[Bloquez l'empire!] Fear, Impunity and State Power in Colombia

[David W.]

FEAR, IMPUNITY AND STATE POWER

By David Parker

Independent Media

Sept. 20th, 2007

Montreal


	Walking through the streets of the bustling city centre in Bucaramanga
with Paola, I mentioned the name of a guerrilla group, the ELN, when she
shushed me at the sound of the revolutionary army’s name, seemingly
scared of open discourse about rebel groups.
	‘Y por qué?’ I asked why.
	‘La represión!’ she whispered.
	 Paola isn’t scared, just reasonably cautious.  Months ago Paola received
a written death threat for her social involvement.  She volunteers for
the Committee for Solidarity for Political Prisoners, a group which
struggles for the rights of political prisoners within a country that
appears to be straight out of George Orwell’s 1984, a country where
being a human rights defender can have dangerous consequences; there are
over 1,000 political assassinations every year in Colombia, the highest
level of homicide in the Western hemisphere.
	  What does fear look like in a country where repression of social
organizations involves assassinations, disappearances, threats and
kidnapping?  In the bus on the way to the University yesterday, Paola
handed me a note sent by the paramilitary organization known as Las
Aguilas Negras to 11 student organizers accusing them of being linked
to networks of the FARC and ELN, Colombia’s two largest guerrilla
groups.  The death threat assured its recipients that their actions
were being monitored and that their days were numbered.  “We, former
combatants of the United Auto-Defense of Colombia (AUC) believe that
our universities, our neighborhoods and the country need to be
liberated from you revolutionaries
. You and the organizations which
you represent are a problem for Colombia
 The plan to annihilate you
all will begin with the very next student strike.”
	A death threat from the Aguilas Negras is a common tactic from this
nationwide right-wing paramilitary group.  Weeks ago, the local office of
Sinaltrainal, a national union of food workers, received a written death
threat under the front door of their office.  11 Bucaramangan youth were
accused of drug addiction in a death threat posted on a wall in a local
neighborhood: the youth have since fled their houses and are sharing a
floor to sleep on, displaced within their own city.  Fear of death? If
there is a fear that courses in the veins of the country, it is a
legitimate fear, a well-sanctioned and reasonable fear for the safety of
human rights defenders, unionists, peace promoters, campesino leaders,
Afro-Colombians, indigenous leaders and community members.


	Paramilitaries, backed by State security forces and taught with U.S.
anti-guerrilla manuals and anti-terrorist tactics, have honed a method of
instilling fear and producing forced displacement.  My friend José
Antonio knows this tactic well, as his family has lived it first hand. 
As we walked through the African Palm plantations in Chocó, José Antonio
showed me where there used to be his community called Andalucia.  10
years ago, under Operation Genesis, the whole region was attacked by air,
water and land, a concerted military and paramilitary operation which
massacred, tortured, assassinated and forcibly displaced over 4000
campesinos, subsistence farmers living an ancestral lifestyle.  He showed
me where there used to be his brother´s small farm, and some of the old
cement water tanks still remain, looking out of place amidst the
symmetrical rows of African Palm, which has been developed in the region
after the displacement, a business protected by the same criminals who
massacred the campesinos.  He pointed to where there used to be a river
and said, “Over there my brother used to fish.  He was fishing one day,
with his four children, when the paramilitaries came to him.  They tied
his hands behind his back, cut open his chest, and removed his innards
with their hands.  They told his children to leave and not to come back
to this land.”


