Social actors and government representatives sign a social and political pact for reparations and peace in Colombia on Apr. 11, the National Day of Remembrance and Solidarity with the Victims of the Conflict. Credit: UARIV

By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA, May 16 2016 (IPS)

“If you’re going to talk about Colombia and the peace process, do it somewhere else,” was heard at a regional preparatory meeting for the World Humanitarian Summit, according to Ramón Rodríguez, with the Colombian government’s Unit for Attention and Integral Reparation for Victims (UARIV).

“Cuba’s representative, for example, stated: ‘This is a World Humanitarian Summit, we’re going to talk about humanitarian questions in general, and not specific cases,” the official said with respect to the preparations for the first gathering of its kind, to be held May 23-24 in Istanbul.

“For the organisers of the World Humanitarian Summit, disasters are the main issue. They practically fobbed us off,” added Rodríguez, UARIV’s director of social and humanitarian questions, in an interview with IPS in his Bogotá office.

This is true even though United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, when he called the summit, declared that “We must ensure no-one in conflict, no-one in chronic poverty, and no-one living with the risk of natural hazards and rising sea levels is left behind.”

In any case, “the issue (of the Colombian armed conflict) draws a lot of attention, although it is very limited,” said Rodríguez, an industrial engineer who organised and directs the world’s biggest humanitarian aid logistics system, in terms of percentage of a national budget that goes to citizens of the country itself.

Colombia is the only country in Latin America and the Caribbean where a humanitarian crisis has been declared due to internal armed conflict.

In nearly seventy years of civil war in different shapes and formats, the counting of and attention to victims has undergone major changes. Today there is basically industrial-level aid, adapted to a lengthy, calculated disaster.

“We, the government, are the main humanitarian actor in Colombia,” said Rodríguez. “We have an emergency response team. We work with humanitarian organisations through local humanitarian teams.”

Perhaps the main lesson that the Colombian government learned was that it had to count the number of victims and people affected by the conflict, in order to address the humanitarian crisis in its true magnitude. Until 2004, getting the government to admit the number of victims was a tug-of-war.

In 1962, a study on Violence in Colombia (by Guzmán, Fals and Umaña) estimated that 200,000 people were killed between 1948 and 1962.

The victims of forced displacement began to be counted in 1985 by the Catholic Church, at the time the only non-governmental institution with the capacity to carry out a national census of displaced persons.

In 1994, the government put the number of displaced persons at 600,000; however, the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) counted 900,000.

But it was a 2004 Constitutional Court sentence that ordered the government to – gradually – acknowledge the real number of displaced persons, thus recognising the effects of the war.

The Court has been able to verify compliance with the ruling thanks to the support of a non-governmental alliance of academics and researchers: the Follow-up Commission on Public Policies on Forced Displacement.

Finally, in 2011, on the initiative of the government of current President Juan Manuel Santos, whose term began in 2010, the Victims and Land Restitution Law was approved. Among the many measures it involved, it created the UARIV.

At the time, the government recognised 4.5 million people affected by the war in a country of 48 million.

The UARIV opened a Single Registry of Victims, which up to Apr. 1, 2016 had counted a total of 8,040,748 victims since 1985.

Apart from the debate on whether the victims were undercounted, or the number of victims grew, or what grew was the number counted by the state, today UARIV knows that 84.2 percent of the registered victims are displaced persons, and that 45.4 percent come from the geostrategic, resource-rich and dynamic department of Antioquia in northwest Colombia.

It also reports that when the threats peak, this coincides with a peak in forced displacement of people from their land, which intensified between 1995 and 2007, while kidnappings (which account for 0.5 percent of victims) peaked in 2002 and are now becoming a thing of the past.

The UARIV also recognises that the worst years of the war were between 2000 and 2008, and that 2015 has been the most peaceful year since 1985.

In addition, the unit reports that among the victims there are slightly more women than men, while children are the single largest group. And it says one-fourth of the victims are black or indigenous people.

Rodríguez has kept up his monitoring as the peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas continue in Havana.

“I asked for a report for the Jan. 1-Apr. 30 period,” he said. “In the same period last year we had 15 mass displacements. In 2016 we had 16. In 2015 1,425 families were affected, 5,721 people. So far this year we have 1,200 more people. Which means that there was an increase in the number of people affected between 2015 and 2016.”

The increase is attributed to criminal bands made up of former far-right paramilitaries, and to the National Liberation Army (ELN), a smaller left-wing rebel group, with which the government recently announced the start of talks.

Colombia is now on the verge of a peace deal. But Rodríguez said it will take “three to five years to achieve peace. There will be an upsurge in violence,” not only because of former paramilitaries but also guerrillas who refuse to lay down their arms.

“Something that should be shown at the World Humanitarian Summit is the rise in violence that is going to occur when the peace agreement is signed. The question of control territory is of great importance to the armed actors, and converges with economic aspects,” said the official.

For Rodríguez, the “victim response, assistance and reparations model” that Colombia has come up with is another key element that would be useful to share at the Istanbul summit.

The model has two phases. The first, immediate humanitarian aid, operates within 48 hours after acts of violence, and comes in two forms: funds, through the municipalities, and in kind, through operators who are subcontracted, who were paid a combined total of more than five million dollars in 2015 for providing services.

Several months later, the victims are registered in the Single Registry of Victims, and emergency and transition aid (for housing and food) begins. The last phase is reparations, which includes indemnification of different kinds.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

Journalist Juan Gossaín (left) and the Colombian government’s chief negotiator Humberto de la Calle in the latter’s apartment in Cartagena de Indias, during an interview about the peace talks with the FARC. Credit: Omar Nieto/Prensa de Presidencia de Colombia

By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTÁ, Jul 7 2015 (IPS)

There is a growing sensation in Colombia that the peace talks with the FARC guerrillas are “about to come to an end” – in success or failure, according to the government’s chief negotiator, Humberto de la Calle.

In his apartment overlooking the sea in the Caribbean coastal city of Cartagena de Indias, former vice president De la Calle (1994-1996) was interviewed by veteran Colombian journalist Juan Gossaín. The two used to work together on the morning news and talk programme of the RCN Radio station, which Gossaín headed for 26 years, until 2010.

The interview was more like a friendly conversation, without a question and answer format. It was distributed by the Office of the High Commissioner for Peace to be published Sunday Jul. 5.

The chief negotiator, generally reluctant to talk to the media, warned that the government might walk away from the talks: “I want to tell the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) in all seriousness, this could end. It is likely that one day they won’t find us at the negotiating table in Havana’.”

“The patience of Colombians is running out. The risk is real,” said De la Calle, although he also stated that the process could end “because we reach an agreement, since in this final stretch we are dealing with important underlying issues.”

As De la Calle said, “although it seems like a paradox, the peace process has received more support from outside than here at home.”

President Juan Manuel Santos worked painstakingly and in secret to launch peace talks after taking office in August 2010.

And while in the talks themselves the government has never threatened to pull out, it has made such statements to the media in the past.

In October 2012 the talks were officially launched in Oslo, two years after Santos was sworn in, with Cuba and Norway as guarantors and Chile and Venezuela as facilitators. Since then the meetings have been held in Havana, where the 38th round of talks is now taking place.

Under the principle that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,” preliminary accords have been reached on three of the six main points on the agenda, in 32 months of talks.

These three points involve a wide range of aspects related to land reform; political participation; and the substitution of drug crops.

The pending items involve the right of victims on both sides to truth, justice and reparations; disarmament; and mechanisms for the implementation of an eventual peace deal.

The negotiations are taking place as the decades-long conflict drags on, and it looks like a clause stipulating that nothing that happens on the battlefield can affect the talks has fallen by the wayside.

The intensification of hostilities is costing lives and causing environmental disasters, and support for a continued military offensive, rather than a negotiated peace, is growing again.

But the same thing happened 15 years ago, as indicated by Gallup poll results.

To the question “what do you believe is the best way to solve the problem of the guerrillas in Colombia?” the response in June 2015 was a tie between those who selected the option “continue the talks until reaching a peace agreement” and those who chose “no talks; try to defeat them militarily.”

A similar tie was seen in July 2003, March 2004, October 2010 and June 2011, while in the rest of the polls carried out, a majority chose a negotiated solution.

Since 2001, a majority of respondents have consistently supported peace talks over a military solution, with the exception of the December 2001- July 2003 period.

But since December 2001, respondents have said they do not believe the insurgents could ever seize power by force.

Looking at Gallup polls over the past 15 years, it is clear that De la Calle’s assertion that “people are more skeptical than ever” regarding the peace talks is not true. The results indicate that, no matter what happens, the sense of “desperation” that the chief negotiator mentioned, and that his interviewer emphasised, fluctuates.

“We have to be honest enough to tell Colombians that the peace process is at its lowest ebb since the talks began,” De la Calle said.

