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RIGHTS-COLOMBIA:
For Millions,
Nowhere Left to Run
Rousbeh
Legatis
UNITED NATIONS, (IPS) - Forced
off their ancestral land by
right-wing paramilitaries,
leftist guerillas and the army,
more than a million people have
arrived in Colombia's cities in
search of jobs and housing, but
are getting little help from the
government, say United Nations
officials and development
activists working there.
"It is by far the biggest
humanitarian catastrophe of the
Western Hemisphere, and yet the
plight of those people remains a
largely untold story," said Jan
Egeland, under-secretary-general
for humanitarian affairs, at a
forum on Colombia's displaced
people last week.
"We have to shed light on the
forgotten emergency of Colombia.
The way it is now it cannot
continue," he added. "We are not
doing enough. We need more to do
more."
Observers say that unlike the
previous government, President
Álvaro Uribe Vélez seems more
focused on using military means
to defeat the leftist insurgency
rather than opting for peaceful
negotiations, a strategy that is
driving thousands of people into
neighbouring Panama and Ecuador,
and to other parts of the
country.
"The new strategy has drawn more
civilians into the conflict,"
said Victor Arango, a Latin
America and Caribbean specialist
with the United Nations
Development Programme.
"In 2004, armed groups have
displaced an average of 863
persons per day," he said,
noting that Afro-Colombians and
indigenous people were among the
poorest and most affected by the
conflict.
According to government
statistics, more than a million
internally displaced people are
trying to find security, access
to public services and jobs in
16 of Colombia's major urban
centres.
"While the Colombian army has
regained control of large parts
of national territory, it has
also affected civilian lives and
freedoms," said Arango, who
attributes much of the massive
displacement to the regular
armed forces' fight against
insurgent groups and drug
traffickers.
Albastella Barreto, director of
the Foundation Paz y Bien in
Cali, told IPS in Spanish that,
"The reason why there is
eviction and displacement is
that certain people want to
occupy the indigenous people's
land."
Most of the displaced people are
small landowners, and after they
have fled, the areas are
developed or used for illegal
cultivation, according to the
indigenous community activist.
"Many families have also been
displaced by fumigation, because
if their fields are spayed, the
ground is destroyed by
pesticides for a long time and
cultivation is impossible. They
have to leave. This motive for
displacement is not recognised
by the Colombian government,"
she added.
Barreto said that in many cases,
the Colombian Army had
threatened farmers' families,
ordering them to leave their
land and accusing them of aiding
the leftist guerillas.
"They steal our territory, kill
our people, and we are
displaced," Colombian
Congressman Ventura Diaz said in
a recent statement urging the
U.N. to take action against land
grabs.
People who flee to other
countries are considered
refugees and are entitled under
international law to food and
shelter, but internally
displaced people must usually
rely on state assistance, Arango
explained.
According to international human
rights groups, there are some
governmental aid programmes for
the internally displaced, but in
most cases they fail to include
long term-solutions, like
reintegration into the
community.
"The government is just
following a military attitude
with a focus on reducing the
enemy -- and the enemy of the
state is the guerilla, not the
paramilitaries," said Barreto,
who has helped thousands of
displaced people and families.
"All the strength and resources
are going to military programmes,
to create pressure and repress
the insurgents," she said.
She said the government
offensive had reduced the number
of kidnappings, but added that
"the war is still alive and most
of the people have no security,
most people are in fear and are
fleeing" to big cities like
Bogotá, Cali or Medellin, where
they are more or less on their
own.
"Many times (officials) say:
'No, you don't look like a
displaced person', and the
people answer: 'What does a
displaced person look like?'"
explained Barreto. "Many are in
fear of making the declaration
to the governmental office,
because of fear of persecution,
intimidation, insults and
repressions."
Arango said the official
statistics on the number of
internally displaced are low
because people are afraid to
come forward.
According to the U.N.'s refugee
agency, the Colombian government
has registered 1.6 million
internally displaced people over
the last 10 years, although the
real figure is thought to be
above two million.
"Too many are refused official
registration, notably those
forced to flee due to the
fumigation of coca crops and
those displaced within their
cities. Without this status
internally displaced people are
often denied the limited
assistance of the state," Arango
said.
The government health system is
also unable to cope with the
large numbers of affected
Colombians, most of them women
and children.
"The programmes for registered
internal refugees run out after
six months, and after that there
is nothing more," Arango said.
These programmes, like "Familias
en Acción", provide roughly 75
dollars per month per displaced
family, while others pay for the
children's education. "But this
is not enough for these families
who have lost everything they
had. And not with all the money
of Plan Colombia can we change
the lives of three million
displaced people," Barreto said.
Colombia is the third largest
recipient of U.S. foreign aid,
after Israel and Egypt -- mostly
through the so-called Plan
Colombia, to which Washington
has allocated 1.3 billion
dollars.
Its stated goals are social and
economic revitalisation, ending
the armed conflict and creating
an anti-narcotic strategy,
although this last has entailed
controversial aerial spraying of
the fields of peasants who
cultivate coca crops in
insurgent- or
paramilitary-occupied areas.
One reason why this humanitarian
crisis continues "out of the
public eye is the lack of visual
documentation," said Jennifer
Szymaszek who is producing a
documentary, together with her
colleague Jennifer Friedlin,
about the life and work of
Albastella Barreto in Cali.
"Unlike the crises in Bosnia and
Sudan, for example, which
generated shocking images of
refugees fleeing their homes and
tent cities that sprung up
overnight, Colombia's crisis
does not provide such ready-made
images. In Colombia, people
often sneak away in the middle
of the night to avoid the armed
groups pursuing them," said
Szymaszek.
At a special session of OCHA's
annual executive committee
session Monday, Egeland outlined
a new approach to aiding the
world's internally displaced,
including assigning clearer
responsibility and
accountability to individual
U.N. humanitarian agencies that
have specific experience in
certain sectors, like
protection, camp management and
coordination, and emergency
shelter.
Egeland said this
"barrier-breaking proposal"
would also allow for more
predictable and timely funding
of operational U.N. agencies and
their NGO partners, in part
through a Central Emergency
Response Fund to support rapid
deployment in emergencies.
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