An official script that attributes political violence in Colombia to an all-powerful drug mafia has shielded the true identity of the killers of Colombian citizens from public scrutiny and judicial accountability. uesday, August 19, 1994, mid-morning. On an ordi- nary, traffic-clogged street in Bogotai, two motorcyclists ride up alongside the motor car of a promi- nent opposition politician, open fire with heavy-caliber automatic weapons, and ride away. In the backseat, Senator Manuel Cepeda, a respected, 60-year-old parliamen- tarian and the sole surviving senate representative of the ten-year-old Patriotic Union (UP) party, lies dying. In the landscape of Colom- bia's prolonged dirty war against the organized left, the death of the senator represented the latest mur- der of an opposition leader whose only crime, in the eyes of those who ordered his "extermination," was that he favored a peaceful settle- ment to the country's 40-year-old guerrilla war. Within 24 hours of the killing, a paramilitary group, the self-pro- claimed "MACOGUE," or "Death to Communists and Guerrillas," claimed responsibility for this latest assassination of a leftist political leader. After studying the MACOGUE communique, the new government of President Ernesto Samper duly attributed Senator Cepeda's assassination to drug traf- fickers. For more than a decade, an offi- cial script that attributes all the political violence in Colombia to an all-powerful drug mafia has shield- ed the true identity of the killers of Colombian citizens from public scrutiny and judicial accountability. Internationally, assisted by the media's single-minded obsession with drugs, this official version has gone virtually unchallenged since it was first aired in connection with the 1984 assassination of Colombian Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla. Yet within Colombia, the credibility of this official explana- tion for all the killings that have devastated the organized left since the early 1980s has badly frayed. In the last few years, scores of investigations by Colombian and international non-governmental organizations, including the UN Center for Human Rights, the Council of the European Economic Community and the Inter-American Commission of the OAS, and by the government's own investiga- tors, have built a solid case for dis- carding this official script once and for all time. The cumulative evi- dence of the past 12 years reveals a policy of systematic political and 6NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS Ana Carrigan won several awards for her independent film Roses in December. Her most recent book is The Palace of Justice: A Colombian Tragedy (Four Walls Eight Windows, 1993). 6 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICASUPDATE / COLOMBIA social "cleansing" of selected indi- viduals and groups, sponsored and organized by the state's own securi- ty forces. The story further involves a degree of passive toleration of- sometimes difficult to distinguish from complicity with-this killing by successive civilian govern- ments. The list of prominent politicians and anonymous citizens murdered in Colombia in the last decade is a Friends and relatives mourn the victims afte tary massacre of 41 people in Segovia in 1988. long one: four presidential candi- dates: Jaime Leal and Bernardo Jaramillo of the UP, Luis Carlos Galan of the dissident wing of the Liberal Party, and Carlos Pizzarro of the M-19 Democratic Alliance; two ministers of Justice: Rodrigo Lara Bonilla and Carlos Mauro Hoyos; thousands of elected civic and political officials: mayors, town councillors, community lead- ers, indigenous leaders, and region- al prosecutors; teachers, priests, lawyers, journalists, human rights activists; countless anonymous peasants; the entire activist mem- bership of one political party, the UP; and workers: according to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), Colombia holds the world record for numbers of assassinated trade unionists. Like all of these murders, Senator Cepeda's geath had been "fore- told." For several months his name had headed one of the sinister death lists that circulate from time to time in political, media and legal circles in Bogotd. His assassination had been "on hold"; his life was threat- ened weekly, then almost daily, on the anonymous, cellular telephone. Manuel Cepeda had no illusions. When he knew he was the latest target of the army offi- cers who plan and exe- cute the dirty war, he went to see the then- minister of defense, Rafael Pardo, to ask him to investigate his suspi- cions of a military con- spiracy to eliminate him. Minister Pardo refused his plea on the grounds that Cepeda "had not presented proofs." After the assassination, when both Cepeda's son and r a paramili- the Secretary General of November the Communist Party asked Pardo's successor, Fernando Botero, to initiate an investigation into the involvement of the army in the senator's murder, he also declined. In the absence of prior proof, the minister explained, he had no justification for opening an investigation. As columnist Antonio Caballero acidly commented in the newsweekly Cambio 16: "After careful reflection, the Minister of Defense explains that in order to investigate for evidence it is first necessary to have the evidence. If not, there is nothing to be done. Neither suspicions, nor clues, not even the formal, prior