US Certification of Colombia on Human Rights
Friday, 4 December 2009, 10:14 am
Press Release: Council on Hemispheric Affairs
The Ill-Advised US Certification of Colombia on Human Rights
by COHA Research Associate Paulina Serna
For another consecutive year in its controversial certification process, the State Department has found that the Colombian government and its armed forces are meeting statutory criteria related to enforcement of human rights standards. This certification was awarded by Washington last month, when it claimed that the “Colombian government has made significant efforts to increase the security of its people and to promote respect for human rights by its Armed Forces.” This statement was challenged by many independent bodies, including COHA, as being devoid of legitimacy.
The certification award irked human rights defenders and critics of the Uribe administration in Washington and Bogotá alike because it failed to correspond to reality. The dispute in Washington’s findings arises, in part from the current situation in Colombia, where the government is entering one of the most difficult periods since President Uribe entered office. Scandals over the involvement of the Armed Forces in brutal human rights abuses and a variety of outrages by pro-Uribe paramilitary groups continue to rock the country. Considering the woeful status of human rights observance in Colombia, and the initiation of a slide in Uribe’s popularity, it is easy to misinterpret the certification as an accurate representation of the current status of the country rights adherence; rather, it is a mark of Washington’s geopolitical interest in the region.
Colombia-Venezuelan Relations Deteriorate
Bogotá aggressively tells the story that it has become Washington’s most reliable military and political ally. This may be so but it has been at the expense of its relations with Venezuela. As a result of the Colombia-U.S. military base agreement, President Uribe has claimed in recent weeks that Caracas has enacted an illegal and unjust embargo on Colombian goods, thereby disrupting the country’s economy. Uribe’s allegations are evidenced by a 56% decline in exports to Venezuela over the past year. As it now stands, Venezuela is demonstrating the greatest opposition to the military base agreement. The country has perceived the growing U.S. military presence in Colombia as an act of aggression to its sovereignty and security. Consequently, this new agreement is causing pro-Chávez countries such as Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Ecuador to display their sympathy for Chávez’s bellicose language against Colombia, Panama, and Peru as well as the U.S. for its wavering position on the legitimacy of the de facto Honduran government. This feeling of the menace being posed by the U.S. is being strengthened by the just-announced intention of the pro-U.S. Panamanian government to build naval bases on islands off its shores, with indications of U.S. cooperation.
Yet another manifestation of the Colombia-U.S. alliance is Bogotá’s action in following the U.S. tact in its unquestioning acceptance of the Honduran election results. This resolve on Colombia’s behalf has isolated itself further from the rest of Latin American countries. Yet again, Colombia is blindly following the U.S., rather than determining its own foreign policy. This acquiescent attitude has, in part, allowed Washington to install seven military bases on Colombian territory in order to support counternarcotics and counterinsurgency efforts. In the present climate of growing discord in the region, particularly the deterioration in Colombia-Venezuelan relations, Uribe’s right-wing administration faces a huge dilemma in maintaining even minimal ties to left-leaning countries in the region.
Through the years, different countries and organizations have adopted a series of regulations relating to the distribution of economic assistance contingent on human rights performance by a given nation. The intention is to make significant improvements in the human rights records of targeted nations. This practice was codified in the 1970s with the “Leahy Law” and with the Human Rights Certification process. However, the U.S. has repeatedly turned a blind eye to human rights abuses when a given nation is viewed as being strategically important to U.S. interests, especially in furtherance of its economic and military goals. In the case of Colombia, the U.S. has sidestepped the standards of an accurate assessment of human rights abuses in favor of meeting its strategic military-related goals. Regardless of the current human rights situation in Colombia, a decision was made several years ago by Washington policy makers to automatically minimize the latter’s record of abuse. Colombia is presented as a relatively observant human rights nation in order for Washington to justify its continued assistance to Colombia. This is because the country is viewed as being important to both the Pentagon and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
Since 2000, the U.S. Congress’s ability to disburse funds from “Plan Colombia” has been conditioned upon an affirmative human rights certification. The State Department must consult with Colombian and internationally-recognized human rights organizations regarding progress towards meeting the requirements contained in section 7046(b) of the State Department, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act of 2009. To adhere to this stipulation, the State Department must submit a written report of certification, which would recommend or oppose a contingent appropriation of 30% of the military aid for “Plan Colombia.” Bogotá has been the hemisphere’s largest recipient of U.S military aid since 2000, in a continued effort to fight terrorism and narco-trafficking. Through the nine years of the agreement, Colombia has been granted a favorable report allowing it to receive the funds allocated to it.
When the U.S. Congress passed the certification legislation, it mandated that the State Department can only issue a positive report on the condition that the “Government of Colombia and its Armed Forces are respecting the human rights defenders, journalists, trade unionist, political position and religious leaders, indigenous and Afro-Colombian Communities, and the Colombian Armed Forces are implementing procedures to distinguish between Civilians, including displaced persons, and combatants in their operations.” In practice, applying the standard to the reality of the current situation in Colombia would all but rule out granting the funds. The controversy surrounding Colombian officials and their links to notorious paramilitary figures should cast additional grave doubts upon the legitimacy of what otherwise has been a perpetually flawed certification process. One of the most recent national scandals involved 44 Colombian congressmen who allegedly have been linked to a number of paramilitary groups, as well as numerous charges of extrajudicial killings carried out by the Armed Forces (members of which have yet to be brought to trial). They have also been linked to a series of illegal domestic wiretapping and surveillance incidents carried out by the Department of Administrative Security (DAS).
Recent rises in the murder rate of Colombian trade union leaders (after a period of decline), and the increasing numbers of internally displaced people, due to persistently high levels of violence (mainly at the hands of the security forces and the paramilitaries) only serve to reinforce Colombia´s macabre image as one of the hemisphere’s most egregious human rights violators. These incidents, among many others, demonstrate that today Colombia hardly meets even the minimal human rights certification criteria, even if it has made isolated efforts to protect the security of its citizens and has achieved some reductions in overall rates of violence. Colombia needs to execute deeper reforms to promote equality and systematic justice in the country, in order to reduce high levels of poverty and inequality in the areas most effected by illicit drug trafficking and armed conflict. These reforms would certainly help to curb a universal culture of impunity, and the injustice that has permeated Colombian society and has provoked internal social conflict for over four decades.
More:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0912/S00051.htm
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