Twenty-eight percent of the attacks occurred during the second quarter of the year, leading up to the presidential elections; 40% during the third quarter, when the government transition was underway; and 23% occurred during the last quarter.  Mr. Barrios noted that an increase in human rights violations during election periods is not unusual in Colombia; nonetheless, that 63% of the aggressions occurred during the second semester does cause concern.

With regard to responsibility for aggressions perpetrated against human rights defenders during 2010, Somos Defensores attributed 46% of the abuses to Colombia’s paramilitaries. Although these actors were presumably demobilized between 2003 and 2006, they continue to operate and carry out attacks in Colombia and have been renamed as bacrim (criminal bands) by the Colombian authorities. Their name change, however, has not resulted in a change in the reality or nature of the violations they commit against human rights defenders or everyday citizens. Beyond the attacks attributed to paramilitary groups, 10% of aggressions against human rights defenders during 2010 were attributed to Colombian security forces; 7% to guerrilla groups; and 37% to unknown offenders.

The places where human rights defenders have been most persecuted include Bogotá, and the departments of Cauca, Santander, Valle, and the Caribbean Coast.  Mr. Barrios added that while these statistics reflect a rise in aggressions against individual human rights defenders, attacks on particular social organizations and human rights groups also increased.  During 2010, 168 organizations were victims of aggression.  Leaders of women’s organizations, IDP leaders, and peasant leaders seeking land restitution were particular targets.

Kimberly Stanton echoed Mr. Barrios’ concerns, and elaborated further on the documentation of Somos Defensores which showed that during 2010, there were 32 assassinations of civil society leaders in Colombia.  Of those assassinated, 7 were campesinos involved in struggles over land rights, 11 were indigenous leaders, 4 were displaced leaders, and 10 were leaders of community organizations; 25 were men and 7 were women. Ms. Stanton argued that the rise in attacks on women suggests at a minimum a weakening of the cultural prohibition against attacking women.  Going beyond the information provided by Somos Defensores, Ms. Stanton cited information compiled by her organization, Project Counseling Services.  They have documented twenty assassinations of rural leaders since President Santos assumed office, only three of which are included in Somos Defensores’ data.  By this count, at least 17 assassinations of rural leaders have occurred since 12 August 2010, compared to 7 during all of 2010.  Moreover, according to information collected by the Mission of Electoral Observation (MOE) for the current year, 15 political leaders have already been killed in 2011 and 23 have received threats. These figures suggest that the pattern of abuses against human rights defenders and democratic leaders more generally appears to be continuing unimpeded.

While further statistics for 2011 are still being compiled, there are two emblematic cases that suggest a new trend of threats against well-established “traditional” human rights defenders, particularly those living in Bogotá.  

The first is the case of Danilo Rueda, the national coordinator of the Inter-Church Commission of Justice and Peace(Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz – CIJP), a church-based organization that documents human rights violations committed by state security forces and paramilitary groups. On May 13, 2011, unidentified persons broke into the Bogotá home of Mr. Rueda and stole two computer memory sticks containing sensitive, confidential information relating to a joint military and paramilitary operation called “Genesis” that had resulted in the killing and forced disappearance of many civilians. The memory sticks contained national and international criticisms of the operation, as well as information regarding crimes against humanity committed between 2002 and 2010, work done by CIJP in 13 regions in Colombia, analysis of illegal operations of the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad – DAS (Administrative Department of Security) against communities and social organizations, documents relating to peace processes and humanitarian initiatives, and the prison conditions of political prisoners, and letters from paramilitaries extradited to the United States. The home invasion was one of the most serious of a series of intimidating and threatening actions carried out against CIJP in recent months, all of which have been reported to the competent authorities. Mr. Rueda and the CIJP have requested that the government guarantee appropriate security measures and the thorough investigation of all incidents, and more generally, that it fully comply with its international obligations to protect human rights defenders.

The second emblematic case concerns Mr. Barrios and Ms. Stanton.  On May 10, 2011, Ms. Stanton received a voicemail on her cell phone of a recording of a private conversation that she had had with Mr.  Barrios a few days earlier, while they were traveling in the car provided for Mr. Barrios’ protection by the Colombian government’s protection program. The voicemail was preceded by numerous calls to her cell phone from unidentified numbers supposedly located in Turbo, Antioquia.  Ms. Stanton and Mr. Barrios filed a complaint with the Attorney General’s office, which proceeded to examine the car. The investigators found a microphone in the vehicle and showed it to Mr. Barrios, but state officials later denied that it played any part in the recording.

A few weeks before the incident, in April of 2011, the CCAJAR had returned some of the protection measures provided by the government, specifically those administered by the intelligence agency DAS, because they had discovered that the protection measures were being used for illegal surveillance against them. However, CCAJAR had kept the armored car provided for Mr. Barrios by the Ministry of Interior and Justice, in which the recording was made and the microphone was subsequently found.

To date, the investigation of the incident has not produced results; as with the more than 40 other incidents of threats and aggressions against CCAJAR, the current situation is one of impunity.  Most recently, President Santos participated in a meeting with Mr. Barrios and CCAJAR in which he recognized the legitimacy and work of the Collective and of human rights defenders in Colombia, but he has issued no public statement on the case. For its part, according to Mr. Barrios, the Ministry of Interior agreed there is a need for an improved protection scheme protecting human rights defenders throughout the country.