	The statistics of systematic violence in Colombia are particularly
striking and show the endemic nature of the problem.   The political
genocide of the Union Patriotica, a political party seeking a
humanitarian accord between the FARC and the government in the 1990’s,
suffered 1163 non-judicial executions, 123 disappeared, 43 attempted
murders and 223 death threats between 1985 and 1993 alone.  Current
statistics count around 5000 victims.  Indigenous people and their
resistance movements have had victims nationwide as well.  The highest
rates of homicide have been among the Embera Katio, the Wayuu and the
Kankuamo peoples, who have suffered 342 homicides, 234 since 1999.  From
January 1986 to December 2006, there have been 2,515 assassinations of
union leaders in the country.  The National Federation of Municipal
Councils (FENACOM) reports 251 council members assassinated since 1985.
According to the Colombian Commission of Jurists, between 1996 and June
of 2006, 31,656 people were either killed or disappeared.  From 1996 to
2003, 8,185 people were killed in 1,347 massacres.  83.07% of the
massacres were attributed to State forces.
The Consultation of Human Rights and Forced Displacement (CODHES) has
stated that between 1985 and 2005 there were 3,720,428 citizens registered
as forcibly displaced, not including those who did not register out of
fear.  In the first third of 2006 alone, 112,099 people were forcibly
displaced. According to the Ideas for Peace Foundation, members of the
AUC, a former paramilitary organization, have invested in 3 million
hectares of land, while drug traffickers have bought 1 million hectares. 
70% of landowners are small-scale campesino farmers, who possess only 5%
of total land area.  The reality of forced displacement by State forces
and the subsequent purchasing of large quantities of land by paramilitary
members are facts that demonstrate the illegal appropriation of land
through violent mechanisms.  Meanwhile, most small-scale farmers are
forced to either find smaller parcels of land to cultivate or join the
growing waves of urbanization.  In both cases they continue to face the
threat of violence.


	Although a traveler passing through the cities of Colombia might see a
country moderately developed, an urbanized population and a burgeoning
middle class, while liberal economic journals describe Colombia’s economy
as a prosperous, growing market, rich in natural resources and ready for
investment, the situation in Colombia should only be understood as war. 
The State apparatus of control and repression, legitimated through
impunity and maintained through the consolidation of executive military
power in all branches of government, a broken social fabric with violence
being a continual threat in all levels of society, have created a state
of siege and atomized the Colombian countryside.  Informants, military
and paramilitary forces create local fiefdoms, regional strongholds of
ultra-right wing power.  Urban centers are infiltrated by networks of
informants and surveyed by police and military.  “The most preoccupying
factor of the situation is the appearance of normality which this
military and political project has acquired”, says Soraya Gutierrez
Arguello, president of the ‘José Alvear Restrepo’ lawyer collective. 
Specific elements of social control, such as paramilitarism, impunity,
and State power, have all brought the country to a terrifying brink of
destruction.


