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U.S. Committee for Refugees World Refugee Survey 1999 - Colombia

As many as 1.4 million Colombians were internally displaced, 308,000 of whom became displaced during 1998. Few Colombians had sought recognition as refugees in neighboring countries, although more than 180,000 had sought refuge outside Colombia and were living in refugee-like circumstances in Venezuela, Ecuador, and Panama. Some Colombian asylum seekers and refugees were in Europe. During FY 1998, the United States granted refugee status to 64 Colombians, denied 278, and at year's end was considering the claims of 745 others.

Colombia hosted more than 200 refugees, including 75 from Nicaragua, 35 from Chile, 30 from Hungary, and 80 from other countries, acording to UNHCR.

In March, USCR published an issue paper, Colombia's Silent Crisis: One Million Displaced by Violence, that helped draw the attention of the U.S. government and public to the plight of and needs of internally displaced Colombians. USCR made its third site visit to Colombia in December. USCR investigated developments during the year and assessed, first-hand, current conditions for diplaced persons in Bogota, Villaviencio, Barrancabermeja, San Pablo, and remote villages in the south of Bolivar Department.

Causes of Displacement

Displacement in Colombia is a direct result of conflict, political violence, and rampant human rights abuse. The conflict in Colombia includes the Colombian armed forces, left-wing guerilla groups, and right wing paramilitary organizations. Direct confrontations among these three groups were relatively infrequent in recent years, but increased during 1998. However, civilians continued to be the primary victims of the latter two groups. During 1998, some 2,000 to 3,000 people died in Colombia as a result of political violence, nearly 800 of them in massacres of four or more persons at one time.

Since 1995, actions by paramilitaries have overtaken those by guerillas and the armed forces as primary causes of displacement. In 1997, seven paramilitary group established a nationwide structure, United Self-Defense Groups of Colombia (AUC), aimed at coordinating their efforts. Consultoria para los Decheros Humanos y el Desplazamiento (CODHES), an NGO that tracks the number of displaced persons and the causes of their displacement, said that in 1998 paramilitaries were responsible for 54 percent of all displacement, while guerillas were responsible for 29 percent.

Paramilitary groups deliberately displace civilians from rural areas, saying that their aim is to eliminate any possibility of guerillas gaining support from the people in small towns and rural areas. However, most observers agree that the paramilitaries also deliberately depopulate areas to benefit their wealthy patrons, including large landholders, business people, and narco-traffickers. According to the U.S. Department of State's 1998 country report on human rights in Colombia, "Paramilitary groups murdered, tortured, and threatened civilians suspected of sympathizing with guerillas in an orchestrated campaign to terrorize them into fleeing their homes."

Guerillas commonly target local officials, civic leaders, and business owners whom they perceive to opposing them. They do so to intimidate the local population into supporting them, but their tactics often lead people to become displaced. During 1998, they held 1,000 kidnapped civilians hostage, seeking ransom payments that helped finance their activities. Guerillas also benefited from narco-traffic. As many as 17,000 guerilla fighters in effect controlled up to 40 percent of Colombia's territory. Many families fled their homes to avoid guerilla groups' forced recruitment of children.

Paramilitaries and guerillas displace civilians not only through the use of violence, but through intimidation, threats, and sowing fear. According to CODHES, in 1998 "threats continued to be the principal direct cause of displacement" among families who fled to Bogota. "The other important factor at the moment of making the decision to flee is fear."

The Colombian armed forces, including the army, navy, air force, and the police, continue to abuse human rights, also resulting in displacement, though at a lower level than in previous years. Members of the armed forces guilty of human rights violations are rarely brought to justice. Many observers, both Colombian and foreign, believe that the Colombian armed forces condone and directly assist the paramilitaries. The U.S. State Department's human rights report said, "At times the security force collaborated with paramilitary groups." It added, " At times, individual commanders and troops at local levels armed, coordinated actions with, or shared intelligence with paramilitary groups…Some paramilitary commanders effectively afforded paramilitary groups protection…"

Many observers also hold the civilian authorities responsible for displacement. According to the Organizations of American States' Inter-American Commission on Human Rights,

This policy adopted thus far by the Government to deal with this situation [displacement] has not been adequate and has failed to diminish it. The most serious aspect of this lack of effective response is the absence of governmental measure to prevent the incidents that provoke the forced displacement of persons, despite the fact that this preventative aspect is conceived as a central focus of governmental policy.

The Commission added that internal displacement had reached such proportions, that it considered displacement to be "one of the gravest aspects of [Colombia's] overall human rights situation…[that] constitutes nothing less than a humanitarian catastrophe."

