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

GOVERNMENT INACTION

"Internally displaced persons remain within their national territory, which means that their own government bears primary responsibility for meeting their protection and assistance needs."

During the 1980s and early l990s successive Colombian governments attempted to ignore the growing crisis or even to deny the existence of the swelling numbers of internally displaced people. However, in September 1994, one month after assuming the presidency, Ernesto Samper went some way towards recognizing the gravity of the problem and accepting official responsibility:

"The national government recognizes the existence of the phenomenon of forced displacement of the population in the interior of the country as a result of political violence. This phenomenon has not been studied sufficiently and we lack reliable estimates indicating the dimensions of the problem. There are diverse causal factors, including guerrilla actions.However, clearly the state has responsibility in the face of forced displacement".

In the same document, President Samper outlined steps his government would take to address the problem, including emergency assistance plans, the promotion and financing of productive projects, the generation of employment, the fulfilment of the basic needs of the displaced population and the rapid establishment of legal norms to make displaced peasants beneficiaries of agricultural reform measures. Nearly three years later, however, little progress has been made in meeting the emergency needs of
the displaced and even less in tackling the causes of displacement.

In September 1995 the government issued its plan of action for the internally displaced. The Programa Nacional de Atención a la Población Desplazada por Violencia, National Program of Integral Attention to the Population Displaced by Violence, was divided into four main areas of action:

. prevention: the establishment of a system of information and early warning in order to detect situations of risk;

. immediate attention;

. consolidation and socio-economic stabilization; and

. communication, information and investigation.

Initially it was announced that the Program would not be put into operation until late 1996 for financial reasons. However, since then, little progress has been made towards effective implementation and it looks increasingly as though the Program is little more than a statement of good intentions. The Program itself is also flawed and would severely restrict the number of internally displaced people who could benefit from it even when fully operational. The criteria for granting aid are not clear; neither are the
mechanisms and procedures for assessing entitlement. For example, some form of official certification by local authorities from the area of displacement is required in order to receive government support. However, in order to satisfy this requirement the displaced person would have to return to the area of danger.

In December 1996, the government presented a draft bill to Congress to establish a "special program for the acquisition of lands to benefit the peasant population displaced from their lands because of violence, those deported from neighbouring countries and those affected by natural disasters." The draft bill was approved by Congress in June 1997.

Despite this bill's evident intention of finding long-term solutions to the problems faced by those forcibly displaced, practical obstacles remain. The program would again require proof that the beneficiaries were forced to flee; something which is very often impossible to demonstrate without incurring further risks. Despite apparent progress in developing assistance plans, government programs have been plagued with inefficiency and lack of coordination between government departments. Although an inter-institutional committee was established in January 1997 in order to coordinate government assistance to the displaced, the vast majority of internally displaced people still receive no official assistance of any sort.

The failure of the government to tackle the causes of displacement or provide adequate assistance to those forcibly displaced has meant that for many years the full burden of support has fallen on Colombian church bodies and national and international non-governmental organizations. The poverty and insecurity faced by growing numbers of internally displaced people and the almost total absence of state assistance have led to a number of national and international non-governmental organizations establishing programs of emergency help and humanitarian assistance for the displaced. Recently, the international community,
aware of the growing crisis in Colombia, has begun to offer some assistance: the governments of Japan, Belgium, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Spain, and the European Union have all contributed towards programs for emergency assitance for the internally displaced. However, although vital, this aid can never fully meet the ever-growing demand for emergency assistance, let alone provide long-term solutions to the problem. In June 1997, the Colombian Government formally requested the UNHCR to
establish an office in Colombia in order to provide assistance and protection to the internally displaced.