But why is that happening? It’s the question of justice, he said. “It is the touchiest part of the negotiations. The FARC have to assume responsibility for their actions. The state does too, of course.”

De la Calle said the Colombian government would only agree to a ceasefire if the top FARC leaders spent some time in prison for crimes against humanity – although the negotiator said they would be held “in decent conditions, without bars or striped uniforms.”

He also acknowledged that the FARC “have said they are willing to accept a system of justice that would include these components.”

If that is true, it’s not clear where exactly the problem lies.

In February, the attorney general’s office revealed that it planned to investigate over 14,000 businessmen, ranchers, politicians and members of the security forces with alleged ties to the partially dismantled far-right paramilitaries.

Almost simultaneously, former president César Gaviria (1990-1994) proposed for these non-combatants “a pardon in exchange for their recognition of the crimes committed, an apology, and a willingness to provide reparations for the victims.”

Segments of the business community and some political factions welcomed or expressed an openness to discussing the proposal, others rejected it, and others were concerned or upset.

In any case, the ever vulnerable climate surrounding the peace talks became even more tense.

Not long afterwards, the negotiators in Havana announced a preliminary agreement regarding an issue that is especially thorny for those who not only enjoy impunity but have also been active behind the scenes, anonymously: a non-prosecutorial truth commission.

Above and beyond the discussion on justice and punishment, De la Calle says the main obstacle now faced in the peace talks is the question of a bilateral ceasefire – “the FARC’s top priority,” in his view. The insurgents would also have to stop raising funds through practices like extortion and involvement in the drug trade, he added.

A bilateral ceasefire when “there are other sources of violence, besides the FARC,” as De la Calle rightly points out?

The much smaller National Liberation Army (ELN) would appear to be awaiting the results of the peace talks with the FARC before launching its own negotiations, while remaining active.

Then there are the ultra-right-wing paramilitary groups that either did not take part in the 2003-2006 partial demobilisation or regrouped as what the government calls “Bacrim” – for “bandas criminales” or “criminal bands”.

“We can’t tell the security forces to stay quiet,” De la Calle said. “If they want a ceasefire, the government is willing to do that, but ‘concentration zones’ would be essential.”

In these “rural concentration zones” first demanded by Álvaro Uribe during his presidency (2002-2010), “convicted guerrillas would be held for a time, without requiring that they turn in their weapons,” De la Calle explained.

IPS postponed publication of this article in an unsuccessful attempt to obtain a response by email from FARC chief negotiator Iván Márquez to several of De la Calle’s statements.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

IFAD president Kanayo Nwanze, interviewed by IPS at the end of his Aug. 2-8, 2013 visit to Peru and Colombia. Credit: Juan Manuel Barrero/IPS

By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA, Aug 12 2013 (IPS)

“There is no development without peace. It should be understood that, for there to be development in a country, there must be an internal peace process,” says Kanayo Nwanze, president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

With respect to Colombia, the Nigerian expert in agricultural development said: “We have to create a platform of trust” in abandoned rural communities.

IFAD is the only United Nations agency created to provide financial support to peasants and smallholder farmers. It works with governments, but in bottom-to-top projects. Organised groups of people propose their own initiatives which compete for funding, through the Agriculture Ministry in the case of Colombia.

The funds are managed by the communities themselves. More than 1,700 projects presented by Colombian rural groups obtained support that way through the IFAD-Rural Opportunities project that began in 2007 and is now coming to an end.

IFAD is now launching a new programme in Colombia through the Agriculture Ministry, which will act in war zones, termed “territorial consolidation areas” by the government – a controversial concept involving both questions of security and development.“IFAD is not a top-down institution, it is bottom-up. You walk with the communities. They have to be part of the project. They have to own it.” -- Kanayo Nwanze

“Small and medium enterprises in rural areas are a source of generating social stability in countries,” Nwanze says in this interview with IPS in Bogotá at the end of his Aug. 2-8 visit to Peru and Colombia.

Nwanze met with the presidents of both countries – Ollanta Humala of Peru and Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia – and visited rural communities.

Q: IFAD has wide experience working in conflict zones to bring development and to help to build peace. How can this experience be applied in Colombia?

A: We have found in many parts of Africa and Asia – India is a very good example – where, if there is ability to organise rural populations, women and men and children, and give them opportunities to have gainful employment…youth in particular are less likely to be attracted by rhetoric and extremism.

Just a few days ago we launched a new programme called TOP (Trust & Opportunities Project), which takes the first project into a different dimension, a much higher dimension.

Trust & Opportunities, we believe, will contribute significantly to bringing hope, economic development, and social inclusiveness to rural areas of Colombia. And we hope that this process will contribute to peace and development in Colombia.

Q: Most of the places where the new project will be deployed in Colombia are still war zones. What kind of concrete difficulties could that pose?

A: I can talk from our experiences elsewhere. A good example is…projects involving community development and natural resource management in communities of the northeastern states of India.

The primary impact of that project was not only community development and management of natural resources, but [the fact that] it generated such economic benefits that young people who formally were engaged in extremism now had jobs, and it reduced the rate of insurgency.

You see, IFAD is a unique institution. Apart from being a specialised U.N. agency, which gives us…global legitimacy and trust by populations and governments, [we have] the ability to organise rural populations, so that they have…their own structural governance platform to operate.

You need a mechanism where you can build trust, between the populations in the war zone and the governments. And this is what IFAD is fantastic at doing. We trust and we are trusted by the communities; they see us as their friends. The governments we work with – in Colombia [for instance] – see us as very apolitical [and that] our interests are basically for the populations and for the national policy dialogue.

The difficulties that people often face in these communities is the way…an idea or a concept [is presented to them] – you have to avoid just parachuting in and telling them ‘this is what you have to do’.

IFAD is not a top-down institution, it is bottom-up. You walk with the communities. They have to be part of the project. They have to own it. And that way they are committed to it; when they own it they want it to succeed; if it is parachuted from the top, they reject it.

And there is no other institution that I know of within the U.N. system or within the international financial institutions that goes to the remotest and most difficult areas in the countries. IFAD does.

Q: Is the new TOP in line with Colombia´s policies?

A: First of all, I think it is important to understand that IFAD only works with governments. IFAD does not define for governments what governments should do. IFAD works with governments, partners and rural populations, to define the programme that they want.

Now, President Santos’ major priority today is peace and inclusive development. So what do we do? We say OK.

We have allocated 25 million dollars. That is nothing for Colombia. But what we bring is knowledge and experience on how we work with rural populations. So, we are a facilitator…[and] our programmes are defined by the strategy and the priority of the governments for its people.

Our programmes are not political. But the outputs, the results can have political impact, because they bring about political stability and trust in the community, which is the foundation for peace.

In Latin America – in Brazil, Peru or Guatemala – or in different countries in Africa or Asia, when you go to the community, you see the commitment and the excitement they have, for the simple fact that they are now doing dignified activities that are generating money.

Do you think that they want to take up arms against the government? No. That is so fundamental.

Q: What general impression did you get from your trip to Peru and Colombia?

A: In both countries I was impressed. In Peru, because of the president’s commitment to agriculture and rural development. I’m also impressed with the emphasis that is given to creating peace through investment in development, in both countries.

Unless we have stable and vibrant rural communities, we cannot achieve sustainable development in any country, because you always have this gap between those who have and those who have not. And when the gap gets to [a certain] point, it’s like a string that snaps. And when it snaps, you have political crisis.

Excerpt:

Navi Pillay at a press conference in the Palais des Nations, Geneva. Credit: UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferre

By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA, Jul 18 2013 (IPS)

The Colombian army killed Marta Díaz’s son Douglas in 2006, dressed him in combat fatigues and reported him as a FARC guerrilla killed in a shootout. Díaz searched for him everywhere, in prisons, hospitals and morgues, until she finally managed to track down his remains in 2008.

Douglas was just another “false positive” – the euphemism used in this South American country to describe army killings of young civilians passed off as guerrilla casualties.

Since then, Díaz, an activist with the Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE), has helped hundreds of other mothers who have lost their sons.

“Last year I received 27 death threats. And there have been seven so far this year,” she told IPS.

On Wednesday, Díaz was at the Centre for Memory, Peace and Reconciliation in Bogotá, established by the city government to promote debate and actions to document what is happening in Colombia’s decades-long civil war.“Last year I received 27 death threats. And there have been seven so far this year” -- Marta Díaz.

Seven human rights umbrella groups representing more than 400 organisations met this week with United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay and Anders Kompass, her director of field operations and technical cooperation.

Many victims like Díaz were in the packed auditorium. Pillay and Kompass heard more than 100 three-minute speeches.

Closing the office

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced Tuesday that he would close the Colombia office of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

Díaz said the fact that the announcement was made just when Pillay was starting a four-day visit to Colombia indicated that it was aimed at “confounding her and all of us human rights defenders, to get us all to fight to prevent the OHCHR from pulling out.”