Number of Displaced

Estimates of the number of internally displaced persons in Colombia vary. According to CODHES, 1.4 million Colombians have become displaced since 1985. CODHES produces detailed statistics on displacement in Colombia working closely with church groups and other NGOs. Few independent observers question its data. However, the government and some observers criticize the CODHES findings on several counts. They say that the statistics, which are cumulative, do not reflect the number of person who have returned home or have resettled elsewhere in the country, and are therefore inflated. Also, the government in particular argues that many of the displaced are now firmly integrated where they are living and and should no longer be counted as displaced. It suggests that on those persons displaced within the last two years be counted.

USCR regards the CODHES statistics as accurate. It is the USCR's impression that the number of displaced persons who have returned home or resettled elsewhere is small. CODHES itself reports that 65 percent of all displacements become long-term. That number of persons newly displaced each year has risen steadily and dramatically since 1995 (89,000 in 1995; 181,000 in 1996, 257,000 in 1997; and 308,000 in 1998). The largest number of displaced persons is concentrated in and around Bogota, which is home to more than 327,000 displaced persons.

In a 1998 study of displaced persons in Bogota, CODHES found that 91 percent of displaced families did not think they would ever be able to return home. About 57 percent said that they planned to stay in the capital permanently, while 34 percent hoped to resettle elsewhere in Colombia.

Some of those who have been displaced for several years may be socio-economically integrated in where they are, but even their situation remains precarious. Also, the vast majority cannot return home because of continuing violence and persecution in their areas of origin. Therefore, USCR believes that it is appropriate still to count them as displaced. USCR does not suggest, however, that all 1.4 million Colombians who have become displaced are in need of assitance.

New Displacement in 1998

Some 308,000 Colombians became newly displaced during 1998: an average of eight families per hour throughout the year. The November 29 El Colombiano newspaper called 1998 "the worst year of forced displacement." A large majority of the newly displaced, about 79 percent, continued to flee individually or in small groups. However, the trend towards mass displacement continued. During the year more than 65,000 people fled their communities. The largest such displacements were the flight of some 10,000 people from various towns in Santander Department into Barrancabermeja in mid-summer; 95,000 from the Rio Viejo area of Bolivar Department, 7,500 from Terralta, Cordoba, and 4,000 from El Castillo, Meta.

Of those displaced during 1998 more than 148,000 became displaced between January and June. Among the causes of displacement during those months were more than 17 massacres (the killing of four or more people at one time) that left 276 people dead.

Between July and September, another 93,000 persons became internally displaced. Primary causes of displacement during that period were an August offensive by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in several departments that left more than 100 dead, and a paramilitary offensive in the south of Bolivar that displaced some 10,000 people. According to CODHES, 64 percent of Colombians displaced between January and the end of September were children. During the final quarter of the year, displacement slowed, but remained high relative to other years; some 67,000 persons became displaced between October and December.

Colombia's capital, Bogota, received 30,000 newly displaced persons between January and June, and 24,500 between July and December, a total of about 54,500 persons during the year. The largest number of displaced persons arriving in Bogota, more than 7,000 people, was from Antioquia Department, northwest of the city. Large numbers also fled to Bogota from Tolima Department, west of the city, and from Meta and Guaviare departments, both southwest of Bogota. CODHES and the Archdiocese of Bogota estimated that more than 210,000 displaced people arrived in Bogota between 1995 and 1998.

According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, "The psycho-social consequences of displacement…have accelerated the destruction of social fabric and have contributed to the impoverishment of the population, the disintegration of the family, malnutrition, sickness, alcoholism, drug addiction, prostitution, school absenteeism, and common crime."

Chronology

January 1998:  

• Colombian government proposes spending $30.7 million to assist people displaced by violence.
• 26th: 1,000 displaced persons return to Riosucio region of Choco Department.

February:  

• Paramilitaries kill 40 people in Mapiripan, Meta. Church officials state that 100 other people were killed in Granada, Meta.
• 27th: Gunmen kill leading human rights activist Jesus Maria Valle Jaramillo in his Medellin office. Jaramillo had accused the army and top politicians of supporting death squads.
• Police in Putumayo report that 44 people have been killed, presumably by paramilitaries, since the beginning of the year.

March:  

• The Medellin Metropolitan Planning Agency states that the city has no room to grow. There are more than 100 spontaneous illegal settlements, which represent 50,000 houses and 250,000 inhabitants, many of whom are displaced persons.
• 8th: Colombian military aerial bombings kill 30 civilians and displace 120 families in Caguan, Caqueta Department. The military later denies the bombings.

