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


Displacement -- a deliberate strategy

In the vast majority of cases, displacement of the civilian population is not a casual, sporadic or inevitable by-product of counter-insurgency operations --it is a crucial tool in the armed forces' strategy to combat the insurgent forces. Targeted areas are "cleansed" of the real or potential support base of the guerrillas and repopulated with peasant farmers who are paramilitary supporters or with the relatives of paramilitary members.

The Procurator General explained the armed forces counter-insurgency strategy in his annual report of 1992:

"The state security and defence agencies are trained to persecute a collective enemy and generally consider that victims form part of that enemy. In a substantial number of cases they act on the premise that prevailed in El Salvador of 'removing the water from the fish' which means that they establish a direct link between, for example, the trade unions or peasant organizations, and the guerrilla forces and when they carry out counter- insurgency operations these passive subjects are not identified as 'independent' victims but as part of the enemy. In effect, the state security and defence forces assault the human rights of independent passive subjects because they commit the mistake of considering them to be the enemy or allied to the enemy".

Peasant farmers from the Magdalena Medio region gave Amnesty International detailed descriptions of collaboration between paramilitary forces and the army in counter-insurgency operations in which numerous people have been forcibly displaced.

"We arrived here a year ago. The paramilitary were pressuring me to collaborate with them: 'Work with us or leave the area or die'. But to join up with them means working against our neighbours. That's why we had to leave. The paramilitary work together with the military. On 28 December 1994 I had to decide whether I was going to work with them or not. Then the army arrived while I was out working in the fields. They detained me and took me with them. I spent four days marching with them, tied up all the time. They beat me a lot and put a towel soaked in salty water over my face and a plastic bag over my head. All my body was black with bruises and even now you can see the scars. Finally, the lieutenant
ordered them to release me."

 

Many displaced people have described a similar pattern: paramilitaries arrive in a village and summon the local population to meetings at which armed forces personnel are often present. The villagers are told it would be in their interest to collaborate with the army and paramilitary and are assured that, if they co-operate, they will be protected from guerrilla reprisals. They are also told that if they refuse to cooperate they can either leave the village or die. One witness told Amnesty International:

"When the villagers refused to cooperate they started insulting people and beating and driving them out...the paramilitaries killed one person to force the people to cooperate through fear...so the people left because they were afraid and then the paramilitaries brought their own people into the village, while the main group moved on to the next village".

According to the 1994 report of the UN Secretary General's Representative for Internally Displaced Persons:

"Numerous testimonies received by the Representative as well as the discussions he had with the Government indicate that the civilian population living in combat zones is the most susceptible to being displaced; in these so-called 'red zones' (ie zones controlled or influenced by the guerrillas), the armed forces often resort to air raids, followed by ground searches, which often force the people to move temporarily or permanently. These testimonies indicate further that often the distinction between guerrillas and non- combatants is lost. Allegations were even made that the armed forces have killed peasants just in order to claim guerrilla casualties".

Guerrilla forces have, on occasion, encouraged or actively organized communities to leave their homes and march to local towns in order to protest against paramilitary or military advances in the area. Very often mass displacements organized by the guerrillas lead to extreme hardship for the protesters and serious security risks on their eventual return. In numerous cases documented by Amnesty International, leaders of mass protest movements have later been killed or "disappeared". However, on many other occasions when communities have spontaneously fled persecution, senior armed forces officials have accused refugees of following guerrilla orders in order to create "political difficulties" for the government. Accusing the displaced of following guerrilla orders is also often a precursor to further repression against them.

According to the UN Secretary General's Representative for Internally Displaced Persons:

"In this climate of perpetual violations of international human rights standards which, inter alia, targets those considered 'useless' to society, the internally displaced are particularly vulnerable to human rights abuses. Often, fleeing does not result in an end to persecution. The Representative has been told of a number of incidents where displaced persons have been tracked down in their host area and killed. Displacement also causes the curtailment of access to judicial and other authorities and political participation, since it usually requires interaction with the public authorities in the reception area."

"Fleeing from counter-insurgency and other violent activities means that peasants have to abandon everything. Displacement leaves them in a worse economic and social situation; as one church official said, 'the peasant on his land remains free; in the city he becomes a beggar, his daughter becomes a prostitute, he becomes a parasite, and thus a 'disposable'."

 

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