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1994-05-02
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<text>
<title>
Colombia: Human Rights Watch
</title>
<article>
<hdr>
Human Rights Watch World Report 1992
Americas Watch: Colombia
</hdr>
<body>
<p>Human Rights Developments
</p>
<p> Despite encouraging institutional developments and welcome
initiatives on human rights by the government of President
César Gaviria, the rate of politically motivated murder in
Colombia continued to be as high as in Peru, and both countries
continued to register the highest number of such deaths in the
Americas. Political killings accounted for about 3,500 deaths
in 1991 less than the 4,000 of 1989, but a slight increase over
the 3,200 of 1990. These killings include murders committed by
the guerrillas, the army, the police and paramilitary groups as
well as combat-related casualties on both sides. As in 1990, an
increasing proportion of these killings are categorized as
murders for purposes of "social cleansing," in which the
targets are prostitutes, drug addicts, beggars and petty
criminals. These crimes are properly included in the list of
political murders because they function as a form of social
control and, for the most part, are committed by moonlighting
police officers or shady death squads that enjoy police
protection. Disappearances also continued at the rate of about
two hundred per year. (These grim statistics are part of a
larger and equally alarming figure: the general murder rate in
Colombia, amounting to about 25,000 violent deaths each year,
is by far the highest in the hemisphere.)
</p>
<p> Ten political deaths each day is an enormous amount for any
country. Of course, the state is not responsible for some of
these killings, and indeed is often the victim of those
perpetrated by insurgents. But hundreds of these deaths are
attributable to the armed and security forces of Colombia, and
government agents participate in many others indirectly by
lending aid and comfort to paramilitary groups that are
directly responsible. In such cases, pervasive impunity remains
the occasion for persistent violence. Efforts by prosecutors and
some judges continue to be thwarted by a lack of cooperation
from military and police authorities, and occasionally by more
direct obstruction of justice.
</p>
<p> One significant category of murders--those attributable to
the Medellín drug cartel--decreased sharply in the second
half of 1991, after the surrender of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar
in June. This is an encouraging development, because Escobar and
his accomplices commanded powerful armed groups that committed
many murders: while enforcing drug-related operations, while
fighting police and military efforts to apprehend the cartel
leaders, and while supporting paramilitary violence against
perceived leftists. A reduction in the frequency of such
killings began in mid-1990, when "The Extraditables"--the name
adopted by senior members of the Medellín cartel who feared
extradition to the United States announced a unilateral
cease-fire, putting an end to a campaign that had claimed the
lives of more than two hundred police officers in a four-month
period in Medellín alone. Still, in the early part of 1991, the
cartel continued to terrorize Colombia. On February 15, a
remote-control explosive device placed at the Macarena bullfight
ring in Medellín, where many police officers were in attendance,
killed nineteen persons, nine of them police officers, and
injured another sixty persons.
</p>
<p> With major traffickers on the run in the first few months of
1991, the killings ordered by the cartel seemed to taper off.
On the other hand, killings of other sorts increased in Medellín
in the same period, probably because many gangs whose members
previously were hired by the Extraditables were suddenly left
to their own devices. This new violence, in turn, caused an
increase in vigilante murders by self-styled "popular militias"
that appeared in some of Medellín's poor neighborhoods. These
two categories of violence have continued in that city even
after the surrender of Pablo Escobar.
</p>
<p> For their part, the two largest guerrilla groups, the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National
Liberation Army (ELN) launched an intense offensive in the
beginning of 1991, attacking military and economic targets. In
addition to killing combatants, the FARC and ELN murdered many
civilian leaders in the countryside, accusing them of
corruption or heading paramilitary groups. These assassinations,
and the pattern of kidnappings for ransom that both groups
commit, constitute serious breaches of the laws of war.
</p>
<p> Paramilitary groups continue to be active in different parts
of Colombia, although in 1991, as in 1990, they were not
responsible for as many spectacular massacres as in 1988 and
1989. The decrees issued by then-President Virgilio Barco in
1989 have contributed greatly to delegitimizing the
"self-defense" associations that often served as a relatively
legal facade for paramilitary organizations. (In amendments to
internal security laws that date from 1968, President Barco in
1989 "suspended" the army's power to create civilian
self-defense patrols and prohibited the military from arming
such groups. The status of groups that previously had been
established and armed was not addressed.) In addition, the
campaign against the Medellín cartel placed some of these groups
on the defensive, particularly those that enjoyed financial and
logistical support from the cartel.
</p>
<p> Some well-known paramilitary leaders in the Magdalena Medio
region changed sides and cooperated with the government in
tracking down Pablo Escobar, apparently in an effort to achieve
legitimacy. After Escobar's surrender, the most notorious
leaders of the Association of Cattlemen of the Magdalena Medio
(ACDEGAM), one of the better known self-defense associations,
were murdered in succession. This string of murders included
among its victims an army colonel--Luis Bohórquez, commander
of the Bárbula Battalion in Puerto Boyacá--who had been forced
to retire in 1989 because of his connection to ACDEGAM. Sources
from the security forces blamed Pablo Escobar for the murders
of Colonel Bohórquez, as well as ACDEGAM chief Henry de Jesús
Pérez and several relatives of Pérez, but no evidence was
offered other than the motive of revenge. Both human rights
activists and government observers told Americas Watch that they
are more inclined to believe that the murders are the result of
an internecine struggle for power within ACDEGAM. In any event,
those responsible for the killings have not been identified.
</p>
<p> Another paramilitary group that operates in the Magdalena
Medio, "Los Masetos" (a name derived from a well known
Colombian death squad), has continued to terrorize the peasant
population south of Barrancabermeja, and to enjoy army tolerance
if not support. One of its leaders, Isidro Carreño, was killed
in 1991, apparently while trying to defuse a land mine.
</p>
<p> Perhaps the most prominent of paramilitary leaders, Fidel
Castaño, seems to have experienced a conversion. In an evident
pitch for legitimacy, this fabulously rich landowner in Córdoba
has distributed land to peasants and created a foundation to
promote peace in his region. After former leaders of the
Popular Liberation Army (EPL) guerrilla group joined the peace
process and abandoned armed struggle, he contributed to their
electoral campaign even though they had once been his sworn
enemies in the northeastern region. Although Castaño was
convicted in absentia on July 18, 1991 for his role in two
massacres of banana workers in Urabá in 1988 and is sought in
connection with several other massacres, he makes public
appearances in his region and enjoys the protection of army
officers on active duty there.
</p>
<p> The Colombian army has continued an active counterinsurgency
campaign in certain regions of the country where the FARC and
ELN still operate. As in the past, those campaigns are conducted
with frequent use of "dirty war" tactics such as
disappeara