The strategy was to divert attention from denunciations of human rights violations, which would be overshadowed by the news, Díaz said.

“It surprised me as much as it did the rest of you,” Pillay said on Wednesday, referring to the president’s announcement.

“We don’t need a U.N. human rights office in our country anymore,” Santos stated in an address given in Bogotá, which reached Pillay when she was in Santander de Quilichao, in the war-torn southwestern province of Cauca.

Pillay travelled to Cauca to meet for several hours with leaders of black, indigenous and rural communities who had plenty to say about the need for multilateral bodies to continue monitoring human rights in this country.

The OHCHR office in Colombia opened in 1997, and each renewal of its mandate has been preceded by a quiet diplomatic tug-of-war.

The authorities’ dislike of the U.N. office peaked after the May 2002 massacre in the village of Bojayá, where 119 people were killed and 98 injured after villagers took refuge in the church.

Shortly before they fled, the leftwing FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), who were lobbing homemade mortars at far-right paramilitary fighters who had set up camp behind the church, hit the building with a gas cylinder bomb that veered off course.

Kompass, the OHCHR representative in Colombia at the time, went on a mission to the village of Bojayá, on the Atrato river in northwestern Chocó province.

In his report, Kompass said all of the armed parties to the conflict had to answer for the massacre: the FARC guerrillas, who bombed the church; the paramilitary United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) – since demobilised in talks with the government – which had occupied the village; and the state itself.

The government of then-President Andrés Pastrana (1998-2002) criticised the report, and the army’s Fourth Brigade said it did not “share unfounded versions which are aimed at showing possible ties between the army and navy and the illegal (paramilitary) self-defence groups.”

From Geneva, then-U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson intervened in support of Kompass.

But on Jun. 14, 2002, Kompass’s mission in Colombia was abruptly cut short. His removal was the condition set by the government to keep the OHCHR office open.

Kompass is now the person who names the directors of the OHCHR country offices. For example, he designated Todd Howland to head the Colombia office, who at the start was seen by activists as too quiet.

But on Jul. 10, Howland issued a harshly worded report on what happened during protests by peasant farmers in Catatumbo, an impoverished area in northeast Colombia on the border with Venezuela.

The peasants in Catatumbo, who have been protesting for over a month, are demanding that the area be declared a “peasant reserve” and that a scheme be adopted that would allow them, in an organised manner, to stop producing coca – their main livelihood in the isolated, roadless area — and switch to alternative crops.

But no progress has been made towards an official declaration of the peasant reserve, and the government instead ordered the eradication of coca crops by force in June. The crackdown on the protests has left four dead and 15 injured.

Howland reported grave violations of economic, social and cultural rights in the Catatumbo region. He also said that during the crackdown on the protests shots were fired from high-powered rifles that are usually used by the security forces, which indicated “excessive use of force” against the demonstrators.

High-level Colombian officials accused the OHCHR office of exceeding its mandate, just a few days ahead of the second visit to the country by Pillay, who before being named to her current post served as a judge on the International Criminal Court, which has Colombia under observation.

Body count scandal

Pillay’s first visit was in October 2008, when the “false positives” scandal broke out, involving the killings of at least 1,416 people by the security forces as a result of the “body count” system. This army strategy used incentives like weekend passes, cash bonuses, promotions and trips abroad to reward soldiers and officers for “results” in the counterinsurgency effort.

The bodies of the victims, some of whom were lured from poor neighbourhoods by false job promises and then killed, were presented as guerrillas killed in combat.

Although extrajudicial executions have been committed for over three decades in Colombia, the statistics show that the number of “false positives” shot up during the government of rightwing President Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010).

According to Javier Giraldo, the priest who directs the human rights and political violence data bank of the Jesuit Centre for Popular Research and Education (CINEP), it is “very worrisome that the peak in false positives killings occurred from 2006 to 2008 – just when President Santos served as defence minister.”

Santos was defence minister from July 2006 to May 2009. The CINEP data bank documented 918 “false positives” between 2006 and 2008.

Reports of killings of this kind dropped to 18 a year in 2009 and 2010, before increasing to 85 in 2011 and falling again to 52 in 2012.

Santos claims that he worked to put an end to the practice when he was defence minister. “We changed the doctrine,” he said on Thursday – thus acknowledging that there was a specific “body count” strategy.

But according to the president, “the country’s need for a United Nations Human Rights Office…has gradually disappeared.

”I’m going to tell (Pillay) that we are discussing whether extending the mandate is really worth it. Or, if it is extended, it would be for a very short time, because Colombia has made enough progress to say: ‘We don’t need any more United Nations human rights offices in our country’,” he added.

Various U.N. sources, as well as international affairs expert Laura Gil, have been telling IPS over the last three years that the government was hoping to close down the U.N. office.

The sources said Santos wanted to shed Colombia’s reputation of having the worst humanitarian crisis in the Western hemisphere, in order to request admission to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the 34-member-strong nations club, which aims to sets high human rights standards.

They explained that being under OHCHR monitoring was not compatible with membership in the OECD.

Teacher Nelly Olaya shows IPS the Floragaita school greenhouse, where seedlings are grown to help reforest the headwaters of the Las Ceibas river. Credit: Courtesy FAO

By Constanza Vieira
NEIVA, Colombia, May 8 2012 (IPS)

“Out of love for the river, we reforest, recycle, and make this place beautiful,” says a sign welcoming visitors to the Floragaita school, where a balsa (Ochroma pyramidale) tree with enormous white flowers guards the entrance to the lush green grounds on a hill in the heart of Colombia’s Andes mountains.

The Floragaita schoolchildren themselves came up with that slogan for a campaign launched in 2006 by Celia Cardozo, a slight, vivacious teacher who coordinates the 10 public secondary schools that serve the rural outskirts of Neiva, the capital of the southwestern province of Huila, which have incorporated environmental issues in the teacher training programme.

The campaign won a prize granted as part of the Las Ceibas River Basin project, which got under way in 2008 in this rural, mountainous area outside Neiva. Before the project began, local farmers widely used the slash-and-burn technique and people dumped everything into the river, from raw sewage to old mattresses.

Cardozo is determined to buy a blender to make recycled paper at the Santa Helena secondary school, which is in the same area. “People here don’t have paper,” she told IPS. But she added that the main objective is “to save even just one little tree a year.”

In February, the Santa Helena school won 450 dollars when it took second place in a contest for a prize awarded locally by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). But that is 60 dollars less than what the blender costs.

First prize, 560 dollars, went to Floragaita, for the best proposal for environmental education in the Las Ceibas River Basin.

The Las Ceibas River is the only source of piped water for Neiva, a city of 295,000 people 300 km southwest of Bogotá, where day-time temperatures range between 28 and 37 degrees year-round.

The population of Neiva grew by 130,000 people in the last 20 years. But the water flow in the Las Ceibas River has significantly declined.

The challenges are to reforest, in order to improve water retention, and to put an end to the slash-and-burn technique, traditionally used by local peasant farmers to clear land, which increases the sediment load in the river.

Another task is to get the 600 families living in scattered houses in the river basin to adopt farming practices that combine production with conservation, while improving water quality.

“If we manage to do this, it’s possible that by 2030, when Neiva has grown by another 100,000 or 130,000 inhabitants, we will still have good quality water in the river, to supply that population,” Humberto Rodríguez, an engineer who heads the Las Ceibas River Basin project, told IPS.

Despite the abundance of water resources in much of Latin America and the Caribbean, 15 percent of the population lack access to drinking water, and more than 20 percent have no basic sanitation.

The Las Ceibas project, which began in 2008, operates well under a trust fund system which ensures that the money is not lost in a maze of poor management.

Besides FAO, partners in the project include the Empresas Públicas de Neiva – the municipal public utilities company – and the city government, which told IPS that the plan is for the project to continue to form part of its Development Plan until 2015.

Other partners are the Huila provincial government and the Corporación Autónoma Regional del Alto Magdalena – the environmental authority in the area.

But in Rodríguez’s view, the main partner is the community itself. “Unless the community makes a project its own, you can’t say things are working well,” he said.

“Governance means, precisely, participation and responsibility shared by the institutions and the community. Only under these conditions can we say there is real governance” in the river basin area, he said.

In Floragaita, they are starting at the beginning: with the children. In fact, only three of the 18 students say they think “the city is better.” The rest say they want to stay in the countryside.

“They say they don’t like Neiva because it’s too hot there, and because everything costs money, even a glass of water, and there are many thieves. The smartest ones make these comparisons,” said Nelly Olaya, a teacher who works together with Cardozo.

The dirt road climbs in several curves before it reaches the school, where three one-storey buildings, including a cafeteria, are surrounded by trees and abundant vegetation. In one of the large classrooms, there are half a dozen computers with broadband internet connection.