accusation by the dead man himself, whose subsequent assassination might be said to provide a certain element of credibility to this case. No: what is needed are the proofs. And if they don't exist, it's not possible to look for them." And finally, there was nothing arbitrary about the timing of Cepe- da's death. Contrary to the much- promoted view that all of the vio- lence in Colombia operates in a cli- mate of uncontrollable chaos, polit- ical violence is never arbitrary. It is selective, efficient and systematic. When the victim is a national fig- ure, his murder always carries a message and is in response to a spe- cific context, as befits a calculated policy geared to advance a precise political agenda. In the case of Senator Cepeda, the context was the inauguration of the new government that had assumed power two days earlier amid a flurry of promises to make the protection of human rights a "priority issue" of its agenda, and public pledges to re-open negotia- tions with the guerrillas and seek an end to the war. The message delivered by this latest assassina- tion put the new President on notice: any attempt to bring the guerrillas in from the cold would not be tolerated. It is a simple message. Its content has not varied since its first airing in the early 1980s, for it precisely reflects the political agenda that has perpetuated all the political violence of the last 12 years. In the terminol- ogy of the hardliners in the army and among the right wings of both traditional parties, who direct and pay for the murderous activities of a proliferation of paramilitary groups with names like "MACOGUE," support for a negotiated solution to the 40-year-old peasant-based guer- rilla war means "support for the guerrillas." Consequently, the mes- sage spelled out in some 30,000 identifiable political killings since the early 1980s reads: "No negotia- tions. No peace." Vol XXVIII, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 1995 7 4 4 0, Vol XXVIII, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 1995 7UPDATE / COLOMBIA In the past, wherever Latin American "dirty wars" have flourished on a scale compara- ble to the Colombian experience of the last decade, they have always been sponsored and conducted from the Presidential Palace, where the strong man of the hour tradi- tionally took up residence follow- ing a military coup. As a conse- quence, wearing the uniform of an identifiable tyrant and law-breaker, the military dictator was vulnerable to international opprobrium, and even perhaps to economic sanc- tions. At the very least, his democ- ratic opposition could count on the informed solidarity of an alerted international community. Alas for Colombians, their case is unique. The Colombian military doesn't need to stage coups. Colombia's ostensibly democratic civilian government provides the military-on whom it depends for its survival-with limitless free- dom to exercise arbitrary power. Armed with an impressive display of image-boosting official human rights mechanisms (even the Min- istry of Defense boasts its own "Human Rights Office") and the strongest, most talented diplomatic force in the hemisphere, the Colombian government polishes its democratic credentials for foreign consumption. Meanwhile at home, behind a brilliant facade of democ- ratic institutions, it steadfastly pur- sues a 40-year-old policy of uncrit- ical support for, and complicity with the military's brutal domina- tion of all aspects of Colombian life. In 1991, for example, the credi- bility of this democracy, marred somewhat by the government's recourse to "States of Seige" in 36 of the previous 43 years, received a uniquely pseudo-democratic face- lift. The repeated suspension of constitutional rights, which had cast a troubling shadow over the country's democratic credentials, was made unnecessary with the invention of a new constitutional category: "States of Internal Com- motion." Henceforth, no Colom- bian president would need to risk alerting international scrutiny by publicly resorting to a "State of Seige." Under a "State of Internal Commotion," his power to preside over the same limitations on inter- nationally recognized rights and democratic principles is now con- stitutional. Colombia has had, year in, year out, the highest per-capita level of homicide in the Western world. Though distinct and apart from ordinary criminal violence, the political violence benefits from this general climate of brutal criminali- ty which provides essential "cover" for its activities. The exploitation by the government of drug-related and crimi- nal delinquency is a necessary, essential Alai component of the dirty case ii war. It underwrites the impunity that protects mil the involvement of its own agents in political sta crimes, and perpetuates and sustains the policy and the strategy of the murderous "cleansing" of opposition forces. Within the context of the general- ized collapse of the rule of law, and the penetration of virtually every aspect of Colombian life and soci- ety by drugs and wealthy traffick- ers-beginning with the provision of financing for the political cam- paigns of the two traditional par- ties-various actors in the drama of Colombian violence sometimes overlap. It is possible, even proba- ble, that on occasion, some of the most sensitive political executions may be carried out by the drug car- tels acting on behalf of the "MACOGUEs" and their military handlers (and vice versa). The evolution of the dirty war against the Colombian left is trace- able through certain key periods of recent political history. Dirty-war tactics, specifically against the urban guerrillas of the M-19, had been an increasing part of the army's arsenal since the mid- and late 1970s. In 1982, a group of hardline, U.S.