Kelly Nicholls2013-05-25T12:46:51-04:00Kelly Nichollshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=kelly-nichollsCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Kelly NichollsGood old fashioned elbow grease.The Unanswered Questions Surrounding the U.S.-Colombia FTAtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8825122011-06-22T18:03:48-04:002011-08-22T05:12:02-04:00Kelly Nichollshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelly-nicholls/
My colleague and I recently interviewed representatives from different sectors of Colombian society for a short video series we are launching today on the impacts of the FTA. The messages we heard were similar: the FTA will only serve to deepen inequality in Colombia and further impoverish marginalized sectors of society, pushing more people into illicit coca cultivation or the ranks of the illegally armed groups. A similar message is expressed in a letter sent to members of Congress today from over 400 US and Colombian human rights, development, environmental and religious organizations.
Sadly, the message doesn't seem to be reaching U.S. policymakers. Bowing to pressure from some sectors of Congress, the Obama Administration is pushing the FTA forward with little consideration of its potential impacts on marginalized and impoverished sectors of Colombian society and its potential to undermine other U.S. policy interests in the region.
The Labor Action Plan, signed by the U.S. and Colombian governments in April to advance the FTA, secures some important commitments on workers rights, including expanding protection programs for trade unionists and designating 100 labor inspectors to address abuses committed by the so-called "cooperatives" that limit worker rights. It is commendable that the Obama Administration has insisted on this important linkage of advancements in protection of trade unionists as well as labor rights improvements to the FTA, and that the Santos Administration has assumed this challenge. Nevertheless, the Action Plan is not legally linked to the FTA and thus if the Colombian government were to abandon its commitments once the FTA is implemented, Colombian workers would have no recourse. Furthermore, it would take time as well as political will to ensure that this plan leads to a reduction in violence and effective exercise of labor rights. The priority appears to be to finalize this before the end of the year, rather than ensuring real and lasting results.
More to the point, the Action Plan completely fails to address any of the broader human rights and security issues in Colombia. As the letter sent to members of Congress today highlights, one major condition sets the U.S.-Colombia FTA apart from other trade agreements: the presence of an ongoing internal armed conflict. Colombia has one of the longest ongoing armed conflicts in the world, which has caused over 5 million Colombians to abandon more than 6.6 million hectares of land. An active conflict with the leftist guerrillas of the FARC and ELN continues, resulting in many human rights abuses against the civilian population. According to official statistics, new paramilitary groups continue to operate in 23 of Colombia's 32 departments, committing widespread and systematic grave human rights abuses. The most vulnerable groups, including Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities, poor rural farmers and internally displaced persons (IDPs) are also the most likely to be negatively impacted by the FTA.
"We're worried about the impacts [of the FTA] on the rural areas because it's in these areas where the conflict is happening, where illicit crops are taking force and this is because in these areas citizens' rights aren't protected and the standards of poverty and misery are concentrated in rural areas. So what will be the impact of the FTA for these areas that are less competitive because they have been abandoned?"
Marco Romero, President of the Colombian NGO, Consultancy on Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES) asked in one of the interviews for our video series.
It was a concern echoed by many of the people we interviewed. Colombian small-scale farmers would be devastated by the implementation of the FTA. The FTA would force Colombian agricultural products to compete without any protection against U.S. subsidized commodities. A rigorous investigation by Colombian economists Luis Jorge Garay and Fernando Barberi showed that as a result of the implementation of the FTA, Colombia's 1.8 million small farmers would see their net agricultural income fall by over 16 percent on average. And nearly 400,000 small farmers - who on average have less than five years of formal education and already live below the poverty line - would lose between 48 and 70 percent of their income. The FTA could contradict the goals of U.S. counter-narcotics efforts in the country by pushing small farmers to cultivate coca, a far more lucrative crop, undercutting alternative development programs in which the United States has invested for more than a decade. Armed groups are also likely to benefit from increased recruitment from an impoverished peasantry with few economic opportunities. The U.S. Office on Colombia and Oxfam America recently brought former Colombian Vice-Minister of Agriculture, Santiago Perry, to present a policy proposal to mitigate these potentially devastating impacts. However, the Colombian government has yet to officially support and implement such a proposal.
Cesar Diaz, a leader of a large collective of small-scale farmers in the department of Cauca, expressed to us his concern of the impacts of the FTA on rural communities like those he works with.