April:  

• 18th: Eduardo Umana Mendoza, prominent human rights lawyer, is assassinated.

May:  

• NGO CODHES says paramilitaries are responsible for 73 percent of forced displacement in Colombia.
• Colombian military disbands army's 20th Brigade, a unit notorious for abuse of human rights.
• 4th: Paramilitaries raid Puerto Alvira, Meta Department, and kill up to 22 people, including a five-year-old child. The massacre occurs despite more than a dozen warnings by local officials and the Office of the Public Advocate (Defensoria del Pueblo) that an attack is imminent.
• 13th: Army unit raids Bogota office of Justicia y Paz, a leading human rights NGO associated with the Catholic Church.
• 16th: Paramilitaries massacre 11 residents of Barrancabermeja and abduct 25 others, whom they later execute. The Prosecutor General launched an investigation to determine if members of the armed forces and police were complicit in the massacre.

June:  

• 11th: More than 100 paramilitaries attack Cerro Burgos, in the south of Bolivar Department, kill several residents and cause a massive displacement. All but 15 of town's 1,000 inhabitants flee their homes.
• Guerrillas attempt to derail election. They halt voting in 36 townships, burn 7,000 ballots, and kill several civilians.
• 21st: Conservative Party candidate Andres Pastrana wins run-off election for the Presidency. Pastrana pledges to seek peace talks with the FARC and improve ties with the United States.

July:  

• President-elect Pastrana secretly meets with FARC leaders Manuel Marulanda and Jorge Bricendoa.
• Some 6,000 Colombians leave their homes in the south of Bolivar fearing paramilitary attacks. Many arrive in San Pablo without food, little clothing, and no place to sleep.
• Pais Libre (Free Country) reports more than 1,000 kidnappings in the first six months of the year, half committed by guerrillas.
• 20th: Representatives of more than 5,000 displaced persons in Barrancabermeja meet President-elect Pastrana, demanding protection so they can return home.

August:  

• While President-elect Pastrana meets with President Clinton in Washington, FARC and ELN guerrillas launch a four-day offensive. The guerrilla groups carry out 27 attacks in 32 sites across Colombia that leave more than 240 dead (including 60 soldiers) and hundreds more injured.
• 7th: Andres Pastrana takes office as President.
• 7th: 981 people flee Choco municipalities of Riosucio, Carmen del Atrato, and Quibdo.
• U.S. government announces that it will provide $2 million to assist displaced Colombians. The money, the first U.S. assistance specifically earmarked to help this population, will be channeled through the ICRC.
• Approximately 1,500 persons are forced to flee from the municipality of Tiquisio at the northern end of the south of Bolivar Department. They flee due to paramilitary attacks on their villages and intensive fighting between paramilitaries and the ELN. Another 1,000 people flee nearby Montecristo fearing that fighting will also engulf them.

September:  

• At his swearing-in ceremony, the new head of Colombia's anti narcotics office says that the controversial, U.S.-backed drug crop eradication program has been a "failure." The number of hectares under coca cultivation had increased from 45,000 in 1994 to 79,500 in early 1998.
• 10,000 peasants from Satander and the south of Bolivar pour into Barrancabermeja, demanding that the government remove from active duty officers responsible for the violence that forced them out of their homes.
• ELN releases kidnapped senator Carlos Espinoza after he agrees to read a message to Congress condemning the government's ties to paramilitary groups.

October:  

• ICRC says that it assisted 97,296 displaced persons between January and September, and helped more than 15,000 civilians at risk flee to safer locations.
• 4th: Colombian government agrees to curb paramilitarism by repealing legislation establishing the CONVIVIR, civilian "self defense groups."
• 18th: ELN guerrillas blow up oil pipeline. Resulting fire kills 74, including 38 children. ELN kills 70 other civilians during October.

November:  

• FARC seizes control of the town of Mitu, near the Brazilian border. Colombian troops later transit through Brazilian territory and recapture the town. The offensive and counter-offensive leave 150 dead and cause thousands to flee. Several hundred refugees flee temporarily into Brazil.
• In the north of Santander, as many as 2,000 people flee following a guerrilla offensive in the area.

December:  

• 13th: Colombian military, using helicopters purchased from the United States, bombs village of Santo Domingo, Arauca Department, leaving 18 civilians dead, including 5 children.
• International Federation of Journalists says that of 50 journalists killed worldwide in 1998, ten were in Colombia, the largest number in any single country.
• FARC attacks paramilitary leader's headquarters and kills several civilians, including 2 children.