Downhill, cassava, plantain, carrots, lettuce, cilantro, chives, bananas, giant granadilla, papaya and medicinal herbs are growing in the school’s vegetable garden.

There is also a greenhouse where a variety of trees are grown, including: soursop (Annona muricata), which produces a long, prickly green fruit that can weigh up to two kilos; cambara (Erisma uncinatum), a tree that provides medium density wood that is used locally for making fences; and naranjillo (Trichanthera gigantea) and naked albizia (Albizia carbonaria), trees that protect river banks.

Sometimes, the children of Floragaita make field trips to plant dozens of tree seedlings along rivers on nearby farms.

The first tree planting session took place in 2005, when the children planted 75 seedlings. They have planted 300, 400 and up to 1,200 seedlings along rivers threatened by deforestation in this rural area.

On the tree planting days, the children play games using the multiplication tables, and learn what each tool is called in English.

Because the Floragaita school grounds are small, Olaya proposed that the families prepare an area where the children can sit outside, “so they won’t spend all day in the classroom.”

That is how the school got its “environmental classroom”, 3,200 square metres in size, under large pine trees, with aviaries made by the children and their parents, and tables and wooden benches painted with hearts and surrounded by flowers.

Hands-on mathematics is taught here. “I give them a tape measure and I tell them ‘two metres long’, ‘one centimetre wide’,” and the students measure the objects around them, the teacher says.

“There is no need to write on a blackboard that this is a metre and this is a centimetre; we don’t have paper here,” Olaya explains. “So I teach this to them using a tape measure.”

The children sit and look out at the view for geography class, learning what is a hill, a mountain range, a river basin, a tributary, or a valley.

The land for the environmental classroom was loaned to the school by Álvaro Díaz, the president of the Junta de Acción Comunal, an elected local civic organisation.

Díaz’s eight children went to school here. “The future is in the countryside,” which is why it is important for the children to fall in love with nature, he says, adding that they “learn better” in a classroom like this one.

But of the 35 assistant teachers who have been posted to Floragaita, 29 or 30 hope to continue their studies in areas that have nothing to do with the countryside.

Olaya always takes the new assistant teachers to the greenhouse first, and tells them: “If you don’t want to get dirty, then don’t be a rural schoolteacher.”

* This article was produced with support from FAO.

Romeo Langlois, a French reporter in Colombia, removed his helmet and bullet-proof vest and ran towards the guerrillas during fighting between them and Colombian army troops on Saturday, Defence Minister Juan Carlos Pinzón reported.

The fate of Romeo Langlois, a French reporter who has worked in Colombia for 12 years, is unknown. Credit: Courtesy Simone Bruno

The Colombian government classifies Langlois as “missing,” while the French government said he was “kidnapped” or “taken prisoner” during the clash.

“Romeo was shot in his left arm and is wounded. And because of the pressure at the scene, he took off his helmet and vest and headed towards the area where the guerrillas were located,” Pinzón said.

Langlois was wearing the military gear because the Colombian army requires that it be used by journalists who are accompanying troops to cover war operations.

But reporters’ advice among themselves is to take off the military gear immediately in case of attack, to avoid being taken for combatants.

According to several members of the army who were taking part in the antinarcotics operation, Langlois abandoned his camera and, shouting that he was a journalist, ran towards the place where the rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) were shooting from.

“I don’t think there has ever been a kidnapping of a correspondent by the guerrillas,” Alfredo Molano, a local journalist who is a sociologist by training, told IPS.

“As far as we know, from the official sources, the reporter voluntarily gave himself up to those who were winning the fight, who at that moment were the guerrillas,” he added. “He couldn’t run to the police or the army, because they had been defeated. So he waved a white flag to the winners of the clash.”

Langlois, who works for the global television network France 24 and the French newspaper Le Figaro, has lived in Colombia for 12 years. He has a reputation among his fellow foreign reporters as a courageous journalist with great expertise on this country’s decades-old armed conflict, the economic interests underlying the war, and its victims.

He and another French reporter, Pascale Mariano, made the documentary “Pour tout l’or de Colombie” (For All the Gold in Colombia), which is currently being shown on many television stations around the world.

The incident occurred on Saturday Apr. 28 near the village of Buena Vista in the southern region of Caquetá, which formed part of the 42,000-square-km area demilitarised by the government of Andrés Pastrana (1998-2002) for peace talks with the FARC, which collapsed in 2002.

Langlois was working with Italian documentary-maker Simone Bruno on an assignment about drug trafficking for France 24 and Le Figaro. They reached the Larandia military base in Caquetá on Tuesday Apr. 24.

A team of reporters from the National Geographic Channel was also there, to film the antinarcotics operation.

But the operation, originally scheduled for Tuesday, was postponed on Wednesday, and again on Thursday and Friday. The National Geographic team left, and Bruno returned to Bogotá because he had other work to do.

IPS learned on Sunday that approximately one week ago, the FARC refused entry into the region by a team of human rights defenders on a routine mission because, according to rumours, the rebel group was planning operations in the area.

A joint army-police antinarcotics force finally made the incursion on Saturday in Unión Peneya, where the village of Buena Vista is located.

Official reports differ as to what happened, and on the number of casualties – reported as anywhere between four and 21 – when an armed forces helicopter was shot.

Reporters Without Borders said in a statement Monday that “The war of words and half-truths is an intrinsic part of the Colombian civil war, and the consequences can be dangerous for its victims. The search for the facts must continue and no statement liable to expose Langlois to more danger should be made until the exact situation has been established.”

Bruno, whose computer was stolen in Bogotá in strange circumstances Saturday, returned to the region early on Sunday.

That afternoon, speaking from Caquetá, he told the television news station Canal Capital that the army had said they would give him Langlois’ video camera, but without the memory sticks – in other words, without the footage he had taped.

Bruno said he did not know where the reports that Langlois had been kidnapped came from, and stressed that the Colombian government reported him as “missing.”

Journalists who cover such operations are given workshops by the military on the risks they will face.

Although journalists travelling in a military vehicle do not in theory lose their protection as civilians under international humanitarian law, according to the same law, they accompany troops under their own risk.

Jesuit priest Javier Giraldo, a prominent human rights defender, pointed out that this kind of reporting “is very dangerous and can be misinterpreted by the other side.”

“Romeo Langlois is well-known by Colombianas y Colombianos por la Paz (Colombians for Peace),” said Gloria Cuartas, a member of that civil society group which helped broker the release of 30 civilian and military hostages held for years by the FARC, and which got the rebel group to promise in February to stop kidnapping civilians for ransom.

“I can attest to his commitment to covering Colombia’s complex armed and social conflict, and to his efforts to reach the victims and the communities that have been affected the most,” Cuartas, who won the 2008 Edict of Nantes prize granted by that French city to those who stand out for their fight for the rule of law, civil peace and freedom of conscience, told IPS.

“Human rights defenders have known Romeo Langlois for years,” said Claudia Girón, a psychologist who is the coordinator of projects with the Manuel Cepeda Vargas Foundation, a local human rights group.

Langlois’ most outstanding journalistic work has included “Galerías de la memoria” (roughly, galleries of memory) – travelling exhibits that seek to draw visibility to victims of state crimes, Girón said.

“Langlois is one of those people who, from an ethical standpoint, has shown all sides of the conflict, has pushed for peace in Colombia, and has shown the complexity of this conflict, in which there are victims on all sides, caused by all of the armed groups,” said Girón, who appealed for his safety.

“What matters at this summit is not what is on the official agenda,” said Uruguayan analyst Laura Gil, echoing the conventional wisdom in this Colombian port city, where the Sixth Summit of the Americas ended Sunday without a final declaration.

The Fifth People's Summit ended with a peaceful demonstration in Cartagena. Credit: People's Summit press office

The Fifth Summit, held in Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad and Tobago, in 2009, had a similar outcome.

At the Sixth Summit, which opened Saturday Apr. 14, the foreign ministers failed to reach prior agreement on a consensus document.

Key points of discord were the continued U.S. embargo against Cuba and Argentina’s claim to sovereignty over the Falkland/Malvinas Islands, a British overseas territory in the South Atlantic.

Gil, an expert on international relations who lives in Colombia, told IPS that “a consensus on drugs seems to be forming among the countries of Latin America.”

“These three issues are precisely the ones that are dividing the hemisphere in two, or confronting the countries of Latin America with the United States and Canada,” she said.

“The Summit of the Americas process is in crisis. What the Sixth Summit clearly shows is that certain issues cannot be put off any longer, particularly that of Cuba,” excluded from the Americas summits due to pressure from the United States, she added.

In Gil’s opinion, “there will not be another summit without Cuba. Either Cuba is included, or there will not be a summit at all. The absence of (Ecuadorean President Rafael) Correa is a red alert,” she said, referring to the Ecuadorean president’s promise not to attend any further hemispheric meetings to which Cuba is not invited.

