Lasting peace for Colombia requires social and economic justice

by Lisa Taylor, Colombia International Team

Chanting “The people united will never be divided!”, thousands of Colombians in major cities throughout the country mobilized for peace today, April 9. Declared a civic holiday and the National Day of Memory and Solidarity with Victims, the date commemorates the April 9, 1948 assassination of populist politician Jorge Eliécer Gaitán and the ensuing ten years of brutal political violence known as La Violencia that began the modern armed conflict. Taking to the streets, participants in the March for Peace demonstrated their support for the ongoing peace talks between the Colombian government and the largest guerrilla insurgency, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), while also seeking to vocalize victims’ demands for truth, justice, and reparations.

Since the official peace talks began in October 2012, the Colombian government and the FARC have met with unprecedented success, reaching partial accords on land reform, drug policy, and political participation.  Although the accords will not be finalized until agreements on the remaining points of victims’ reparations and implementation mechanisms have been reached, both sides have begun to take concrete steps toward peace and have received support from the international community. The U.S. government recently appointed Bernard Aronson as Special Envoy to the peace process, and last week Pope Francis announced a 2016 visit to Colombia. Peace is trending in Colombia, with hashtags of #MeMuevoporlaPaz (#IMoveforPeace) flooding Twitter and peace-themed graffiti filling public spaces.

Stopping during the march, one women’s activist said she supports the peace process “because women don’t want to birth more children for the war, because we believe it is necessary for our communities to be in peace, that our communities have the opportunity to work, to have opportunities necessary for our children’s futures.” Victims further demand an end to militarization, investigation into state crimes, reparations for victims, an end to impunity (currently above 90 percent for most crimes), and the right to know the truth about who ordered and carried out human rights violations. This last demand for a comprehensive truth commission would shed light on state, paramilitary, and multinational actors who together account for far more human rights violations than guerrilla groups.

Another issue not on the table in Havana is Colombia’s neoliberal economic model – a model adopted during the wave of Structural Adjustment Policies imposed on Latin American countries by the U.S. government, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a condition for debt relief – that has been enthusiastically defended by a series of Colombian presidents. Yet Colombian social movements are making connections between economic development policies, deepening inequality and insecurity, increasing labor rights violations, criminalization of citizen expression and political opposition, and mass displacement. In a statement declaring 2015 as the year for peace and social justice, over 60 Colombian organizations affirm that the current peace “negotiations are developing in the context of a worsening world crisis marked by the accumulation of capital that generates inequality, marginalization, and an increased rate of violence.”

To date, more than seven million victims have been registered with the Colombian government’s National Victims’ Unit. This includes more than five million internally displaced people (IDPs), a statistic that puts Colombia second only to Syria in number of IDPs and corresponds to roughly 12 percent of the entire Colombian population according to the NGO CODHES. Strikingly, CODHES also finds that mass displacements increased 83% in 2012, the year in which the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) entered into effect and the year after the Colombia-founded Pacific Alliance regional Free Trade bloc and the Colombia-Canada FTA were approved. 

In such a grim context and with much national and international media narrowly focusing on the advancements of the talks in Havana, Colombian civil society seeks to develop a more profound analysis about peacebuilding.  What social, cultural, and economic guarantees must be in place for victims?  How can the March for Peace instigate deeper conversation about the role of multinational corporations and neoliberal economic policies? How can the international community, especially the U.S., support peace while also analyzing the impacts of foreign trade policies such as the FTA?

At the very least, all forms of violence including economic violence must be addressed for Colombia to build a real, lasting peace with social justice. As Marino Gruesso from the Popular Ethnic Movement of the Pacific declares, “We’re asking for social equality and political equality, because if we do not have that, there is no peace.”

While peace is negotiated, human rights violations in Cauca, Colombia continue

While peace talks between the Colombian government and the FARC guerillas continue, many of Witness for Peace's partners on the ground emphasize that a lasting peace with social justice requires more than just an end to hostilities between the state and the insurgency. The following statement from human rights defenders in the southwestern province of Cauca regarding the recent increase in attacks on human rights defenders illustrates why the U.S. must urge the Colombian government to protect human rights defenders in their important work and include civil society voices in peace building efforts.

By the Cauca Network for Life and Human Right (CIMA, CRIC, MCC, Acader, Ascap, Ruta Pacifica de Mujeres, Ordeurca and Cococauca)

We highlight the important advances that the peace talks in Havana have made regarding the FARC’s unilateral ceasefire, the discussions of a possible bilateral ceasefire and the reduction of hostile actions in civilian areas. However, the Cauca Network for Life and Human Rights denounce to the international community that the end of 2014 and beginning of 2015 has seen an increase in human rights violations in the province of Cauca. These include assassinations, assassination attempts and threats against human rights defenders and community leaders, along with an increase in femicides and extrajudicial killings.

The statistics gathered by our network’s Observatory on Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law indicate that in December 2014 and January 2015 in Cauca at least 10 indigenous, campesino and Afro-Colombian organizations have been threatened via pamphlets, phone calls and text messages signed by “Los Rastrojos,” “Aguilas Negras” and other unidentified groups. Leaders are being threatened for opposing illegal and multinational mining operations in their territories. Among the organizations and leaders most affected are the members of the Untied Afro-Cauca Organizations (UAFROC) and the Afro-descendant Women’s Movement for Life and Territory from Suarez, who have also been victims of attempts on their life and forced displacement. Similarly, leaders from the National Afro-Colombian Advisory Council were threatened by pamphlets distributed in the Guapi, Cauca City Hall.

The member organizations of the Cauca Network for Life and Human Rights are on high alert in the wake of assassinations of human rights defenders. In two months, two community leaders and one public official were killed: on December 9, 2014 on the highway from Popayan to Purace, Elkin Dario Mompotes, a leader of the Indigenous Mining Company, was killed by hired assassins; on January 15, 2015, Emiro Medina Velasco, the Manager of the Municipal Legal Office in Caloto, was killed; and on February 4, men dressed in civilian clothing and driving a motorcycle assassinated Heriberto Narvaéz, a campesino leader from El Patía. To these we can also add the murder of Congreso de los Pueblos member and leader Carlos Pedraza, which occurred in the rural outskirts of Bogotá. Together they demonstrate the lack of protections for the work of human rights defenders and their participation in the construction of peace in this country.

Women are another group that has been strongly impacted during this period. The Observatory on Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law has registered at least eight femicides, which represents a 50 per cent increase from the previous reporting period. Along with this there have been repeated threats and intimidations against Afro-descendant women from northern Cauca, who have been publicly demonstrating since last year in defense of their territory against illegal mining. This includes the forced displacement of leader Francia Marquez and her family.

This year also began with community reports of excessive force and abuse of authority by members of the 29th Brigade of the Colombian Military in the village of El Plateado, near the city of Argelia, Cauca. On January 18, Faiber Cuellar, 28 years of age, was assassinated by soldiers who indiscriminately opened fire after requesting him to stop at a checkpoint.

The beginning of this year has also seen an increase in common violence. As of the current date, in the cities of Santander de Quilichao, Popayán, Puerto Tejada and El Tambo at least 48 people between 18 and 30 years of age have been murdered.

The Cauca Network for Life and Human Rights urges the Colombian government to comply with its responsibility to protect lives and human rights, investigate and punish those responsible for these crimes and to create the conditions necessary to effectively protect human rights defenders and organizations. Peace will not be possible if there are no protections for the defense of human rights and no mechanisms for the participation of civilians, social organizations and social leaders in peace building.

Popayán, Cauca, Colombia