"We would send this message to the citizens of the U.S., to President Obama and the Congress: The situation in our country is critical, the trade agreement will bring about more unemployment, which contributes to more people willing to join the conflict and that, as opposed to generating progress, is going to make the situation even more difficult."
Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities - who are already disproportionately affected by the armed conflict - will also be negatively impacted by the FTA. The landmark Colombian Constitutional Court rulings 004 and 005 on the impact of forced displacement on indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities specifically highlighted how the expansion of agricultural, mining, infrastructure and tourism megaprojects has led to the forced displacement of these communities from their legally titled ancestral land. This finding was also echoed in the UN Independent Expert on Minority Issues' 2010 report on Colombia. Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities possess legally-granted land rights to more than 36 million hectares of land. The FTA is likely to lead to increased demand for this fertile and bio-diverse land which is strategically located and rich in resources. But as history has shown, the expansion of business activity in these communities' land is likely to lead to further displacement and violence.
Danelly Estupiñan, a leader of the Process of Black Communities in Buenaventura, Colombia's principle port city on the Pacific Coast, spoke to us of her concern for the impact of the FTA on Afro-Colombians living in the resource-rich Pacific region.
"The FTA not only negotiates merchandise, it also deals with natural resources, like fuel and gas, and that's precisely what Buenaventura and the Pacific have. Therefore we're certain that the levels of displacement would increase, that systematic violation of human rights would increase because it is these territories that hold these resources."
What are the Colombian and U.S. governments doing to mitigate these negative impacts of the FTA on vulnerable and marginalized communities in Colombia? Very little it seems. Our organizations and our partners in Colombia have been raising these concerns for years now, yet the Action Plan does not touch on any of these broader human rights and security issues. I think we should all be asking our policymakers some tough questions, like: What will they do when the FTA is passed and it devastates Colombian small-scale farmers and leads to a surge in coca cultivation? What will they do when the FTA is passed and there is an increase in forced displacement? What will they do after the FTA is approved and trade unionists and human rights defenders continue to be threatened and killed? These are the kind of concerns that should be thoughtfully addressed now, not after it is too late.
]]>A Mother's Fight for Justicetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.7440622010-09-29T17:16:58-04:002011-05-25T17:50:22-04:00Kelly Nichollshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelly-nicholls/
Like thousands of other family members of alleged extrajudicial execution victims across Colombia, Flor Hilda has seen no justice for her son's murder, and those responsible are still free. Despite the significant amount of money that the U.S. Government has given the Colombian judicial and oversight sector -- over $50 million in the last three years alone -- there has been very little progress in investigations and prosecutions for human rights cases. Indeed, as the U.S. Office on Colombia (USOC) highlights in its new report Still Waiting for Justice, in some aspects cases of extrajudicial executions have undergone a marked backsliding in the past year.
When I met Flor Hilda, she showed photos of her son, Elkin Gustavo Verano Hérnandez, who was 25 years-old when he went missing from the family home in the poor municipality of Soacha, on the outskirts of the Colombian capital of Bogotá on January 13, 2008. According to Flor Hilda, Elkin was her "right hand man." Since he was a child he was always trying to earn money in order to help support his mother and his four siblings as they struggled to get by. Sadly, it was this desire to help his family that ultimately led to his death. When men came to Soacha, preying on poor young men and offering them work in another state; Elkin took the opportunity to earn some extra money to help his mother. She would never see him again.
Elkin and the 21 other young men from Soacha and surrounding areas were taken to the municipalities of Ocaña (Norte de Santander) and Cimitarra (Santander), about 500 miles away from their homes, where they were sold to the armed forces. The soldiers orchestrated mock battles against illegal armed groups, during which they proceeded to kill the young men. Later, the soldiers presented them as guerrillas killed in combat, expecting to cash in on incentives that the Colombian military offers for battlefield results. It was not until September 2008 that Elkin and the other men's bodies were found in mass graves.
Flor Hilda said that she passed seven months of unbelievable suffering and uncertainty, not knowing what had happened to her son. Only to finally discover in September that his body had been dumped in a mass grave and that the army was accusing him of being a guerrilla killed in combat. This has launched Flor Hilda and the other mothers on a crusade to ensure that their sons' names are cleared and that the members of the armed forces responsible for their murder are brought to justice. But two years later there is no sign of justice.