-trained counter- intelligence officers initiated a high-risk criminal alliance with the drug mafia in Medellfn that has since grown into a Hydra-headed monster. Twelve months earlier, in response to the kidnapping of a family member of one of the founders of the Medellin cartel by an M-19 commando, the drug traf- fickers had struck back by creating their own death squad-the Medel- lifn-based "MAS," or "Death to Kidnappers"-to "cleanse" Medel- lin of urban guerrillas. By the time for Colombians, their unique. The Colombian litary doesn't need to ge coups to maintain its limitless power. the Colombian army was done trad- ing intelligence, training, organiza- tion and strategy with the cartel leaders, in return for men, weapons and the money to pay for them, the "MAS" had evolved into the basic unit on which all subsequent col- laboration between the army and the drug mafia would be modelled. Much is known about the army's role in the organization of the "MAS" thanks to the results of a 1983 judicial investigation of their murderous activities undertaken by the attorney general of the day, Car- los Jim&nez G6mez, who brought then-President Belisario Betancur evidence of army and police collu- sion with the drug-financed thugs of "MAS." That year, Jim6nez put his own life on the line to go public with the names of 59 army and police officers implicated in hun- dreds of death-squad murders, mas- sacres and disappearances in Medel- lin. In a reaction that set the pattern for official passivity whenever accusations or evidence of involve- An army tank leads the assault on the Pala of Justice in 1985. ment by the armed forces with drug- or privately financed death squads and paramilitary groups sur- face, Betancur refused to take action. The President soothed the generals by increasing the defense budget, and the army high com- mand promoted the highest ranking officer involved and dispatched him to a high-level training course in Washington, D.C. Then, in 1986, following the UP's phenomenal success in national and local voting, new alliances between the army and large landowners-many of them also drug traffickers-sprang up in all of the conflict zones where today regional paramilitary groups and even private armies operate openly as partners in the army's C a counter-insurgency activities. As ever, the predictable "cleansing" of the land of non-combatant peas- ants, suspected of guerrilla sympa- thies, has created a situation that some observers refer to as a "hid- den counter land reform." It is no coincidence that while counter- insurgency has generated almost three times as many casualties among non-combatants as among the guerrillas, and has created a refugee population of 600,000 internally displaced peasant families, drug traffickers have acquired 21% of the coun- try's arable land. Odious though all compar- isons of the statistics of death, torture and disappearances are, in the case of Colombia, one of the few ways available to grasp the depth of the crisis is to situ- ate it within a hemispheric and historical context. In Colombia, the toll of political victims of state terrorism demonstrates that every year since 1986, more citi- zens have been killed, disap- peared, or suffered death from torture at the hands of the State or its paramilitary allies than the ice total of all the victims of political repression in Chile during the entire 17 years of the Pinochet mil- itary dictatorship. According to statistics compiled and analyzed by the Andean Com- mission of Jurists, 25,491 non- combatant Colombian civilians died in political and social violence between June, 1986 and June, 1994. Of these deaths, 29% were shown to be the responsibility of the rural guerrillas and leftist urban militias. The guerrillas have also been identified in 50% of violent kidnappings of wealthy landowners and businessmen. Tellingly, almost 70% of these identifiable assassinations, mas- sacres and enforced disappearances have been committed by the Colombian army and police, or by paramilitary groups and privately financed death squads operating in partnership with state forces. Since 1991, official investigators for the government's newly appointed human rights office, the Defender of the People, have, at great personal risk, investigated or tried to investigate hundreds of cases where army officers have participated-acting alone or in collusion with the paramilitaries- in massacres of unarmed civilians, and in individual murders and dis- appearances. They report, however, that their work has been rendered useless by the government's un- willingness to support its own offi- cials. Of 1,200 cases relating to army involvement in murder and disap- pearance of civilians which were investigated in 1992 and 1993, the office of the Defender of the People reported that just one percent resulted in disciplinary action. "Notwithstanding the government's promises," wrote the Defender of the People, Jaime Cordoba, "these abuses are tolerated and covered up by the superiors of those who have committed them." Faced