Colombia: Availability of state protection to those who fear harassment, threats or violence by armed groups since the election of President Alvaro Uribe Vélez (August 2002-July 2003)
Alvaro Uribe Vélez assumed the office of president on 7 August 2002, having mounted a successful election campaign in which he promised to "get tough with insurgents and bring security to the country" (USCR 2003). Once in power, the Uribe government embarked on a three-part program involving: increased pressure on armed groups and the adoption of measures encouraging them to lay down their weapons; modernization of the state apparatus; and the pursuit of a balanced budget, economic growth and reduced unemployment (ICG 19 Dec. 2002,).
Government security initiatives
Following a Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC) mortar attack on the presidential palace on the day of Uribe's inauguration, the new government declared a limited state of emergency, known as a "state of internal disturbance" (estado de conmoción interior ), on 11 August 2002 which gave state security forces the right to carry out "generalized arrests, tap telephones, and restrict civilians' right to movement" (USCR 2003; El Colombiano 19 June 2003; see also AI 2003 and The Miami Herald 25 May 2003). The state of emergency was lifted on 30 April 2003, following a Constitutional Court (Corte Constitucional) ruling that it had been extended illegally (El Colombiano 30 Apr. 2003; CAJ May 2003).
The Uribe government has initiated a series of security measures to combat the country's principal armed groups, namely the FARC, National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional, ELN) and United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, AUC). For example, on the day following Uribe's inauguration, the government established the "first branch of a proposed million-man civilian informant network to provide desperately needed intelligence to the security forces" (Jane's Intelligence Review Oct. 2002, 20). In May 2003, government officials held talks with the heads of private security companies throughout Colombia to encourage their participation in the informant network (El País 17 May 2003). Additionally, the payment of cash rewards for intelligence information has allowed state security forces to achieve a number of successes against the country's armed groups, such as the capture of Oswaldo Diaz Alfaro, a FARC guerrilla allegedly responsible for the attempted assassination of Uribe in April 2002 (BBC 3 Sept. 2002).
The government has also taken steps to strengthen the capacity of the police and armed forces, and to extend state control over those regions of the country where their presence had been lacking (The Economist 5 June 2003). On 29 June 2003, the Uribe government announced plans to establish a unified intelligence body responsible for coordinating intelligence activities and preparing analyses for the Ministry of Defence and Office of the President (Semana n.d.; Reuters 29 June 2003). Furthermore, drawing upon American aid and a one-time war levy imposed on companies and wealthy individuals, the government has established an airborne rapid reaction force, trained 10,000 extra police officers and recruited a new force of "peasant soldiers" (The Economist 5 June 2003).
Characterized by the International Crisis Group (ICG) as paid volunteers who receive basic military instruction at army sites before returning to their homes, these peasant soldiers are expected to help hold territory that has already been secured by regular security forces (19 Dec. 2002, 4). On 16 June 2003, the first 15,000 peasant soldiers officially began their duties in 426 of the country's 1,100 municipalities (BBC Mundo 17 June 2003). The Uribe government reportedly plans to deploy a total of 17,000 peasant soldiers by the end of 2003 (ibid.). Furthermore, the authorities are planning to add one mobile brigade of up to 5,000 soldiers to each army division as well as deploy Urban Anti-terrorist Special Forces (Agrupación de Fuerzas Especiales Antiterroristas Urbanas) in the country's principal cities (ICG 19 Dec. 2002, 4).
The Uribe government has also sought to improve the country's security situation by deploying troops along the main highways and operating holiday convoys between major cities and tourism destinations (ibid., 5; El País 12 Apr. 2003). These measures have reportedly boosted confidence among travellers and led to an increase in inter-city traffic (The Miami Herald 25 May 2003).
Other government initiatives include the promulgation of decrees in September 2002 granting police powers to military personnel and the establishment of "rehabilitation and consolidation zones" (AI 2003; ICG 19 Dec. 2002, 3-4) under the control of a military commander with special powers to restrict movement and impose curfews (ibid., 4). As of December 2002, 27 municipalities in the Departments of Arauca, Bolívar and Sucre had received this designation (ibid.). However, the courts have subsequently deemed a number of Uribe's initiatives to be illegal, including the granting of police powers to the military and, in an April 2003 ruling, the decree establishing the rehabilitation and consolidation zones (AI 2003; CAJ May 2003; El País 30 Apr. 2003; El Colombiano 30 Apr. 2003).
