Amnesty International - Report - AMR 23/48/97
October 1997
Colombia

'Just What Do We Have to Do to Stay Alive?' Colombia's Internally Displaced: Dispossessed and Exiled in Their Own Land

THE CAUSES OF DISPLACEMENT

A generic description of the causes of internal displacement in Colombia is not possible. Factors which lead to displacement are various and causes can vary from region to region. The principal cause of displacement, however, is undoubtedly the armed conflict. The displaced flee because of threats, attacks and indiscriminate military actions by all parties to the conflict; the threat of enforced recruitment; or because they are caught in the crossfire between the armed forces, its paramilitary auxiliaries and armed
opposition groups. According to independent studies, persecution by illegal paramilitary organizations is currently the primary cause of displacement: some 35 per cent of internal displacement is caused by paramilitary organizations, 17 per cent by the armed forces and police and 24 per cent by armed opposition groups. In the remaining cases the internally displaced had not been able to identify those responsible.

Paramilitary forces

Army-backed paramilitary organizations have sown terror in rural areas of Colombia for over 15 years. They have employed a strategy of systematic terror, violence and intimidation against the civilian opulation in areas of guerrilla presence as a means of securing military control of territory through the elimination of the insurgents' real or perceived civilian support base. In addition to the Urabá region, several areas of the country have been particularly affected by a major paramilitary offensive in the last two years, including the departments of Meta in the south, Santander in the centre, and Norte de Santander, Cesar, Sucre, Bolívar, Antioquia and Chocó departments in the north and west.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s army-backed paramilitary organizations employed a strategy of widespread, indiscriminate massacres against civilian communities they considered to be real or potential guerrilla supporters. This practice has given way in recent years to a pattern of selective killings, particularly of community leaders, and the subjugation or displacement of the rest of the community. As one paramilitary commander said: "Eliminating the leader, the rest flee"See footnote 23. Civilians in
communities overrun by paramilitary forces are given three stark choices: they are told they can either cooperate with the paramilitaries, or abandon their farms and leave the area, or die. Cooperation involves not only accepting total paramilitary control of the community's life, but also paying "taxes" to equip and arm the paramilitaries. Many peasants are forced to join paramilitary groups and to accompany them on patrols, where they may be compelled to witness or even commit human rights violations against non-combatant civilians. Children as young as 10 have reportedly been "recruited" to patrol with paramilitary units.

In November 1995 nearly 300 families fled the villages of Capitán, Astí and El Juancho to Acandí in Chocó department, after a paramilitary raid on their communities. The paramilitary group was composed of some 70 heavily-armed men, some dressed in military uniforms. Several gunmen were identified by the local residents as former FARC guerrillas who had defected to the paramilitary and were responsible for identifying members of the local population who were guerrilla collaborators. During the day-long incursion in the area, the paramilitary captured and then shot at least six peasant farmers whom they accused of being guerrilla collaborators. Several were reportedly tortured before being killed. In a letter to the Presidential Human Rights Adviser, local community leaders stated:

"These people were killed with such violence and barbarity as if it were the olden times when people were tortured in order to make them confess committing treason against the king. Because of these events the peasants abandoned their land for fear that these acts would be repeated against them or their families."

Three days later, an army patrol arrived in the same communities; several of the soldiers in the patrol were recognized as members of the paramilitary group responsible for the earlier killings. "The terror of seeing them again in the village and dressed officially as military was so great that some left the municipality".

Paramilitary forces continued to displace thousands of people in Urabá during 1996 as the fight for control of the area escalated. In a document addressed to government authorities, communities in Puerto Rico, Urabá, explained events leading to the displacement of many of the residents:

"The army has sometimes arrived and all we got was threats... The paramilitary groups were created to fight the guerrilla and that's what they are doing in this area but they are also fighting the peasants and they have threatened they will cleanse the area of Río León and nobody will escape, not even infants and young children... We repeat that we are defenceless people and the only weapon we have are axes and spades which we use to work the land..."

In 1996 the ACCU's bloody war against perceived left-wing opponents extended well beyond Urabá; the departments of Sucre, Bolívar, Chocó and Cesar were among the worst hit. A wave of internal displacement followed in the wake of a paramilitary offensive in the department of Cesar throughout the year. Hundreds of civilians were killed and scores "disappeared" following detention by paramilitary forces.