with an archive of information document- ing the corruption and criminality of its military, no Colombian administration has yet demonstrat- ed the political will necessary to confront the criminals in its midst and impose the rule of law. hroughout the last eight years, as the crisis of politi- cal violence has progressive- ly deepened, every new legal and administrative measure has been geared to increasing the army's ability to protect the killers in their ranks, while simultaneously open- ing new and legal avenues of mili- tary repression. The most serious concern is the so-called judicial "reforms" of 1991, which resulted in the creation of a parallel "secret justice" system that eliminates the right of due process and is in gross violation of all universally recog- Vol XXVIII, No 5 MARCH/APRIL 1995 9UPDATE / COLOMBIA nized legal procedural norms. In 1993, President Gaviria decreed modifications to the Code of Crim- inal Procedure which turned over critical police functions-includ- ing detention, and the gathering of evidence-to the military. For the first time in Colombian history, the army was thus granted a permanent role in the prosecution of civilian cases. Ostensibly designed to com- bat drug trafficking and guerrilla terrorism, in practice, these mea- sures are used to arbitrarily treat legitimate social protest and ordi- nary criminal offenses as crimes of terrorism. Financed to the tune of $36 mil- lion by U.S. aid, the Colombian criminal justice system has been converted into an instrument of repression against the civilian opposition against which there is no appeal. In circumstances in which the use of torture by the military in the process of "gathering of evi- dence" is routine, the evisceration of judicial review over military-- and presidential-actions has removed all independent controls over arbitrary acts. By the end of President Gaviria's term of office last year, over 5,000 political pris- oners were held in Colombia's jails. As recently as 1985, Colombia had an independent judiciary of high integrity, with a history of lonely and courageous resistance to the militarization of Colombian society. That was before the hierar- chy of that judiciary was physically eliminated by the army's guns and shells during the military counter- attack on the Palace of Justice, in response to the invasion of the building by a commando of M-19 guerrillas. Over a hundred civilians, including most of the justices of the Supreme Court, were killed or dis- appeared in the 1985 assault. However, in 1991, the new Con- stitution included simpler ways of ensuring that meddlesome judges would no longer interfere with the army's conduct or reputation. It created an all-powerful justice- czar-a prosecutor general appointed by the executive-with a staff of 10,000 investigators, sole responsibility for high-level judi- cial appointments, and exclusive power over the selection of crimi- nal cases for trial. Next, in direct contravention of the Nuremberg Principle, it enshrined the military doctrine of "Due Obedience to Superior Orders" in the new consti- tutional statutes, and expanded the military code of jus- tice to encompass all crimes committed by the military against civilians. Thus, with the full cooperation of the Vice-President of the Constitutional Con- gress, recently amnestied and effi- ciently guarded ex-M- 19 guerrilla leader Antonio Navarro Wolff, then-President Gaviria found the legal mechanisms to destroy the indepen- dence and impartiality of the Colombian Yet another criminal justice sys- tem while simultaneousl ing the army with the legal tee of systematic impunit itary crimes committed civilians. Meanwhile, several k sions, taken in the first r Ernesto Samper's newl government, directly con his administration's stated ment to the defense of hun and a negotiated end to war. The refusal to inves murder of Senator Cep choice of new military lea the decision to establi "security associations" o armed civilians-with the tion of the landowners wh the paramilitaries-have clear signal of continue' reluctance to confront the blanket impunity that drives and perpetu- ates state terrorism. Most revealing is Samper's choice of Major General Harold Bedoya Pizzarro for the number- two post in the military hierarchy. Through Bedoya's entire career, he has been implicated with the spon- sorship and organization of a net- work of paramilitary organizations. Bedoya, who has never undergone any investigation for his involve- killing is reported in a Bogotd newspaper y provid- ment in the massacres of non-com- al guaran- batants or other dirty-war crimes, is y for mil- an articulate proponent of the con- against tinued "legal" involvement of local populations in counter-insurgency .ey deci- operations. months of Colombia's pseudo-democrats y elected are more intelligent and efficient flict with than most. To those in Colombia commit- who, every four years, yearn to nan rights believe that as each new adminis- the civil tration enters the revolving doors of tigate the power, it will live up to its word and ,eda, the attack the legal impunity that pro- aders, and tects and perpetuates the killing ish rural of so many of their best and bright- if legally est, these decisions were bad news. coopera- After all the rhetoric and all the [o finance promises, life and above all death e sent a in Colombia appeared to have d official returned to normal.