Paramilitarism:
Infiltrating Civil Society and Rending the Social Fabric

	Many sociopolitical studies agree that the origins of contemporary
violence in Colombia began in the mid-1940s.  Institutional and rural
violence stimulated by the Conservative Party left 300,000 dead without
investigation, thousands left without homes, an unfriendly political
regimen and an armed uprising from rural sectors which has precipitated
and perpetuated an internal conflict that to this day continues spilling
blood.   The State doctrine since the 1960s has been one of
counterinsurgency and has authored systematic, generalized violations of
human rights and crimes against humanity.    A key element of the
counterinsurgent strategy has been paramilitarism, which has proved most
effective in exercising terrorist practices and garnering large support
from the State.
Paramilitarism has worked to annihilate social resistance and democratic
opposition of civil society, creating new agents of capitalist
accumulation, generating forced displacement and the implementation of
large agro-industrial projects.  According to Soraya Gutierrez Arguello,
President of the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers Collective, paramilitarism
has united the anti-insurgent struggle with drug trafficking and State
support under one concept of “irregular right-wing war, constructing
paramilitary corridors, owned territorialities, zones of consolidation,
eruption of local para-states, interlinked into a national phenomenon of
power”.  Armed right-wing paramilitary groups have had ample support from
corporate sectors, large scale farmers, merchants, State security
institutions, Military Forces, police and regional government.  They have
even benefited from significant representation in Colombian parliament and
share a profound affinity with the current administration of President
Uribe Vélez.  The Colombian Office of the High Commission of Human Rights
of the United Nations has signaled the ongoing networks between
paramilitary groups and State agents.  They have demonstrated the efficacy
of crime and terror as instruments of social and political control and
tools for accumulation and defense of wealth.
The paramilitary strategy is to claim that their victims are suspected
guerrillas or guerrilla collaborators, when in reality the victims are
systematically targeted members of the civilian population. According to
the Organization of American States in a follow- up mission in July 2007,
paramilitaries maintain and exercise an authoritarian criminal control,
which inhibits the possibility of citizen action without coercion, making
municipal and departmental elections very problematic.   Relying on a
network of informants, paramilitary infiltration into communities and
authorities at all levels of society has broken the social fabric,
creating suspicion and mistrust among communities, neighbors and even
family.  Concerted communication and actions with military and police
further institutionalizes the paramilitary criminal agenda.
According to Leonardo Jaimes M, a lawyer with the Committee for Solidarity
with Political Prisoners (FCSPP),  It is common in penal processes to
observe lists created by militaries that include many people (students,
small farmers, unionists, civilians) accused of being guerrillas.  “No one
knows how these lists are formed, what criteria are held, or what proof
exists to conclude guerrilla participation.  The majority of these listed
people are later assassinated or disappeared by State agents or
paramilitary groups.”    The paramilitary strategy, by targeting community
leaders, has been beheading the people’s movement and attempting to stop
all forms of legitimate political dissent.  Meanwhile, through legal and
illegal impunity, structures of violence are allowed to continue.


Impunity:
The Legal Apparatus and Consolidation of Power

	Within Colombia there is an almost complete impunity for State-sponsored
crimes, including grave human rights violations, crimes against humanity,
massacres, and what has been called ‘political genocide’ (the
extermination of the Union Patriotica, a legitimate opposition party all
but wiped out in the 1990's).  Impunity is an important structural
component, a necessary condition that allows for the execution and
repetition of these crimes; in Colombia, 99.5% of crimes go unpunished.  
A mechanism of governmental corruption, it enables dominant sectors of
society to repeat cycles of violence and repression of social movements. 
One effect of impunity is that violence against women and sexual violence
continues as a recurring practice by all the armed forces, allowing women
to be treated as war booty for armed actors.
	Impunity for illegal State actors has been legally sanctioned since 1968
under Decree 3398.  This decree allows Public Forces to organize a ‘civil
defense’, to train, give arms and indoctrinate civilians in conflict
zones in order to involve them directly in confrontations.   35 years
later, Law 684 was created which sanctions the establishment of civilian
militias.  Article 7 declares that, “Civil service of national defense

must be completed by citizens to support authorities in the preservation
of citizen’s security.”  Article 76 of the same law states that, “When
considered necessary, vigilance services and private security can support
the goals of Security and National Defense, under the control of the
Ministry of National Defense. 
At the solicitude of municipal authorities
in charge of municipal funds, the National Police can personally recruit
local persons most adequate who cooperate in work and vigilance for the
maintenance of order.  These personnel will be under their direct command
the same as regular personnel.”
	Though spying on civilians is unconstitutional, the collection of
information to observe and monitor citizens has been legalized under
Decree 717 of 1996, creating Special Zones of Public Order, where Public
Forces can “Collect, verify, conserve and classify information around the
place of residence and the habitual occupation of the inhabitants and the
people who visit, come and go
” Furthermore military forces are capable
of preventive arrests without judicial order, thus institutionalizing
norms of military power above local and regional civil authorities.
	Since the creation of Law 975 of 2005, known as the law of Justice and
Peace though there has been no truth, justice or reparation, the
government has ‘demobilized’ a large number of paramilitary members. 
This has allowed former paramilitaries to re-enter society as civilians
with little or no jail time, to take ownership and develop the land that
has been stolen from the civilian populations, thus consolidating their
power and absolving them of their atrocities.  Law 975 establishes
juridical instruments for those who confess or are processed as political
criminals, whose actions are considered as political, with ‘altruistic
ends’.  Thus the authors of horrible massacres, homicides of more than 40
people, can receive only a maximum of 8 years of jail time.  Meanwhile
for the crime of rebellion, social organizers receive 6 years behind
bars.
Further worsening the situation is Decree 2767 of 2004 which establishes
certain economic benefits for those who abandon activities within armed
illegal groups and collaborate with Justice and Public Forces with
information and the handing over of material.   Those who comply are today
part of networks of informants and cooperators, responsible for the
prosecution against hundreds of members of social organizations and human
rights defenders.  This tactic breaks the fabric of trust and confidence
between neighbors and creates a climate of fear, where anyone can make
some quick money by informing on anyone else.  Due to the complicity and
corruption between the judicial, executive and legislative branches, the
national government has offered amnesties and benefits to over 10,000
demobilized ex-paramilitaries.


