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<h1 class="reader-title">Colombia, the death squads & the
US’ human rights double standard</h1>
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<div class="reader-estimated-time">7 Jun, 2018 - <em>Dan
Kovalik</em></div>
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<p> Nearly every day, we are bombarded with “news” about
problems in Venezuela. And certainly, there are problems,
such as food and medicine shortages and skyrocketing
inflation. But there is something that is downplayed. </p>
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<p>What the press downplays, if it mentions it at all, is
the very real and significant ways that US sanctions
have contributed to these problems facing Venezuela and
how these sanctions are making it nearly impossible for
Venezuela to solve these problems.</p>
<p>What the press also fails to mention is the even
greater humanitarian issues confronting Venezuela’s
next-door neighbor, Colombia – the US’ number one ally
in the region and, quite bizarrely, the newest <em>“global
partner”</em> of NATO from Latin America. And, the US
is very much responsible for these issues as well, but
in quite different ways.</p>
<p>The fact is that, by a number of measures, Colombia has
one of the worst human rights situations on earth, but
you would never know this from watching the nightly
news. </p>
<p>First of all, <a
href="http://pacifista.co/colombia-tiene-mas-desaparecidos-que-todas-las-dictaduras-del-cono-sur/"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Colombia has
the largest number of people forcibly disappeared</a>
in all of the Americas – even more than all of the
Southern Cone countries combined during the infamous
‘dirty war’ years – at over 60,000.</p>
<p>In addition, Colombia has one of the largest internally
displaced populations on earth <a
href="http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/news/briefing/2017/3/58c26e114/forced-displacement-growing-colombia-despite-peace-agreement.html"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">at well over
7 million</a> – <a
href="http://www.internal-displacement.org/countries/colombia"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">second</a>
only to Syria. And, a disproportionate number of these
internally displaced are indigenous and
Afro-descendants.</p>
<p>Moreover, <a
href="http://m.eltiempo.com/vida/educacion/cifra-de-ninos-asesinados-en-colombia-225124"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Colombia
ranks 5th in the world</a> for the number of children
internally displaced by conflict, with two million boys
and girls internally displaced. Quite shockingly, <a
href="http://m.eltiempo.com/vida/educacion/cifra-de-ninos-asesinados-en-colombia-225124"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Colombia
ranks 3rd in the world</a> for the number of children
murdered, with 715 children murdered just last year.
Such statistics have led Save The Children to conclude
that Colombia is <em>“one of the worst countries to be
a child and adolescent in the world.”</em></p>
<p>Colombia is also one of the worst countries in the
world to be a social leader, such as a human rights
defender, union leader, indigenous or Afro-Colombian
leader. Thus, even after the signing of a peace deal
between the Colombian government and FARC guerrillas in
2016, social leaders are being murdered at an alarming
rate. Indeed, <a
href="https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/4-Social-Leaders-and-Activists-Killed-in-24-Hours-in-Colombia-20180603-0013.html"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">over 200
social leaders have been killed</a> just since January
of 2017. <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/may/01/2017-deadliest-year-on-record-colombian-human-rights-defenders"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Last year
was in fact the worst year on record for human rights
defenders</a> in Colombia, with 120 killed in 2017.
</p>
<p>Of course, the US has a large responsibility to bear
for this awful situation in Colombia, as it has been the
intellectual author behind Colombia’s brutal,
decades-long war against its own people and has provided
billions of dollars of material aid to this war effort.
Indeed, since 2000, the US has given Colombia <a
href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/02/08/15-years-and-10-billion-later-u-s-efforts-to-curb-colombias-cocaine-trade-have-failed/"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">$10 billion</a>
in mostly military assistance as part of its
counter-insurgency program known as ‘Plan Colombia.’