According to the expert, “Colombia positioned itself as a bridge, able to facilitate relations between contrary ideological blocs. But from this position, Colombia cannot work miracles.

“This summit reminds us that ideologies are still a force to be reckoned with. The limitations are plain to be seen,” she said.

The Venezuelan ambassador to the Organisation of American States (OAS), Roy Chaderton – a former Venezuelan ambassador to Colombia and the U.S. – told the Colombian radio station RCN Radio: “This is a rebellion by Latin American democracies against U.S. and Canadian hegemony.”

Canada and the United States were left in isolation in a vote on a resolution to put an end to Cuba’s exclusion, which was split 32 against two, at a meeting of foreign ministers that was to approve documents to be signed by the presidents.

In addition to Correa, Haitian President Michel Martelly and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega were also absent, having sent last-minute cancellations. Ortega led a rally in Managua in solidarity with Cuba Saturday Apr. 14.

On Saturday morning it was announced that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez would not be attending the summit, due to the treatment for his cancer.

At the end of the first day’s meetings, the countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) released a declaration in Cartagena stating that they would not attend any further summits without the participation of Cuba.

ALBA is made up of Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Venezuela.

The host’s speech

At the opening ceremony of the Sixth Summit, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos did not mince words. He exhorted delegates “not to be indifferent” to the changes occurring in Cuba, which he said were ever more widely recognised and should be encouraged.

“It is time to overcome the paralysis that results from ideological obstinacy and seek a basic consensus so that this process of change has a positive outcome, for the good of the Cuban people,” he said.

“The isolation, the embargo, the indifference, looking the other way, have been ineffective,” Santos said.

As for Haiti, the poorest country in the hemisphere, Santos recommended supporting the agenda of the Haitian government, instead of pushing “our own agendas.”

He also said that “Central America is not alone.” Organised crime must be combated, but anti-drug policy should be focused on “the victims,” including “the millions” locked up in prisons, Santos said.

This summit will not find an answer to Latin America’s calls for facing up to the failure of the war on drugs, “of this I am completely certain,” he said.

Militarisation marches on

U.S. President Barack Obama let it be understood that his country would tolerate flexibilisation of Latin American anti-drug policies, saying “I think it is entirely legitimate to have a conversation about whether the laws in place are ones that are doing more harm than good in certain places.”

But he flatly rejected legalisation.

“I know there are frustrations and that some call for legalisation. For the sake of the health and safety of our citizens – all our citizens – the United States will not be going in this direction,” Obama said on Saturday.

He also announced that the U.S. government would increase its aid to the war on drugs led by “our Central American friends” and pledged “more than 130 million dollars this year.”

Colombian expert Ricardo Vargas of Acción Andina, a local think tank, summed up the U.S. position: “‘You may decriminalise drugs, but that will not eliminate the mafias. And we will be there’,” with a military presence as soon as drug shipments cross the borders, he told IPS.

The People’s Summit

From another part of the city of Cartagena, Enrique Daza, the coordinator of the Hemispheric Social Alliance, a movement of social organisations that organised the Fifth People’s Summit, held in parallel to the Summit of the Americas, announced their “satisfaction” at the same time as President Santos received a standing ovation in the auditorium where the heads of state were gathered.

“They were not able to keep our demands hidden,” Daza said at the close of the counter-summit.

The alternative summit rejected the United States’ “imposition of its agenda” at the Summits of the Americas, and demanded an end to militarisation based on the pretext of the war on drugs, which in fact ends up criminalising social protest, he said.

In its final declaration, the People’s Summit castigated the United States and Canada for insisting on the promotion of free trade treaties with other countries of the continent.

Canada came in for heavy criticism for fomenting a “predatory model” for the operations of its mining companies in Latin America. “The rights of investors cannot take precedence over the rights of people and of nature,” the final declaration says.

The gathering of social movements, left-wing groups and human rights, indigenous, environmental and women’s organisations also launched a veiled attack on socialist governments in Latin America.

While recognising the efforts of bodies such as ALBA and the fledgling Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), the declaration expressed that “progressive and left-wing” governments in the Americas should take steps against the extraction of natural resources and the concentration of land ownership.

On the positive side, the People’s Summit proposed independent integration within the region, and knowledge and respect for the contributions of indigenous people and peasant farmers to the art of “good living” and a culture of peace.

One of the participants at the Fourth Summit of Indigenous Leaders of the Americas, which met this week in Cartagena, Colombia. Credit: Camilo Segura/IPS

By Camilo Segura Álvarez
CARTAGENA DE INDIAS, Colombia, Apr 14 2012 (IPS)

During the closing session of the Social Forum of the Sixth Summit of the Americas, the broadcast signal was cut off, triggering protests from participating indigenous leaders. But that did not stop the voice of Abya Yala – the ancestral name of the continent – from being heard.

The TV broadcast of the event was cut off as the final declaration of the Fourth Summit of Indigenous Leaders – held this week as part of the Social Forum – was being read out to the hemisphere’s foreign ministers, who are attending the Summit of the Americas this weekend in Cartagena.

According to the press office of Colombia’s foreign ministry, the presentation of the final declaration was not recorded because of a “blackout” in the venue where the Social Forum was held in this Caribbean port city.

The “blackout” occurred when Luis Evelis Andrade, chief councillor of the National Indigenous Organisation of Colombia (ONIC), was describing the sacredness of the coca leaf to native peoples.

“The words of indigenous people were sabotaged,” Silsa Arias, a leader of the Kankuama people of Colombia, told IPS.

ONIC sources described as “suspicious” the fact that the broadcast was interrupted just when the declaration was referring to the question of the legalisation of consumption of coca leaves.

The incident occurred prior to the arrival of presidents Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia and Evo Morales of Bolivia to the closing session of the Social Forum.

The Sixth Summit of the Americas has brought together the heads of state and government of the Americas – with the exception of Cuba, which was not invited – in Cartagena this weekend.

“We don’t want to be a folkloric aspect of democracy,” Andrade told IPS. He was one of the indigenous leaders meeting in Cartagena to present their position with respect to key issues for their people.

According to their final declaration, “Weaving Alliances in Defence of Mother Earth”, these issues are the legalisation of drugs; the armed conflict in Colombia; the extermination of indigenous cultures across the continent; the right of communities to prior consultation on extractive industry and infrastructure megaprojects that affect their territory; and development models.

To address these issues, the indigenous leaders decided to move over the next three years towards the creation of a council of social organisations of the native peoples of Abya Yala (one of the pre-Columbian names for the Americas), to hold a horizontal dialogue with the Organisation of American States (OAS) member countries.

The indigenous summit was attended by 244 indigenous leaders from Argentina, Barbados, Bolivia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, the United States, and Venezuela.

On Wednesday, Apr. 11 it was reported that 70 indigenous peoples in the Americas are in the process of “extermination.”

Several of the leaders urged the governments of the OAS member countries to urgently sign the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, approved by 143 countries at the U.N. General Assembly in 2007.

The ratification process for the Declaration, which the native peoples of the Americas see as an essential instrument for preventing the disappearance of indigenous cultures, has not yet been completed.

Andrade told IPS that while countries like El Salvador have not ratified the Declaration, others have done so but are not abiding by it.

Rejecting the use of indigenous peoples by governments as folkloric attractions, Andrade said “we want to be subjects of rights so that democracy will be a reality in our territories, and will be recognised by all indigenous peoples,” Andrade said.

Criticism of development models, defence of human rights, and rejection of megaprojects such as mines and hydroelectric dams are the main themes of the document presented to the OAS foreign ministers.

However, the emphasis on the consumption of coca leaf caused a commotion.

“How can alcohol and tobacco be legal in our territories, while an ageold tradition like the chewing of coca leaves is criminalised by the states,” said Miguel Palacín, the coordinator of the Andean Coordinator of Indigenous Organisations (CAOI).

Another central point of the final declaration was the indigenous movement’s criticism of the global policy to mitigate climate change.

The indigenous leaders demanded that their contributions be taken into account in the design of a new policy to confront global warming.

In addition, they had harsh words of criticism for the failure to comply with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – a set of anti-poverty and development targets adopted by the global community, with a 2015 deadline – with regard to native peoples. They also complained about the digital and technological gap.

At the end of the meeting, Silsa Arias stressed that “although we are invited to this kind of event, we have very little participation in far-reaching decisions in the continent.”

He thus proposed the creation of an indigenous consultative body, “which the states and the OAS secretariat-general itself would be legally bound to consult.”

At the same time, leaders from the Andean region proposed to strengthen legal action before the Inter-American justice system, which is handling more than 30 lawsuits against states for violations of the human rights of indigenous peoples.

