RIGHTS-COLOMBIA:
Making the ‘Disappeared’
Reappear
By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA (IPS) -
"When they bring in
(heads that still have)
eyes, we close them,
because it’s sad to see
that look of terror, as
if the killers were
reflected in their
glassy eyes. Those armed
men stuck in the depth
of the eyes of the dead
scare us; they look like
they want to kill us
too.
"Because they
‘disappeared’ my
brothers, tonight I’m
waiting on the banks of
the river, waiting for a
body to come down, to
make him my dead loved
one. All of us women
here in the port have
lost someone, have had
someone taken from us
and killed, are widows
and orphans.
"That is why we wait
every day for the dead
to be brought to us in
the muddy waters, among
the branches, to make
them our brothers,
fathers, husbands or
sons…" reads the short
story "Sin nombres, sin
rostros, ni rastros" (No
Names, No Faces, No
Traces) by Jorge Eliécer
Pardo, the Colombian
writer who won the
"Without a Trace"
national contest for
short stories on forced
disappearance this week.
The women in Pardo’s
story collect the
corpses, or pieces of
bodies that have come
floating down the river,
gradually putting parts
together until they have
a complete body to
"adopt" as their own
family member, who is
given the burial that
they cannot offer their
own missing loved ones.
The short story contest
and a photography
contest formed part of
the three-day "Without a
Trace" International
Seminar on Forced
Disappearance organised
by the Fundación Dos
Mundos (Two Worlds
Foundation), which ended
Friday.
"I have pulled dead
people, even bodies
without heads, from the
Atrato river. I don’t
know them, but I pull
them to the bank so they
can be buried, because
it is a sad thing to see
a human body being eaten
by the ‘gallinazos’
(carrion crows),"
Domingo Valencia, an
amateur songwriter who
lives on the banks of
that river in the
northwestern jungle
province of Chocó, told
IPS.
Dos Mundos, a local
non-governmental
organisation that
supports young victims
of violence and abuse,
did not expect more than
50 stories to be
submitted. But in the
end, the jury had to
decide between 427.
Reading them "was like
opening Pandora’s box,"
journalist Guillermo
González, a member of
the jury, told IPS. He
said he believes most of
the stories are true
accounts.
They contain "the hidden
story, the one that
isn't in the media, the
one that reflects the
tragedy of the families
of the ‘disappeared’,"
he said, adding that he
had to stop reading at
8:00 pm every night,
"because if I didn't, I
couldn't sleep."
In the stories, "there
are no obvious,
straightforward words
denouncing atrocities,
or morbid descriptions.
Strangely, in this huge
set of stories there is
respect for words and
for what happened, which
is much harder-hitting
than a raw description
of what occurred," said
González, the director
of the Bogotá cultural
magazine Número.
He added that in
Colombia, "the violence
of the 1940s and 1950s
reemerged because that
wound never healed
properly."
And the "institutions of
the state, which have
sponsored these crimes
to a large degree, have
managed to keep them
hidden."
It is the work of
researchers,
intellectuals,
scientists, legal
experts and reporters
"to close that wound,
which is deep and
present in the soul of
all of us, and of
Colombia."
"Years of anxiety,
bitterness and anguish"
was the description of
the lives of those who
have lost loved ones to
forced disappearance
offered by Carmelo Faleh,
secretary general of the
Spanish Association for
International Human
Rights Law (AEDIDH), one
of the speakers at the
seminar, which was held
at the Javeriana
University in the
Colombian capital.
Three relatives of
‘desaparecidos’ (victims
of forced
disappearance), sitting
next to this reporter,
all nodded their heads
silently.
The seminar was
organised for people
like them, so that
"international
experiences and those of
Latin American victims’
organisations can
inspire these women,
people who have been
orphaned, and the
hundreds of relatives of
victims of forced
disappearance who have
not had a chance to be
heard in our country,"
Dos Mundos director
Fernando Jiovani Arias,
a doctor and
psychotherapist, told
IPS.
Participating in the
seminar were
representatives of
victims’ movements,
forensic experts and
human rights activists
from Argentina, Chile,
Guatemala, Mexico, Peru,
Spain, Switzerland, the
United Kingdom, the
United States and
Uruguay.
Every 36 hours on
average, someone is
forcibly disappeared in
Colombia, the seminar
heard from Gustavo
Gallón, head of the
Colombian Commission of
Jurists (CCJ) human
rights group, who
described the situation
as "appalling."
