Inter Press Service
December 14, 2001
By Yadira Ferrer

BOGOTA, Dec 13 (IPS) - The Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (IACHR) ended its visit to Colombia Thursday with a condemnation of the extent to which the internal armed conflict has intensified, lamenting the consequent deterioration of respect for the civilian population's fundamental rights.

As it wrapped up its four-day investigative tour, the IACHR, a body of the Organisation of American States (OAS), expressed concern about the rising number of threats against freedom of expression, and the reality of forced displacement, massacres and kidnappings that affect thousands of Colombians.

Claudio Grossman, president of the commission, said "the information received about assassinations, attacks and threats against journalists is extremely troubling," incidents that are a direct assault on freedom of expression.

Grossman said he had been presented with documentation "about the existence of a strategy on the part of the irregular armed groups, and the paramilitaries in particular, aimed at silencing investigative journalists through assassination, intimidation or forced displacement."

The report by the seven-member delegation said it had heard complaints in the river port city of Barrancabermeja, the seat of the petroleum-producing region in northeast Colombia, that the government armed forces have shown lenience towards the right-wing paramilitary squads operating in the area.

Juan Méndez, the IACHR vice-president, said he is alarmed by the recently enacted National Security Law, which grants the armed forces certain judicial powers.

The law has come under fire from the People's Defender (Ombudsman), Eduardo Cifuentes, a government official who says the legislation violates the Constitution.

"The military cannot be granted judicial functions that undermine constitutional guarantees," stated Cifuentes.

Méndez said he is deeply concerned about "the potential for the dislocation of certain civilian authorities, who would have to answer to military authorities in certain areas," according to the new law.

The IACHR members met with the human rights commissions of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate on Tuesday. Several lawmakers expressed their profound disappointment in the Andrés Pastrana government for failing to take action in the zones of influence of the right-wing paramilitaries and of the leftist guerrillas.

At that meeting, indigenous senator Jesús Piñacué presented a list of leaders of native communities who have been victims of the violence perpetrated by the irregular armed groups.

According to the reports presented at the First Indigenous Congress, held in late November in Cota, a town outside Bogotá, at least 300 indigenous people were assassinated by guerrillas or paramilitaries this year.

The participants in the congress said that government efforts have been insufficient and ineffective in thwarting the actions of the armed groups, pointing out that displacement, massacres and kidnapping continue on the rise.

Jorge Rojas, coordinator of the Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES), said the visit by the OAS commission has once again highlighted the fact that the government does not have the capacity to guarantee protection for the Colombian people.

Rojas told IPS that 2001 has been "one of the worst years" in the last two decades as far as human rights violations in Colombia.

According to CODHES figures, approximately 277,000 people were forced from their homes in the first 10 months of this year, or an average of 1,025 people each day.

Rojas predicts that the country is headed towards "greater levels of confrontation given the contempt toward the civilian population demonstrated by all actors involved in the conflict."

Monday, during events commemorating international Human Rights Day, local non-governmental groups reported that at least 20 people are killed in Colombia each day in the context of the civil war.

The decades-long conflict, involving the paramilitaries, guerrilla groups and government armed forces, has killed more than 40,000 people -- mostly civilians - in the last decade alone.