As the report Still Waiting for Justice details, there has been a marked decrease in the transfer of cases from the military justice system, where the chances of these cases being subject to an impartial investigation and prosecution is slim, to the civilian justice system. Elkin's case was delayed one year in the military justice system during which time there was no advancement in the investigation. Many of the officers allegedly involved in the Soacha cases have been released from jail pending trial due to lengthy delays in beginning trials, as has happened in extrajudicial execution cases across the country. Of the approximately 30 high-level military officials who were dismissed from their posts in October 2008, in response to the extrajudicial execution scandal, not a single one has been charged for those crimes, and some reportedly continue their service. Despite this severe backsliding in investigating and punishing extrajudicial executions -- which clearly runs counter to one of the key conditions in the certification language in U.S. law -- the Obama administration just decided to certify that Colombia is meeting these conditions.
Colombia's new president, Juan Manuel Santos, has shown some promising initial signs, meeting with the presidents of the high courts and expressing his willingness to engage in dialogue with and to respect the judicial branch. Nevertheless, while running for office President Santos made several concerning remarks that signal that he may continue his predecessor's legacy of protecting the military from the civilian justice system, which would only lead to even greater impunity.
In order to help mothers such as Flor Hilda, who seek truth and justice for their sons' murders, the USG should press for serious progress on investigating, prosecuting and securing convictions in the civilian justice system for cases of extrajudicial executions. The USG must also demand greater results and transparency for its current support for the Colombian justice and oversight agencies, operated through the Department of Justice and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Detailed recommendations of how the USG can help overcome the current levels of impunity in Colombia for these cases are included in the report Still Waiting for Justice.
]]>Mass Graves and Alleged Extrajudicial Executions in the Macarena, Colombiatag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.6601582010-07-27T15:02:55-04:002011-05-25T17:10:24-04:00Kelly Nichollshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelly-nicholls/
On July 22 around 800 people from across the region came to the Macarena to tell an international delegation of political leaders, trade unionists and NGOs from the U.S. and Europe of the abuses they have suffered, many allegedly at the hands of the armed forces. Victims, like Everardo' father, Gerardo Borda, took the stage to tell of how their loved ones had been disappeared and killed reportedly by the armed forces and when they were finally able to find their body - and many are still looking - they were told their family member was a guerrilla killed in combat. According to those who gave testimony, the army has generally stigmatized people from the region as members - or at least allies - of the guerrilla. Indeed three days after the event Colombian President Alvaro Uribe flew to the Macarena and said publicly that accusing the armed forces of human rights abuses was a tactic used by the guerrilla. These comments put the lives of those victims who spoke at the event in grave danger.
The Macarena and the surrounding region were demilitarized as part of the failed peace negotiations between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 1999 - 2002. The Army's subsequent recovery of the zone, via the creation and operation of the Joint Task Force Omega, has been highlighted by the Uribe Administration as a key success of the 'Democratic Security Policy'. The task force has been at the heart of the United States' support for the war against the FARC with a special focus in La Macarena. FUDRA, a central part of the task force, and its component mobile brigades have all been vetted to receive (and typically have received) U.S. assistance since 2005. Furthermore, the U.S. government has invested more than $40 million in the third phase of consolidation of state control in the zone, with the creation of the 'Centers for Consolidation and Integral Action' - CCAI. This new approach to state-building and counterinsurgency in Colombia involves a combination of military and development projects carried out in the same geographic areas, with the Macarena as the pilot program.
But, as the international delegation heard on Thursday, recuperation of the territory has come at an enormous cost for the civilian population. One of the participants, Dumar Zapata, told of how he returned home on July 4, 2007 to find his house occupied by the army. They refused to allow him in and when he asked for his wife, Maria del Socorro, they apparently told him that he should go look for her with the guerrillas seeing as she and Dumar were part of the FARC. A few days later when he was allowed into his house he found it destroyed and drops of blood across the kitchen floor. He went searching for his wife and was finally told that a body by that description had been dumped in the mass grave site in the Macarena. The army claimed she was a guerrilla killed in combat. Dumar told the delegation that he wants justice and for the truth to be told: that his wife was not a guerrilla, but another innocent victim.