Government initiatives in the area of security have reportedly led to some positive results (The Economist 5 June 2003). According to an unidentified "close observer of the military" cited by the ICG, "large amounts of weapons and explosives have been seized, some militia have been arrested or driven out of strongholds in urban operations in Medellín and Bogotá, and irregular forces have suffered significant losses" (19 Dec. 2002, 5). On 1 July 2003, the Bogotá newspaper El Tiempo cited defence officials as saying that 125,778 members of armed groups and criminal gangs have been captured and another 1,030 killed thus far in 2003. As well, the Ministry of Defence claimed that state security forces' efforts have brought about, in the first six months of 2003, a 22 per cent decrease in the number of homicides countrywide, a 34 per cent decrease in the number of abductions and a 52 per cent decrease in the incidence of extortion (El Espectador 2 July 2003). However, despite these improvements, the crime rate remains high in Colombia, with roughly 1,000 reported abductions and 11,000 homicides between January and June 2003 (ibid.).
In an assessment of human rights conditions in the Department of Arauca between August 2002 and March 2003, the Office of the Ombudsman (Defensoría del Pueblo) and Office of the Attorney General (Procuraduría General de la Nación) claimed that the department's designation as a rehabilitation and consolidation zone has not improved the security situation there (CAJ May 2003). Rather, the incidence of violent deaths and allegations of human rights violations by state agents increased during the period, while threats against local government officials have continued (ibid.).
Victims of violence
Elsewhere in the country, according to The Christian Science Monitor , the Uribe government has been unable to create the necessary conditions that would allow the return of all 450 mayors who fled their hometowns after the FARC's 2002 declaration that municipal officials would be considered military targets (1 July 2003). Since June 2002, 13 mayors and 70 councillors have been assassinated (CSM 1 July 2003). While measures such as the provision of bullet-proof vests and bodyguards as well as an increased presence of state security forces have permitted approximately 200 mayors to return home, principally in Antioquia, Chocó, Bolívar, Cesar, Norte de Santander, Santander, Boyacá, Meta, Arauca, Putumayo, Cauca, Risaralda, Caldas and Quindío, others remain unwilling to do so, particularly in the Departments of Nariño, Huila and Caquetá (El Tiempo 3 July 2003).
Other groups subjected to ongoing threats include trade unionists, teachers and human rights activists. For example, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) claimed that 184 trade unionists were killed in Colombia in 2002, and that the state has failed not only to "prevent such crimes, but also ... to ensure that the perpetrators are brought to justice" (2003). Armed groups have also threatened teachers, particularly in rural areas, killing 83 in 2002 and another 16 in the first five months of 2003 (CSM 17 June 2003; El Colombiano 16 May 2003). According to The Christian Science Monitor , approximately 60 displaced teachers are currently in Bogotá awaiting transfer to a school in a safer area (17 June 2003). In its most recent annual report, Amnesty International (AI) claimed that human rights activists continue to be "killed, 'disappeared,' detained, threatened and harassed" under the Uribe government, citing as examples the assassination of two human rights workers in September and November 2002, allegedly by members of paramilitary groups (2003).
While the Uribe government's demobilization initiative has led 1,400 members of guerrilla and paramilitary forces to hand in their weapons between August 2002 and June 2003, the FARC has reportedly launched a "pistol plan" (plan pistola ) to track down and kill deserters who are residing in Bogotá (El País 12 June 2003). On 8 June 2003, Jenny Rocío Mendivelso Mejía, a former FARC fighter who served as a liaison between the ministry of interior and Bogotá-area hostels for demobilized combatants, was shot and killed in a café in the capital's Venecia neighbourhood (El Tiempo 10 June 2003). Two former FARC guerrillas who were participating in the demobilization program were subsequently arrested on suspicion of involvement in the killing (ibid.).
Armed actors
Despite military operations against the FARC, ELN and AUC, all of these groups remain active and continue to engage in violent acts (ICG 9 July 2003; Georgetown University 30 June 2003; AI USA 9 July 2003). While sources consulted by the Research Directorate agree that the FARC and AUC have the capacity to carry out attacks throughout Colombia (ibid.; Georgetown University 30 June 2003; Canada 29 Apr. 2003), both the Refugee Unit of the Canadian Embassy in Bogotá and the president of the Free Country Foundation (Fundación País Libre), a Bogotá-based non-governmental organization that assists abduction victims and their families, consider the ELN's striking power to be limited to particular regions of the country (ibid.; Fundación País Libre 11 July 2003).