State Power:
Militarization and Para-Institutionalization

	The consolidation of power has accelerated under the current
administration of the ultra-conservative President Álvaro Uribe Vélez. 
He has legalized impunity and insured the process of
para-institutionalization in Colombia with great success.  Law 684 of
2001 establishes a fourth power of government and distinguishes it from
legislative, executive and judicial branches of a traditional
constitutional democracy.  It gives National Power the ability to
supersede over all other institutions and mechanisms of order.  Article 3
of the Law defines National Power as “the capacity of the Colombian State
to offer all its potential to respond to situations that put in danger
the exercising of rights and liberties, and to maintain independence,
integrity, autonomy and national sovereignty.”  The wording of the law is
extracted almost in its totality from an anti-guerrilla manual.  Law 684
shows that the classic division of power among government branches in the
Colombian democracy is false: there exists only economic power, supported
by National (military) Power: in essence a totalitarian regime
The consolidation of State power over the judicial branch of government
has been achieved violently at times.  In the massacre of La Rochela,
judicial functionaries investigating a case of paramilitary violence were
murdered.  The Inter American Court of Human Rights denounced the act,
declaring, “The facts of the case (of the massacre of La Rochela) are
particularly grave because they were directed to impede the investigation
and sanction violations of Human Rights.  The massacre effectively
intimidated functionaries of Judicial Power in the investigation of this
and other cases.”
	The President has attempted to authorize the military to control
territories in cases where locally elected civil authorities become
subordinated to regional military juntas.	This year Colombian media has
been covering cases that show the illegal financing of President Uribe’s
political party Colombia Democratica, linking three of Uribe’s close
senators to paramilitary enterprises.  Links have been demonstrated to
exist between paramilitary groups and the National Army, DAS (Security
Administration Department), Incoder (Institute of Agrarian Reform),
congressmen, the family of the President, four ministers and the Vice
President.
With the legislation and legalization of State Power and illegal power
structures, paramilitarism, impunity and terrorism are not state politics,
but are the Law of the Republic of Colombia.  These violent measures force
us to conclude that there exists the decision of the powerful class to
solve structural problems of the country through war.