At midnight on 26 October 1996 a group of 60 heavily-armed men wearing army-issue uniforms entered the community of Media Luna, municipality of San Diego, close to the border with Venezuela. By the time the group left several hours later, they had killed six people, including an eight-year-old boy, and bducted seven others, one of whom was later found dead. His tortured body was found on the outskirts of Media Luna. He had been castrated, his eyes gouged out and his fingernails had been pulled out.
Two other people, normally resident in Media Luna, were abducted the same night in Valledupar, capital of Cesar department. In a sworn testimony one resident said:

"At around 3 am about 10 or 15 heavily-armed men wearing [military] uniforms arrived at my house and broke down the door with a sledgehammer. In the midst of our surprise they demanded to know where my son was. I told them he wasn't there, that he was travelling. When I asked for an explanation they told me not to worry that it was an order from Urabá and as they didn't find my son they took my husband, in his underclothes without even allowing him to dress. They left the house in a total mess".

The paramilitaries told residents of Media Luna that they had a "death list" of 200 people from the area whom they intended to kill. To prevent villagers calling for help, the paramilitaries destroyed the telephone exchange and left graffiti on house walls identifying themselves as members of the ACCU.

Rural Vigilante Associations (CONVIVIR)

The expansion and consolidation of illegal paramilitary groups has notoriously accelerated during the government of President Samper, despite his pledges to dismantle such groups. Indeed, not only has the government failed to fulfil its commitment to eradicate paramilitary organizations, responsible for the majority of human rights violations including forced displacement, but certain policy decisions implemented by the government have undoubtedly encouraged their proliferation.

In December 1994 the Colombian Government launched a new Integrated Rural Security Plan which included the creation of Asociaciones Comunitarias de Vigilancia Rural (CONVIVIR), Rural Vigilante Associations. The CONVIVIR were to be made up of civilians and would operate primarily at local level to provide intelligence information to the security forces, ostensibly to combat both guerrilla and paramilitary forces. In situations deemed "strictly necessary" by the armed forces the CONVIVIR could be armed. By the end of 1996 there were approximately 400 CONVIVIR groups in operation in the country, many of them armed.

Amnesty International has expressed its concern to the Colombian Government on a number of occasions that these civilian vigilante groups could be used by elements within the armed and security forces to develop new paramilitary structures in order to perpetuate and expand illegal counter-insurgency practices. There is growing evidence that CONVIVIR groups in some areas of the country are no longer confined to tasks of intelligence gathering but have become offensive structures participating in joint
operations with the Colombian army. There is also strong evidence that CONVIVIR groups have been responsible for human rights violations against civilian populations, including their forcible displacement.

More than 200 peasant farmers from the rural areas around Río Blanco, south of Tolima department, abandoned their farms in September 1996 following threats and attacks by the local CONVIVIR group known as ATSER. Members of the ATSER CONVIVIR reportedly killed two peasant farmers in the area and circulated a pamphlet threatening the lives of another 60. The displaced peasants fled to the town of Río Blanco where, after 25 days living in temporary shelters, they reached an agreement
with the local authorities and the armed forces enabling them to return to their homes. Under the agreement the army's Caicedo battalion would deploy troops to the area of Maracaibo until February 1997 in order to "guarantee the peasants' safety and to control the activities of the CONVIVIR".See footnote 29 Those implicated in the killings were reportedly arrested by the army and handed over to judicial officials. However, no charges were brought.

Scores of families from rural areas surrounding Yondó, Antioquia department, were displaced by a series of attacks on the local population by armed men identifying themselves as members of an army counter-insurgency battalion operating jointly with a CONVIVIR group. Between 29 January and 3 February 1997, a group of about 100 heavily-armed men wearing army-issue clothing raided the villages of San Francisco de Yondó, La Congoja, Puerto Nuevo Ité, El Tamar, El Vietnam, Caño Blanco, Patio
Bonito, Sardinata Alta, Porvenir and Barbacoas in the vicinity of Yondó, east Antioquia department. Some of the armed group reportedly wore badges on their uniforms identifying them as soldiers attached to an army counter-insurgency battalion; others wore badges identifying themselves as members of the CONVIVIR. The group stayed in the community of San Francisco de Yondó for two days during which time they detained and interrogated about 25 adults and 15 children and terrorized the population.
The detainees were subsequently released and fled the community. At least one was reportedly tortured.

Only days before the raid, inhabitants of Yondó had lodged complaints about paramilitary activity in the municipality directly with the Minister of the Interior. The authorities' failure to take action to protect the civilian population in the area, despite having been warned of the paramilitary presence, is a serious omission. Had the authorities acted on the information they were given, the killing, "disappearance" and displacement of innocent civilians could have been prevented.