Following the general discussion on human rights defenders, Ms. Stanton presented an analysis of the ‘Victims and Land Restitution Law’ and the enormous challenges its implementation presents,  particularly regarding the security and protection of the victims who stand to benefit and the defenders who accompany them.

 She acknowledged that the Victims and Land Restitution Law represents an important step forward in recognizing the legitimacy of the victims’ demands for truth, justice and reparations, and contributing to strengthening respect for human rights in Colombia more generally.   The Law recognizes that security and protection for the potential beneficiaries are key issues, and directs the state to take comprehensive measures and provide special guarantees to those victims who are exposed to the greatest risk, such as small farmers, social leaders and human rights defenders, taking into account gender, age, and ethnic differences. The measures must include prevention, and must be consistent with criteria established by the Constitutional Court.

However, the Law also directs the government to make use of existing protection programs, which as previously noted are seriously flawed.  Not only has the DAS shown itself to be untrustworthy in this regard, but there is a history of difficulties in ensuring that the design of protection and security measures is consulted with the proposed beneficiaries.  Multiple government agencies are assigned responsibilities in this arena, but the justice system is absent from the list. More generally, the difficulty is that which was noted at the beginning: the state´s responsibility is not only to react to aggressions after they occur, but to create an environment that significantly reduces the risks that citizens face.

In this regard, Ms. Stanton noted, first, that the armed conflict in Colombia has not been resolved; the same forces that have caused internal forced displacement and generated the need for land restitution, continue to act.  Second, security measures in the absence of an effective response by judicial authorities will never be sufficient, given the volume of aggressions. The justice system must improve its capacity to investigate and sanction such aggressions. Third, the Law is itself a threat to powerful vested interests in Colombia who have benefitted from land grabs in the context of the armed conflict. These interests are already demonstrating their willingness to block implementation, and to use violence in the process. This reality poses perhaps the greatest challenge to the current government.

The victims’ law represents the first time in 40 years that the Colombian State appears to be serious about land rights and land restitution.  Yet acts of violence by Colombia’s extreme right, if unchecked, will call into question the legitimacy of the government’s stated commitment to land restitution and to protecting human rights.  Doubts exist as to whether the government has the capacity to control such actors,  and if it does, why it is not acting more swiftly to do so. According to Ms. Stanton, if the actions of these actors are not addressed, a return to much higher levels of violence, as witnessed in decades past, is a real possibility in the foreseeable future.

Finally, Ms. Stanton also mentioned the impending US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) as a possible challenge to effective implementation of the Victims’ Law. According to Ms. Stanton, the FTA does not include plans to compensate or otherwise address its likely negative consequences for small farmers and rural communities, who could face a limited range of options including displacement to marginalized urban areas or recruitment by armed actors; declining economic options could also impel them to grow illegal crops such as coca. In this sense, it appears that the implementation of both the FTA and the Victims’ Law may constitute inconsistent and even contradictory policy goals.

While both Rafael Barrios and Kimberly Stanton praised the administration of President Santos for adopting a new tone in relation to the human rights situation in Colombia and for moving forward with the victims’ law, both also made clear that such a shift in discourse must be accompanied by concrete actions that improve Colombia’s human rights record, ensure the effective implementation of the rule of law, and  create an environment in which human rights are respected and the  protection of Colombia’s citizens is a top priority.  

Their assessment of the challenges ahead was sobering.

Mr. Barrios and Ms. Stanton closed by offering a number of recommendations to the Colombian government and the international community in order to address these challenges, as follows.

Recommendations to the Colombian government:

1. The Colombian government should exercise political will and remove state officials not complying with their national and international obligations to protect citizens. This should be done not only at the national level but also at the departmental and local levels.
2. The Attorney General’s office should investigate and prosecute cases of human rights abuses, accumulate and unify these cases, and establish connections and identify patterns involving multiple cases.
3. The Colombian government should remove the police from under the umbrella of the armed forces and convert them into a civilian entity.
4. A civilian police force should be the principal state security force assigned to coordinate with state protection programs.  The reliance on the armed forces is in and of itself an indication of an inadequate security environment for carrying out land restitution processes.
5. The Colombian government should broaden its concept of protection, to include not only physical security, but the creation of a safe environment for the exercise of all rights, in which the provision of complementary social services can be undertaken without fear of threat or attack. The Colombian government should ensure that the rural development bill currently under consideration reinforces rather than undermines the land restitution goals of the Victims’ Law.
6. Truth, justice and reparations should not be understood only as linked to the past. Public policy should be designed to contribute to the guarantee of no repetition; i.e., to create an environment where abuses of the past will not be repeated.

Recommendations to the International Community:

1. The international community should continue to welcome the change in discourse regarding human rights, but should also insist upon results consistent with the discourse.
2. The international community should develop baselines and clear, objective indicators that allow for assessing whether the human rights situation in Colombia is improving or not.
3. The international community should encourage the Colombian Attorney General’s Office to prioritize the investigation, prosecution, and sanctioning of those responsible for aggressions against human rights defenders.
4. USAID should ensure that any support provided for the implementation of the Victims’ Law includes funds for national and international civil society accompaniment, documentation and analysis of restitution processes.  While investments in state capacities for implementing land restitution will surely be necessary, the civil society role is also be crucial and should not be neglected.

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