In the first five years
after rightwing
President Álvaro Uribe
took office in August
2002, 1,259 people have
fallen victim to forced
disappearance, according
to the CCJ, which said
three percent of the
cases are blamed on the
leftist guerrillas.
"Public functionaries
are compromised in one
way or another in around
97 percent of the
disappearances -- 28
percent as a result of
direct perpetration by
state agents, and 69
percent as a result of
tolerance of, or support
for, disappearances
carried out by
paramilitary groups,"
said Gallón.
The number of cases
directly attributed to
the security forces rose
fourfold in the past
five years, to 235 cases
a year, compared to 58
cases a year between
July 1997 and June 2002,
said the legal expert.
The government
frequently attempts to
discredit these figures,
but "we have not
received any objection"
since mid-2007, said
Gallón, who explained
that the CCJ’s figures
are the result of two
decades of work
gathering information
from "20 newspapers and
magazines, direct
denunciations,
statistics from the vice
president’s office, and
other sources."
The CCJ sent the
attorney general’s
office a document
referring to 452 cases
of forced disappearance
that occurred between
December 2002 and
November 2007, to
inquire about the legal
status of the cases.
The attorney general’s
office responded that
one of the cases had
gone to trial, another
was in the pre-trial
examination phase and
three were in the
preliminary inquiry
stage. "Some kind of
investigation" is also
being carried out in 51
other cases, 125 others
are not being
investigated, and with
respect to the rest, the
attorney general’s
office "did not
respond," reported
Gallón.
The practice of forced
disappearance, which was
used during the decade
known as "La Violencia"
in the 1940s and 1950s,
reemerged in the
mid-1970s, but estimates
of the number of victims
vary widely.
Although forced
disappearance was
classified in Colombia
as a crime in 2000, the
Human Rights Observatory
of the Presidential
Programme for Human
Rights and International
Humanitarian Law did not
include it in its 2007
report.
The National Commission
for Reparations and
Reconciliation, created
under the law that
governed the
demobilisation of the
ultra-right paramilitary
militias, estimates that
20,000 people have been
"disappeared" in
Colombia, while the
office of the inspector
general (Procuraduría
General de la Nación)
puts the total at
11,000.
The Association of
Relatives of the
Detained-Disappeared (ASFADDES),
meanwhile, has recorded
7,136 cases that
occurred between 1977
and 2004. But a report
by the human rights
group warns that the
figure is undoubtedly an
underestimate, given the
fear of local
communities to report
disappearances. In
interviews and
statements, members of
the organisation talk
about 15,000 victims.
In Gallón’s view, there
is "a significant
arsenal of judicial
provisions that should
be acknowledged and
valued. Many
functionaries, both
civilians and members of
the military and the
police, have good will
and good intentions, but
nevertheless forced
disappearance continues
to be practiced."
The problem, he said, is
that "no action is taken
against the
perpetrators."
"Public policies are
very important, but what
is especially needed,
above and beyond
documents, laws and
legal mechanisms, is
political will," he
said.
Participants in the
seminar agreed that
Colombia’s laws are
excellent, but that they
are not enforced.
However, "the judicial
sector has, little by
little, made an effort
that I believe is
unstoppable," said
Javier Hernández,
representative in
Colombia of the United
Nations Office of the
High Commissioner for
Human Rights.
"Victims can no longer
be swept under the rug
in Colombia," he
remarked to IPS.
The victims "have taught
me, have helped me,"
said Spanish Judge
Baltasar Garzón, who was
invited to the seminar.
"Justice is a kind of
animal, a mastodon that
takes a while to arrive,
that needs a boost, and
that fuel, that food,
comes precisely from the
victims," he said.
Garzón, famous for
taking on high-profile
cases involving crimes
against humanity
committed in Latin
America, under the
principle of "universal
jurisdiction", defined
forced disappearance as
"the total humiliation
of human beings to the
very end."
"In this context of
human degradation, it is
the victims who are most
in need of protection,"
but at the same time,
"justice cannot be
achieved without their
support," said Garzón.
He urged people to "kick
up a row about what is
happening, shock people
about this problem,
wherever it needs to be
heard. The victims are
an awkward presence
because they demand
justice and bring to
light shortcomings in
the system. If we are
here, it is because the
state has not functioned
as it should, through
its institutions."
González said "the
future is composed of
the present and the
past, and the future
cannot be built on top
of millions of corpses.
The wound, first, must
be cleaned and sutured."
"We can’t look forward
if we don't have our
backs covered," said
Garzón. |
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