As part of the delegation we visited the clandestine grave site, a field between the official commentary and the army base, which is full of crosses simply with dates of when the body was buried. Around 25 new graves have apparently been filled this year in the site. Local human rights groups have been denouncing the existence of the clandestine grave site for over a year, but only now with international pressure are they being listened to. It was only recently that the Attorney-General's office Crime Scene Investigations Unit began working at the scene. Regional human rights groups claim there may be other mass grave sites in the municipalities of Granada and Vista Hermosa.
Even if the bodies that the army is dumping in this site really do belong to guerrilla soldiers killed in combat, it is still a gross violation of international humanitarian law to leave their bodies in unmarked graves, without due process of identification of the deceased, medical examinations to determine the cause of death, reporting to the relevant authority and then burial if it is not possible to return the body to family members.
But, according to the testimonies shared on Thursday, it is quite possible that many of those unidentified bodies may belong to innocent civilians killed by the armed forces. It is imperative that these alleged extrajudicial executions be investigated and the Macarena mass grave site be exhumed for scientific identification of the rests in order to be returned to their families. For Mr. Borda, it was a year after his son Everardo went missing that he finally heard that his body was found in the mass grave site - and that the army had allegedly left him there claiming he was a guerrilla killed in combat.
U.S. government must fully implement the Leahy Law, which requires suspending assistance to brigades for which there is credible evidence of extrajudicial executions committed by its members - as appears to be the case for many brigades operating in the Macarena and the surrounding region - until and unless those killings are fully investigated and the civilian justice system reaches a judgment. Furthermore, the USG should strongly encourage Colombian President-elect Juan Manuel Santos, to ensure the protection of human rights is a central focus of his security policy.
Fellowship for Reconciliation (FOR) and the U.S. Office on Colombia (USOC) will launch a new report on Thursday revealing grave problems in the application of the Leahy Law in Colombia, and that many Colombian military units actually committed more extrajudicial killingsduring and after the highest levels of U.S. assistance to those units.
]]>Far Worse Than Watergate: Report Reveals Widening Scandal Regarding Intelligence Agency as New Government Takes Office in Colombiatag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.6176292010-06-18T14:53:32-04:002011-05-25T16:50:20-04:00Kelly Nichollshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kelly-nicholls/
The authors of Far Worse than Watergate, the U.S. Office on Colombia, the Latin America Working Group Education Fund, the Center for International Policy and the Washington Office on Latin America, reviewed hundreds of pages of documents from the Colombian Attorney General and other sources, revealing how the DAS developed elaborate defamation campaigns -- with titles like "Operation Halloween"-- to destabilize NGOs, create divisions within opposition movements, fabricate false ties to guerrilla groups to ruin defenders' reputations, and undermine the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. According to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the DAS was even behind grotesque threats issued to a human rights defender and a journalist -- and their daughters.
The scandal highlights the need to clean up Colombian intelligence operations. To maintain credibility, Colombia's next president -- to be elected on June 20th -- will have to address the dirty tricks, death threats and sabotage efforts against numerous defenders of democracy in Colombia. The new president should also take steps to remove the capacity of the President and his advisors to order intelligence operations without safeguards and oversight. In order to avoid repeat offenses and a politicization of intelligence, the Colombian Congress should be encouraged to exert oversight. The Colombian government must demonstrate that security does not come at the cost of fundamental freedoms.
But U.S. policymakers have cause for concern as well. Did the United States fund these illegal efforts, and in so doing endanger important human rights proponents and political actors? According to U.S. Ambassador to Colombia William Brownfield, the United States has supplied surveillance equipment to the DAS, although he has claimed it was not used for illegal purposes. But we can not rest assured. During the trial of former DAS director Jorge Noguera, a detective testified that he had been part of a U.S.-funded special unit that apparently tracked union activities. The U.S. Congress appropriately responded to this Watergate-like scandal by including a prohibition of funding for the DAS in the FY2010 foreign operations bill. This is a vital first step. But the same prohibition must be included in defense and intelligence appropriation bills. Congress must investigate whether or not U.S. training and equipment were used for the sinister purpose of undermining the work of legitimate political actors. And most importantly, the U.S. government must establish guarantees to ensure that U.S. taxpayer dollars are never used for criminal ends.
By: Kelly Nicholls, U.S. Office on Colombia, Lisa Haugaard, Latin America Working Group Education Fund, Abigail Poe, Center for International Policy and Gimena Sanchez, Washington Office on Latin America.