Evo Morales addresses his people

Morales, Bolivia’s first-ever indigenous president, took part in the closing ceremony of the Social Forum, along with host President Santos.

Although he was not present for the debates, he emphasised the presence at the Social Forum of two presidents, which he described as “a step forward” that could have repercussions.

In the past, the dialogue took place along parallel tracks, and society and the presidents did not meet, he said.

Morales stressed the importance of moving towards “the nationalisation of natural resources, as a way to mitigate climate change,” because it is the communities who should administer the earth’s resources.

* With additional reporting by Constanza Vieira in Cartagena.

Analysts in Colombia have varied in their degree of optimism, but they generally agree that the release of the last 10 police and military hostages held by the FARC guerrillas, some since 1998, was a peace signal.

Monday’s release of the captives closed the chapter of the FARC’s (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) attempt to swap hostages – who they considered prisoners of war – for imprisoned insurgents. The governments of France, Switzerland, Spain and Venezuela all played a role as brokers in this process at one point or another.

The release of the last military and police captives was first announced in a Feb. 26 statement by the FARC leadership. Although some observers immediately described the declaration as “historic,” others took a more cautious approach, saying they would wait to see what happened.

In their message, the rebels also said they would put an end to kidnappings for ransom, one of the group’s sources of financing. According to the non-governmental organisation País Libre, the FARC is still holding some 400 kidnapping victims for ransom.

According to analyst Ariel Ávila, head of the Armed Conflict Observatory of the Bogotá think tank Nuevo Arco Iris, the underlying point is that the FARC “have decided to seek peace.”

Ávila said the release of the hostages sent a concrete message Monday to the government of conservative President Juan Manuel Santos: “The ball is in your court. You asked us to end kidnapping, so here you go.”

But the FARC also said in the late February communiqué that, if the government continued expanding military spending and attacks, “there will be more prisoners of war on both sides” – in other words, members of the security forces will continue to be seized if the number of captured rebels continues to climb.

However, Ávila said in response to a question from IPS that members of the military and police captured in combat by the FARC in the future will not be held captive for lengthy periods of time, but will be handed over within a few days or weeks to humanitarian organisations like the Red Cross.

This kind of operation involving the humanitarian handing over of troops in the hands of the guerrillas has taken place periodically ever since the FARC and the smaller rebel group National Liberation Army (ELN) first emerged in 1964.

The long road to freedom

With mediation by facilitators from France, Switzerland, Spain and Venezuela, the FARC swapped more than 350 rank-and-file members of the military and police for 14 imprisoned insurgents in 2001.

Since then, the guerrillas have only held officers and non-commissioned officers, to pressure for new hostage-prisoner swaps. But they have also taken civilian hostages, mainly politicians, the best-known of whom was former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.

At one point, the FARC had a list of more than 70 military, police and civilian captives held exclusively for the purpose of seeking an exchange with the government.

But the administration of right-wing former President Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) refused to negotiate, focusing instead on military rescue operations. Some were successful, such as the one mounted to release Betancourt and 14 other captives in 2008.

But others failed, prompting the FARC to make good on its standing threat to kill any hostages if an attempt was made to rescue them.

After the June 2007 death of 11 regional lawmakers in confusing circumstances in the jungles of the western province of Valle del Cauca, Liberal Party leader Piedad Córdoba, a congresswoman at the time, announced that she would dedicate all her efforts to achieving the release of every single hostage held by the FARC.

Then-president Uribe designated his Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chávez, and Córdoba as facilitators in hostage release negotiations with the FARC, a role they played between August and November 2007.

In 2008, Córdoba created the group “Colombians for Peace”, whose initial goal was to seek the release of the politicians held captive in the jungle, but which also brought about the unilateral release by the FARC of members of the military and police.

Their efforts ended up achieving the release of 10 civilian and 10 military and police hostages, prior to the last 10 hostages freed on Monday Apr. 2.

Her efforts ended up costing Córdoba her political career. In 2010, inspector general Alejandro Ordóñez removed her from the Senate and barred her from holding public office for 18 years, on charges that she collaborated with the FARC.

But Córdoba continued her humanitarian efforts until she even managed to convince the FARC to promise to stop kidnapping people for ransom.

Successful operation

For five months, the former senator helped prepare Operación Libertad (Operation Freedom), enlisting the active support of prominent international figures like Guatemalan Nobel laureate Rigoberta Menchú, who was in Colombia to attend the hostage release.

The operation began at 10:30 local time Monday morning, with a loaned Brazilian air force helicopter flying approximately one and a half hours from Villavicencio, capital of the central province of Meta, to a rendezvous point in the jungle, where it picked up the captives.

Seven hours later the helicopter was back in Villavicencio, where the airport was packed with the hostages’ families, peace activists and reporters. Fifty minutes later, the former captives and their family members were flown to the capital.

In a 10-minute televised speech, Santos celebrated the success of the operation, thanked the participants – without directly mentioning Córdoba or Colombians for Peace – and reiterated the need to secure the release of all civilian hostages.

The president emphatically stated that the search for peace was the business of Colombians – indicating that his strategy would not include involvement by foreign mediators.

Córdoba, meanwhile, said the FARC had confirmed that it would stop kidnapping civilians for ransom, and that it was interested in peace talks.

By IPS Correspondents and - -
GARZÓN, Huila, Colombia, Mar 21 2012 (IPS)

A thick fog flows over the eastern range of the Colombian Andes. Here and there, the constant wind lifts the clouds to reveal lagoons, cloud forests, and páramo, an Andean alpine ecosystem known as a “mountaintop sponge” for its massive water-holding capacity.

Emerald Energy oil well in Colombia. Credit: Elias Cabrera

In the municipal districts of Gigante and Garzón in the department (province) of Huila, the bucolic setting is interrupted by the platforms of several oil wells belonging to Emerald Energy PLC.

Emerald Energy, founded in London in 1996, was awarded its first exploration permit for the Matambo Bloc in Gigante. (Governments typically auction off oil exploration rights on specific parcels of land known as blocks or blocs.)

On Aug. 9, 2011, the Colombian Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development issued Environmental License 1609 to Emerald Energy, allowing it to install five new platforms and three oil wells in the VSM 32 Bloc, adjacent and uphill of the Matambo Bloc.

“Emerald Energy is destroying the land and water,” Armando Acuña, a municipal council member from Garzón, told CorpWatch. “Their exploration, with underground explosions is causing landslides and the ground to sink, homes, and crops are being destroyed and we are losing our water.”

Communities defend Matambo

Unique to the Americas, páramo are mostly found in the Andes Mountains, with more than 60 percent occurring in Colombia. The vegetation, a unique mixture of lichens, mosses, algae and grasses, has incredible water retention capacity, birthing major rivers such as the Orinoco, Magdalena and Amazon.

The Matambo Bloc, which sits below the páramo in the Magdalena Valley, gets its name from a mountain in the shape of the face of a giant who, according to local legend, will one day arise from the earth.

Since the Matambo Bloc was opened, the region encompassed by the operations has seen a steady deterioration of its land and water, according to the Intersectorial Association of Gigante & Garzón (AISEG).

In 2000, two years after the Gigante 1 well was drilled to 4,815 metres, “there was an explosion that resulted in a fire that burned for 25 days with a flame that was about 30 meters high, shutting down operations,” Jorge Enrique Alvarado, a municipal council member, told CorpWatch.

“This whole area had a dense hazy cloud over it during that whole month and the area nearby had all sorts of burnt oil and ash accumulated on their crops, cattle and fish ponds.”

In early January, the communities affected by Emerald Energy attempted to stop Emerald’s expansion.

“As of November 2011 we have been blocking the entrance to all operations in VSM 32 Bloc, and do not intend to allow any machinery to enter,” said Alberto Calderon, a member of Intersectorial Association of Gigante & Garzón (AISEG), at a public roundtable that followed the blockade.

The middle-aged farmer lives with his wife, two children and some cows and chickens on a small, self-sufficient farm that produces coffee, avocados, onions, and cacao. His land borders Emerald’s oil well Iskana 1.

“Nothing they have brought us has helped us,” he said of Emerald. “Our rivers are drying. They foment divisions within the community, and our youth do not want to work the land after they have worked for the company.”

Public meetings

In public meetings with Huila’s Governor Cielo Gonzalez in late January, Emerald Energy Legal Issues Representative Juan Manuel Cuellar defended the company’s commitment to affected communities.

“Emerald participated in the building of the school in Alto Corozal and the renovations of the cafeterias in the schools of Los Medios, Bajo Corozal, and the Silvania Educational Insitute. The company has also invested nearly three million dollars in repairing the region’s roads,” he said.

On Feb. 15, Cuellar held another public meeting in the city of Neiva with Gonzalez.