While The Economist claimed in a 5 June 2003 report that the FARC "does seem to have suffered a strategic setback" after a decade of steady expansion, going back to "hit and run attacks by small groups," Román Ortiz, an expert in Latin American security and defence issues, claims that FARC leaders have decided to urbanize the conflict in order to bring pressure on the middle and upper classes upon which Uribe bases much of his support (4 Mar. 2003). Reportedly drawing on the expertise and tactics of European guerrilla movements such as the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) and Basque Homeland and Liberty (Euzkadi ta Azkatasuna, ETA), the FARC fired mortars at the presidential palace in August 2002 and conducted bomb attacks in Bogotá and Neiva in February 2002 which resulted in a significant number of casualties (Ortiz 4 Mar. 2003; Jane's Intelligence Review Sept. 2002; ibid. Mar. 2003). According to a March 2003 report by Jane's Intelligence Review , the FARC has abandoned the relative quiescence it displayed during the first five months of Uribe's presidency, escalating the level of violence and keeping security forces occupied in urban areas (ibid., 23).
In late 2002, the ELN joined the Uribe government in exploratory peace talks in Havana, Cuba (BBC Mundo 14 Jan. 2003). However, it suspended its involvement in these negotiations in January 2003, alleging that the government was giving priority to its talks with the AUC (ibid.). While state security forces have captured alleged leaders of ELN units in Medellín and Bogotá and carried out large-scale operations in 2002 targeting ELN and FARC guerrillas in Medellín (El Colombiano 26 May 2003; ibid. 9 Jan. 2003; El Espectador 16 Mar. 2003; ICG 19 Dec. 2002, 5), the ELN continues to "kidnap for ransom, [detonate] bombs in urban centres and [blockade] whole regions, such as four municipalities in eastern Antioquia in January [2003]" (ibid. 9 July 2003, 7). As well, in March 2003 the ELN announced that individuals who enlist in the government's peasant soldier program would be considered military targets (BBC Mundo 15 Mar. 2003). Also in March, ELN guerrillas reportedly detonated a bomb in a shopping mall in Cúcuta, Norte de Santander, killing at least seven people and injuring more than 20 others (ibid. 6 Mar. 2003).
In December 2002, following the declaration of an indefinite ceasefire by the AUC's political leader, Carlos Castaño, the government established a commission to examine the possibility of conducting peace talks with the paramilitary groups (Washington Post 26 June 2003; ICG 9 July 2003, 7). However, a number of AUC groupings, including the Metro Bloc, have refused to abide by the ceasefire, leading to clashes among AUC factions in Antioquia in June 2003 (USCR 2003; The Miami Herald 15 June 2003). On 26 June 2003, the Washington Post reported that "only two of the AUC's constituent groups are seeking peace talks with the government, meaning that as many as 9,000 other paramilitary fighters could remain outside the negotiations."
Despite the AUC ceasefire declaration, paramilitary forces have allegedly continued to engage in armed confrontations with their opponents (Washington Post 26 June 2003; ICG 9 July 2003, 7). According to the ICG, while the AUC has experienced significant internal divisions in 2002, it has continued to "consolidate and expand [its] control of large areas of the country" (ibid.).
Numerous reports published in 2003 refer to incidents in which members of paramilitary groups have engaged in threats and violence. For example, in January 2003 the municipal procurator's office (personería ) in Bucaramanga, Santander, claimed that members of a paramilitary group had ordered eight teachers to leave the region under threat of death (Radio Caracol 29 Jan. 2003). In April 2003, paramilitary forces allegedly killed four indigenous people in the vicinity of Tame, Arauca, including a young pregnant woman, causing at least 400 community members to flee their homes (Reuters 8 July 2003; El Colombiano 17 June 2003). Also in April 2003, suspected AUC members attempted to abduct Jaime Gómez Montañez, a university professor in Cúcuta, Norte de Santander, who had earlier complained of "constant" (constante ) paramilitary incursions onto the university campus (Radio Caracol 24 Apr. 2003). Gómez was able to evade capture and subsequently fled the city (ibid.).
In the view of a Colombia country expert at Amnesty International (AI) USA and a senior associate at the Washington-based Center for International Policy (CIP) who has coordinated the organization's Colombia program since 1997, Uribe's election as president has not resulted in a decrease in the level of violence (AI USA 9 July 2003; CIP 9 July 2003). In the view of the CIP senior associate, human rights violations, attacks by guerrilla and paramilitary groups and the frequency of combat, more generally, have remained constant over the past 11 months (ibid.).
This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum.
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