International Fascism

While the ruling regime of Colombia tightens its control of the country
through terrorism and impunity, international accords between Colombian
officials and wealthy countries solidify the commitment to war and death
squads, strategies directed to control popular organizations and people
considered dangerous to the establishment.  Plan Colombia, a nefarious
agreement between the U.S. and Colombian governments, has invested 48
million dollars in order to fortify Preventive Military Intelligence.  In
a fascist society model, the institutions of education, church, political
state structures and ordinary living spaces are vigilated and controlled
by military ideology.  The discourse of Uribe Vélez during his presidency
campaign incorporated a two point argument that was used to justify a
fascist regime.  In the first element, all is chaos and disorder;
democratic institutions are at risk from communists, terrorists and drug
traffickers.  The second element is to have a modern leader with an iron
grip that will recover institutionality and restore order.
	Authoritarian rule in Colombia in the past has demonized the “communists”
as enemies of the State and of the values most trumpeted by the US
doctrine of Democracy and Liberty.  Now that the Communist bloc has
fallen in Russia, according to Uribe and Bush, Democracy continues to be
in imminent danger of being annihilated, now by drug traffickers and
international terrorists, epitomized by Osama Bin Laden, a former CIA
protectee, and the groups Al-Qaida and the Taliban, former CIA partners.
Above and beyond Plan Colombia, The Bush administration announced in 2002
the Andean Regional initiative, a military support package to combat drug
trafficking to the tune of 98 million dollars.  The handout was destined
for the creation of a defense battalion for the energy infrastructures,
protecting 300 geographic points in Colombia considered strategic for US
interests.   On the 16th of January, 2002, Bush declared before the
Council of World Affairs of the OEC, “We are committed to security: 
Security against terror, security against violence of the drug cartels and
their accomplices.  Because of this we are committed to countries like
Colombia to defend their democracy.”    Only President Bush would call
this a democracy.
Through legal and illegal structures, unconstitutional laws and a massive
increase of military and paramilitary apparatus, power has been
concentrated within the Executive and Military Forces.   The
criminalization of social protest and political opposition and the
creation and maintenance of paramilitary groups have been utilized as
State terror tactics to instill fear and subsequently control the civilian
population.  As Soraya Gutierrez noted above, the most preoccupying of
this situation is the appearance of normality which this fascist apparatus
has taken on in recent years.  Meanwhile, the warm and friendly
US-Colombian relations show that Colombia is a model democracy in the eyes
of US foreign policy.  However for the people living in Colombia and
looking down the barrel of the proverbial gun, Colombia is far from a
model democracy; it is the very model of State terror.  And it is the
model that the US plans on exporting to many more countries.

------------------------------------------------

 	  “Miembros de la UIS fueron amenazados por las ‘Águilas Negras’”, La
Vanguardia  (5/08/2007) electronic edition.
 	  “Un encuentro, muchos caminos, unidos contra el olvido”, Redaccion
Caja de Herramientas.  Caja de Herramientas.  Year 16, No. 124. 
Bogota, 2007.  Lic. De Mingobierno. p.8-9
 	 “Estado Colombiano: Responsible de genocidio politico y exterminio”,
Movimiento Nacional de Victimas de Crimenes de Estado.  Caja de
Herramientas. Year 16, No. 124. Bogota,  2007. Lic. De Mingobierno. p.
12-13
 	  “Consolidacion Paramilitar e Impunidad en Colombia”, Soraya Gutierrez
Arguello.  Democracia o Impunidad.  Fundacion para la Investigación y
la Cultura. Bogota 2005. p. 45-77
 	 Ibid.
 	 “La Corte Suprema sigue adelante en el proceso de la Parapolitica”,
Pedro Santana Rodríguez.  Caja de Herramientas.  Year 16, No. 124,
Bogota, 2007.  Lic. De Mingobierno. p. 3-4
 	 “Ley de Guerra”, Leonardo Jaimes M.  Justicia y Paz: Revista de
Derechos Humanos.  No. 16, Bogotá, 2002.  Editorial Codice Ltda.  p.
37-55
 	 Movimiento Nacional de Victimas de Crímenes de Estado, p. 12-13
 	 “Las mujeres en acto de protesta contra la Guerra”, Ruta Pacifica de la
Mujeres.  Caja de Herramientas.  Year 16, No. 124. Bogotá, 2007. Lic.
De Mingobierno.  p.5
 	 Gutierrez Arguello, Ibid.
 	 Jaimes M, Ibid.
 	 Interview with Leonardo Jaimes M., 19/08/2007.
 	 Gutierrez Arguello, Ibid.
 	 Santana Rodriguez, Ibid.
 	 Jaimes M, Ibid.
 	 Jaimes M, Ibid.
 	 Jaimes M, Ibid.




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