“The environmental license that was granted for the operations in the VSM 32 Bloc is one of the strictest in the country,” Cuellar told the gathering. “The company will respect it with responsibility and vigour, and there will be no exploration activities within Regional Natural Park Páramo of Miraflores Peak boundaries.”

Cuellar described other ways Emerald was helping the local communities, including road maintenance, repairing buildings, and making other investments that help offset its impact.

“Matambo Bloc includes three oil wells in production, three more wells being drilled and daily produces about 2,500 barrels of crude oil of which a 20 percent (fee) is paid to the Municipality of Gigante,” he said.

Cuellar did not respond to requests from CorpWatch to explain what measures the company was taking to minimise negative environmental impacts, how far the five oil wells in that bloc were from the national park boundary, and the situation facing the school in Cascajal.

The struggle for Miraflores

Uphill from the area of the Matambo Bloc, the climate cools and the crops and ecosystems adapt to the different environmental conditions. This is the area of the Miraflores Park and the VSM 32 Bloc, where activists are trying to block Emerald’s five new wells.

The Miraflores Park was established in 2005, after years of activism to support maintaining essential ecosystems. It is home to an array of biodiversity that includes endangered species such as the spectacled bear Tremarctos ornatus, puma Puma concolor, the endemic rufous-fronted parakeet Bolborhynchus ferrugineifrons and a variety of plant, fungi, bird, and butterfly species.

In the lower altitudes of this area sits the village of Silvania within a massive sea of coffee plants.

“This area supports the food security of all of Colombia. The coffee, plantain, lulo, grenadilla and other fruit crops that are produced here are exported all over the country to cities like Bogotá, Medellin, and Cali,” explains Edgar Quintero, a local shopkeeper and board member of the Intersectorial Association of Gigante & Garzón (AISEG), as he sips a cup of locally grown coffee in front of his corner store in Silvania’s small, nearly empty central plaza.

“This new license allows Emerald exploration and extraction rights up to 1,900 metres above sea level,” says Quintero.

Because the aqueducts for Gigante and Garzón are below 1,800 metres, “If any sort of spill or explosion were to happen, it would be a disaster since our water for drinking and irrigation comes from a source that is downhill and downstream from these new oil wells,” he says.

As the last rays of sunlight lit the western slope of the mountain, Calderon looked across the fertile landscape of fruits and vegetables and into an uncertain future: “This struggle for the land, the water, the forests and the páramo, it is not just for us and the earth. It is so our children have something to live from as the earth’s climate continues to change.”

*A longer version of this article originally appeared at Corpwatch.

Excerpt:

By Constanza Vieira and - -
BOGOTÁ, Feb 28 2012 (IPS)

Illegal spying on human rights activists and journalists is still happening in Colombia, according to a new report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Juan Carlos Monge and Todd Howland presenting the report. Credit: OHCHR Colombia

“These allegations should be more precise, they should not be generalisations,” he added.

After a major scandal broke out in 2009 over wiretapping and harassment of Supreme Court magistrates, political dissidents, human rights defenders and reporters by the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad (DAS), the domestic intelligence agency was officially closed in October 2011.

One month earlier, Jorge Noguera, director of DAS from 2002 to 2005, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for his involvement in the 2004 murder of a prominent sociologist by far-right paramilitaries.

More recent DAS directors as well as over 40 DAS employees and several high-ranking officials of the government of rightwing president Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) are currently under prosecution for illegal spying and harassment.

Nevertheless, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) states in its report for 2011, presented Monday Feb. 27 in Bogotá, that it continued receiving reports about illegal spying, especially from human rights defenders and journalists.

The OHCHR report on the situation of human rights in Colombia says “there has been uncorroborated information on the involvement of State agents, including members of civilian and military intelligence services, in illegal and clandestine operations.

“Most cases have not been resolved. If no significant progress is made in preventing, investigating and punishing these acts, it will be difficult to guarantee non-repetition,” it adds.

The report cites, for example, interception of emails and information theft against human rights defenders and journalists, even after DAS was closed down.

Virtually every United Nations report on Colombia since 1997 has recommended purging the country’s intelligence files, to guarantee respect for human rights. The latest report is no exception, which indicates that the purge has not been carried out.

The report recommends that “the process for updating, rectifying, annulling or keeping personal information in intelligence files should be regulated,” Juan Carlos Monge, deputy director of the OHCHR office in Colombia, said in a press conference in Bogotá Monday.

The Constitutional Court handed down a ruling to that effect in October.

The report says “The military intelligence services require public regulations to define and limit their actions. Their internal control mechanisms and public accountability need to be substantially strengthened, particularly in view of the increased allocation of military intelligence service resources planned” by the government of centre-right President Juan Manuel Santos, who took office in August 2010.

The OHCHR report, which was also presented Monday in Geneva to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, recognises that progress has been made in some cases of interception of emails and surveillance. “Not progress that we can be totally satisfied with, but a step forward at least,” Monge said.

The main progress made on that front, according to the U.N. agency, was the adoption in mid-2011 of the “Intelligence Law”, which was drawn up with advice and observations from the OHCHR office in Colombia, “to ensure that it was compatible with international human rights standards,” Monge said.

The report explains that “The law defines the limits and purposes of intelligence in terms of respecting human rights and creates two commissions: one to assist in the purging of intelligence files and another, a congressional commission, to monitor intelligence activities.”

But, it adds, “Noteworthy challenges to the implementation of this law are the weak mandate of the congressional commission and the lack of effective internal control mechanisms.”

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay recommended that the office of the inspector general (Procuraduría General de la Nación) “take more in-depth preventive and disciplinary actions vis-à-vis the intelligence agencies” Monge said.

The office of the inspector general should take on a more active role in purging the intelligence files, the OHCHR report adds, especially given the fact that it was left in charge of the DAS files when the intelligence agency was shut down.

“The 2011 report indicates the importance of the procuraduría in the purge,” Todd Howland, the new director of the OHCHR office in Colombia, said in response to a question from IPS. “That recommendation is very important, because they can take on a role of civilian oversight with respect to the files and that process.”

In response to another question from IPS, and referring to the prosecutions in the DAS case, Monge said it is best in these cases to continue forward “with actions that vindicate the good use to which intelligence should be put.”

The OHCHR recommends that measures be adopted in order to comprehensively reform the intelligence services and “transform the institutional culture that led to the commission of human rights violations.”

It also says it is “necessary to protect public officials from the intelligence services who report abuses or refuse to comply with illegal requests.”

The espionage carried out by the DAS, which answered directly to Uribe, went across borders, targeted citizens from other countries, and purportedly diverted U.S. and British military aid.

In May 2011, the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee urged Colombia to clarify and explain DAS’s spying activities and determine who was responsible for illegal espionage activities carried out in Europe, and against European citizens.

And the U.S. Congress ordered the State Department to review the use to which military aid to Colombia was put over the last decade. The aid totalled eight billion dollars and was channelled through the Plan Colombia military and counterinsurgency programme.

Excerpt:

The dismissal of charges in Colombia against Swiss mediator Jean-Pierre Gontard, who helped negotiate the release of numerous hostages held by guerrillas in this country between 1998 and 2008, is “magnificent news, for bilateral relations as well as at a purely human level,” Colombia’s ambassador to Switzerland, Claudia Turbay, told IPS.

And Gontard himself said in a telephone conversation with IPS that the legal decision “was worth waiting for.”

“The attorney general’s office investigated my conduct and everything I had done over the course of nearly 10 years, and realised that I carried out my humanitarian work with, of course, the FARC’s trust, but that I do not agree with their methods in the very least,” he said.

The FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) are the largest rebel group active in this country’s half-decade civil war.

In July 2008, the attorney general’s office of Colombia launched an investigation of Gontard for allegedly transporting ransom money for the FARC and for “complicity” with the left-wing group.

But Nancy Pardo, a prosecutor in the anti-terrorism unit of the attorney general’s office, found no grounds for the accusation and the case against Gontard was dropped.

Pardo’s 46-page decision, which cleared the Swiss envoy of all charges, is dated Jan. 16 and was communicated to the lawyers 11 days later, but did not become public until Wednesday Feb. 15.

Gontard said “There was evidence that I had not overstepped the limits of the mandate of my government, first, or the mandate of the Colombian government, in second place.”

The attorney general’s office concluded that the Swiss mediator “engaged in no illegal conduct” and that the evidence compiled during the investigation showed “that he never acted in benefit of the FARC.”

With respect to relations with the insurgent group, the attorney general’s office determined that Gontard “shared neither their ideas nor their ideology” and that his activities were limited to humanitarian efforts.

In search of peace

The 61-year-old Gontard, former deputy director of the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of Development Studies (IUED), worked for several years for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in conflicts in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

He was named by the Swiss and Colombian governments as mediator in negotiations with the FARC and the ELN (National Liberation Army), a smaller rebel group that also emerged in 1964.