During the Plan Colombia years, the Colombian military
attempted to boost US military assistance by murdering
civilians in cold blood and passing them off as
left-wing guerillas. It is now believed that <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/08/colombia-false-positives-scandal-casualties-higher-thought-study"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the military
killed 10,000 civilians</a> in this grisly <em>“false
positive”</em> operation.</p>
<p>But the US is also behind an even darker force than the
Colombian military – that is, the Colombian paramilitary
death squads. While those who live in the more remote
parts of Colombia are painfully aware of the
paramilitaries’ presence and brutality, the
paramilitaries are now a well-kept secret in the more
well-to-do parts of Colombia’s big cities and even more
so outside of Colombia. Indeed, the Colombian and US
governments deny the very existence of these
paramilitary groups, and the compliant press is happy to
oblige in keeping this dirty secret.</p>
<p>Recently, Colombia’s most prominent human rights
defender, <a
href="http://m.lapatria.com/manizales/el-paramilitarismo-sigue-vivo-asegura-el-sacerdote-javier-giraldo-experto-en-derechos"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Father
Javier Giraldo, S.J., spoke about the paramilitary
phenomenon</a> of which he is an expert. As he
explains, <em>“There are clandestine or
semi-clandestine arms of the State, which are the
paramilitary groups. Today, it is not tolerated that
you refer to them as such, but I still call them
paramilitaries, because that is the appropriate term.”</em></p>
<p>Father Giraldo describes the origin of the paramilitary
death squads, a force developed by the United States
before the left-wing guerrillas even came into existence
in 1964. As Father Giraldo explains:</p>
<p><em>“In 1962, when Guillermo León Valencia was
president, a mission of the North American army, of a
special school of war in North Carolina, created after
the Second World War to maintain the security of the
United States, arrived in Colombia... They analyzed
the situation in Colombia and left secret
instructions, ordering the Colombian government to
begin training mixed groups of civilians and the
military, and preparing them for paramilitary
terrorist activities to combat the sympathizers of
communism.”</em></p>
<p><em>“...President Valencia, on Christmas day of the
year 1965, issued Decree 3398 with which he changed
the name of the Ministry of War to [the Ministry of]
Defense, and authorized forming groups of civilians as
auxiliaries of the armed forces, the legal basis of
paramilitarism.”</em></p>
<p><em>“...The United States began to direct the entire
security apparatus in Colombia and its agencies...
first with 400 officers of the US Army; today there
are at least 800. The paramilitarism that was created
at that time, with all the legal support, has been
reaffirmed.”</em></p>
<p>Of course, as Father Giraldo has explained on numerous
occasions, the ostensible <em>“sympathizers of
communism”</em> targeted by the paramilitaries are
trade union leaders, human rights defenders, peasant
leaders, and Catholic priests who advocate on behalf of
the poor. As for Catholic priests, <a
href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/colombian-priest-killed-in-continuing-trend-of-violence"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">over 80 have
been murdered since 1984</a> for the crime of
advocating on behalf of the poor.</p>
<p>It is now becoming more evident than ever from the fact
that there is now a rise in the murder of such social
leaders, as well as mass forced displacement, after the
disarming of the FARC guerrillas, that it, is the
paramilitaries which are responsible for the lion’s
share of such human rights abuses in Colombia. But
again, you would have no idea about this from reading
the newspapers or watching the nightly news. And,
Colombians who are suffering at the hands of the
paramilitaries are painfully aware of the conspiracy of
silence around this issue. </p>
<p>Indeed, when I was recently in Colombia for the first
round of the presidential elections, our delegation met
with a number of residents of the small town of Suarez
(Cauca Department) which had just lost three members of
their community to paramilitary violence. One of the
members of the community desperately asked us, <em>“what
can we do to let the world know of the continued
existence of the paramilitaries?”</em> I answered that
we have been trying to do just that for many years,
though few will hear us out on this issue. </p>
<p>While we were in Colombia, a campaign coordinator for
Gustavo Petro, a Colombian presidential candidate, was <a
href="https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Five-Scandals-that-Marked-the-Colombian-Presidential-Campaigns-20180527-0013.html"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">murdered</a>
by paramilitaries the day before the election, and the
paramilitary group known as ‘Aguilas Negras’ (Black
Eagles) issued a general threat against the supporters
of Petro for president just a few days before the May 27
vote.</p>
<figure></figure>
<p>If Colombia’s very real human rights and humanitarian
crises were given nearly the attention that the problems
in neighboring Venezuela receives, the US and Colombian
government would at least have some incentive to improve
the situation in Colombia and to go after the
paramilitary groups which continue to haunt that
country. The near complete silence about the staggering
violence in Colombia is critical in allowing that
violence to continue. Indeed, the paramilitaries have
always depended upon being able to operate in the
shadows, and the US press is more than happy to oblige
them in this effort.</p>
<p><em>Dan Kovalik for RT</em></p>
<p><em>Dan Kovalik teaches International Human Rights at
the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He is the
author of 'The Plot to Attack Iran.'</em></p>
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