In that capacity, he helped bring about the release of several foreign hostages held by the guerrillas. But his biggest achievement in Colombia, he said, was the role he played in the 2001 release of 357 soldiers and police captured by the FARC in a number of skirmishes, who were swapped for 14 imprisoned guerrillas.

“We negotiated for a year and a half” with the FARC and the government to reach that agreement, he said.

Gontard was first contacted in Geneva in 1998 by emissaries of the FARC and the ELN, who were attending an international meeting on peace in Colombia, in the company of then Colombian foreign minister María Emma Mejía – currently secretary general of the Union of South American Nations.

Gontard said he was surprised at the time that “the FARC knew more about my professional life than my family.”

The Colombian government of Andrés Pastrana (1998-2002) was just then launching peace talks with the insurgent group.

When the talks fell apart in February 2002, the FARC took then presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, who holds dual Colombian-French nationality, hostage.

In 2004, Gontard and French envoy Noël Saez were named as facilitators on a mission by Switzerland, France and Spain to negotiate Betancourt’s release.

It was Saez and Gontard who obtained the first proof that Betancourt was still alive.

When Betancourt and other hostages were rescued by the army in July 2008, Gontard and Saez were in the jungle seeking to meet with then FARC chief Alfonso Cano, with authorisation from the Colombian government. (Cano was killed in combat in November 2011.)

The importance of land

Today, Gontard believes that the most important thing happening in Colombia is the implementation of the Victims and Land Restitution Law pushed through Congress by the government of Juan Manuel Santos.

The government estimates that some 360,000 families were forced to flee their land – a total of 6.6 million hectares – since 1991.

The government hopes a total of 13,760 families will be returned to their land this year. The goal set for August 2014, when the Santos administration ends, is for 160,000 land claims to be resolved.

In addition, as a strategy to curb the phenomenon of forced displacement, the government is issuing land titles to families who have no official deed but can show that the land is theirs.

According to the Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES), more than five million people have been forcibly displaced in Colombia since 1985.

The Victims and Land Restitution Law is to be in effect for 10 years, as of January 2012. The goal for the next decade is to resolve at least 300,000 land claims.

“If even half of the president’s objective is met, I think many of the guys (guerrillas) who are now in the jungle will perhaps be in a position to sit down at a (negotiating) table and say ‘it was worth it’,” Gontard told IPS.

Because after decades of armed struggle over land, the insurgents could acknowledge that “at last, the poor campesinos (peasants) have returned to their land, or now have titles to good land,” the former mediator said.

“I believe this is the most crucial aspect of what is happening now,” he said.

“I hope that petty political bickering does not conceal the importance of the land problem,” said Gontard. “Colombia is the only country in the Americas that has experienced an agrarian counter-reform process. That has not even happened in Guatemala.”

“In the Andes, and all over the world, mining on mountains should be banned. Distinguished scientists and papers in the most prestigious journals are saying this,” a regional planning expert in Colombia told IPS.

Engineer Fernando Mauricio Castro illustrates the regional impact of mining using a map of Tolima. Credit: Helda Martínez/IPS

The expert in question is forestry engineer Fernando Mauricio Castro, in charge of planning for CORTOLIMA, the top environmental agency overseeing natural resources and their sustainable use in the central Andean province of Tolima, with its capital, Ibagué, located 202 km southwest of Bogotá.

Castro’s criticism was aimed at the South African mining company AngloGold Ashanti (AGA) which has been prospecting and exploring in this mountainous area since 2006.

The company’s gold mining operations were authorised by the state Colombian Institute of Geology and Mining during the administration of rightwing president Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010), which has been criticised for issuing mining licenses even in national parks and other protected or especially fragile areas.

The mining concession granted to the South African corporation, which is the world’s third largest producer of gold, is one of 9,011 legal mining permits listed in the Office of the Comptroller General’s report “Estado de los Recursos Naturales y del Ambiente 2010-2011” (State of Natural Resources and the Environment 2010-2011).

In addition, the report says, there are another 9,420 illegal mining operations, or 409 more than those formally approved.

Uribe’s successor, moderate rightwing President Juan Manuel Santos, has described mining as the chief among five engines driving Colombian economic development, termed by the government “development locomotives”.

“I agree with fighting the illegal mining outfits that use chemicals like cyanide and mercury, because they are a menace,” geologist and analyst Julio Fierro told IPS. “But well-organised, legal mining can also have a high impact. And AGA is among the largest and most irresponsible companies. It is not at all right to open up holes in the high mountains.”

Colombia is Latin America’s top coal producer and also has large deposits of gold, ferronickel and other minerals and precious stones. The mining sector, like the fossil fuel extraction industry, has grown to record levels in recent years.

Official forecasts indicate that mining output will grow at 8.5 percent a year over the period 2011-2014, and 40 transnational corporations are in-country for a slice of the action. AngloGold came to Tolima over a decade ago to conduct exploratory studies in the municipality of Cajamarca, with a population of 23,000, located 35 km west of Ibagué.

Cajamarca is situated at 1,814 metres above sea level, and is nicknamed “Colombia’s agricultural larder” because of the abundance of its farm produce. The area holds important water resources, with a cluster of at least 160 springs of water and the Coello River basin, as well as high moorlands, cloud forests, and forestry reserves for protective and productive purposes.

But in a protected area close to Cajamarca there is also the La Colosa gold deposit, with reserves estimated at 12 million ounces, one of the largest gold deposits in the world. The government and AGA are promoting what will be South America’s largest opencast mine, unless the project is halted.

La Colosa is a bone of contention between environmentalists and those who support mining development, and is seen as a test case for the kind of mining Colombia will have in the future, as well as for whether the government will honour its promise to revoke mining licenses in environmentally protected areas, granted by the previous administration.

Meanwhile, AGA has started to add to the area of land it owns by buying up plots from small farmers, so that in practice it has expanded its concession right up to the location of water supply pipelines that are vital to the local population.

AGA has kept a low profile in its activities and the regional media have maintained silence. “They do not publish information, neither do they promote needed debate. On the contrary, they highlight the resources that AngloGold will supposedly contribute” to the area, said Castro.

The engineer has been part of CORTOLIMA’s working group since it carried out an analysis of mining concessions in the region, which resulted in some unpleasant surprises.

“We found that both inlets of the aqueduct that serves Ibagué are situated in part of the mining concession,” he said. The city is home to 600,000 people.

“And that is not all. Since the capacity of the aqueduct is dwindling, we made great efforts to obtain the resources to build another aqueduct,” he added.

Some 900,000 dollars have already been invested in the project, out of 37 million dollars approved from national and regional funds. “But a mining concession covering the river has already been granted,” which could prevent construction of the new water supply system, complained Castro.

“It’s extremely worrying. Private interests are being given priority over the common good. It won’t be possible to acquire strategic grounds to protect and guarantee water to supply present and future populations because of the cost involved,” he said.

Some entire rural villages like San Cayetano, Buena Vista and Santa Teresa are situated within mining concessions, as well as the piped water supplies for many of the population centres in the area around Ibagué.

The social protest movement against the mine, made up of students, social leaders and over 25 social organisations, is still active, but “it is David fighting Goliath,” Castro said.

“It is true that valuable work is being done by those who do not agree with mining exploration in such fragile ecosystems,” he said.

“Sadly, though, it must be said that AngloGold’s large investments here indicate that it intends to stay, with no plans to leave. Therefore the most likely scenario is that in a few months’ time the ministry will issue the mining company an exploitation license,” he added.

To make matters worse, the mine will extract ore by the opencast method. “The mountains will have to be ground to pieces and whole layers of rock be removed to extract low quantities of gold. Then at an altitude of 3,000 metres, tanks and dams must be built to treat the ore with cyanide and so separate the gold from other metals,” Castro described.

The proposed mine site is “very close to the Machín volcano, which is in constant activity,” he said.

CORTOLIMA “is calling attention to the serious environmental impacts that (the mine) will have on the region, and insists that this project is incompatible with sustainable development. But the decision is up to the ministry,” he said.

All the environmental damage will only produce materials for luxury industries, experts and activists complain. “A study by the Environment ministry states that 90 percent of the gold is used for items of luxury consumption,” geologist Fierro commented.

President Santos, for his part, insists on the importance of legalising mining and protecting water resources.

“It is deeply distressing to see water sources and rivers become polluted. That is why we are going to put an immediate stop to illegal mining, and that is why I have come to tell you that the government is on your side,” the president said Jan. 6 in the mining community of Norosí, in the northern province of Bolívar.

But his statement has come under fire in Tolima, where exploration activities by AGA would damage the region’s greatest cluster of pristine water sources beyond recovery.

“Neoclassical economists always end up justifying environmental destruction. It’s happening now in Latin America, under governments of different political stripes. Therefore it is increasingly clear that there is an urgent need to develop resistance on a regional basis,” Fierro concluded.