Members of the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers´ Collective

Nine human rights defenders assassinated in Colombia, four disappearances and 68 threats between January and March 2011 are the latest numbers from the We are Defenders Programme (Programa Somos Defensores), an NGO that monitors the situation of people who dedicate their life to supporting victims of human rights violations.[1] These statistics clearly show that defending human rights continues to be a high-risk activity in Colombia. Many of the human rights defenders who receive the most threats are beneficiaries of the Colombian Government’s Protection Programme. This means that they may travel in armoured cars, with bodyguards, and receive special cellular phones, among other preventative protection measures, according to each person’s level of risk. However, many organisations accompanied by PBI are critical of recent changes to the Programme, such as the privatisation of protection services,[2] the suspension of benefits such as transportation assistance[3] and, above all, the lack of political protection measures.[4]

As a result of the aforementioned shortcomings of the protection services, several organisations—among them the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers Collective (CCAJAR)—have returned their protection measures to the government.[5] CCAJAR sent a letter to President Juan Manuel Santos in which it stated that the material measures offered by the Protection Programme did not provide security to the organisation and that “the absence of the implementation of effective measures of a political nature contributes to an increase in persecution.”[6]

What are political protection measures?

Political protection measures can be structural or imminent, general or specific.[7] In the concrete case of Colombia, structural measures include the dismantling of paramilitary organisations, a true and effective justice system where crimes are prosecuted to the full extent of the law, a negotiated end to the armed conflict, solutions to problems such as concentration of land ownership or support for the work of human rights defenders, and an end to the stigmatisation of human rights work.[8] An example of a general political protection measure would be the precautionary measures issued by the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights. An example of specific political protection measures would be the “Proposal for Comprehensive and Collective Reparation for the Kankuamo Indigenous People”. This group of indigenous people have been working on this proposal since 2007[9] with the accompaniment of MOVICE and CCAJAR, among others, which demands their reparations be collective and include spiritual and cultural dimensions.

Impunity, a central question

An effective justice system is another protection measure because it has the effect of prevention and dissuasion. According to the International Office of Human Rights-Action Colombia (OIDHACO), 97% of human rights violations in Colombia remain in impunity.[10] Such a high rate of impunity impedes the rule of law given that there is neither dissuasion nor prevention of crime.[11] Moreover, it is a motivation to break the law.[12] As such, serious and effective investigations of complaints can be considered fundamental political protection measures—which also function as a means of prevention and dissuasion[13]—to achieve improvements in the human rights situation in Colombia.

Stigmatisation

On 21 February 2005 a massacre took place in the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó[14] in which eight people died. Exactly one month later, President Álvaro Uribe publicly stated that “in this Community of San José de Apartadó there are good people, but some of their leaders, supporters, and defenders are serious compromised by people who have resided there in assistance to the FARC and out of a desire to utilise the Community to protect that terrorist organisation.”[15] Since then, the Peace Community has asked the ex-President to “retract the slander and re-establish the good name and dignity of the Peace Community.”[16]

There is no doubt that such accusations put human rights defenders at risk.[17] However, they continue to this day. For example, on 23 April 2011, ex-President Uribe attacked CCAJAR  through his Twitter account, doubting their legitimacy,[18] accusing the organisation of carrying out a political war[19] and of being an enemy of national security, just as the Colombia-Europe-United States Coordination and the Colombian Platform for Human Rights, Democracy and Development have denounced him for doing throughout his presidency.[20]

As CCAJAR points out in their response letter, such a declaration represents a risk to the physical integrity of their members. As such, they have asked for a public declaration from the current president recognising the legitimate work of human rights defenders. According to members of CCAJAR, the Committee in Solidarity with Political Prisoners (FCSPP) and the Inter-Church Commission for Justice and Peace (CIJP), recognition of the legal and legitimate work that these defenders carry out would be an effective security measure.[21]

A change in public opinion

Many human rights defenders consider public statements from the Colombian president to be the first necessary step with regards to political protection measures. Over the years, accusations and stigmatisation from the Government and other State entities have had, in addition to the direct risks they entail, negative impacts on public opinion. Ministerial Directive 009[22] orders Colombia’s armed forces to “refrain from making unfounded statements that can jeopardise the integrity” of human rights defenders. But as long as impunity remains high and there are no consequences for failing to respect the Directive, the incentives to obey it are few. For this reason public statements are important only when there are sincere efforts to foster the opinion among functionaries of the Colombian State that the work of human rights defenders is legal and legitimate.[23] As such, members of CCAJAR say, “While material protection measures require money, political protection measures require will; it is the political attitude that acts as protection.”[24]

Concrete requests

Political protection measures might sound utopian in the case of Colombia. But human rights organisations are also asking for concrete and immediate measures. In November 2008, four Colombian platforms of human rights organisations[25] developed together a “Strategy for guarantees and protection for human rights defenders and social leaders”. In this document the organisations made 30 requests to different entities of the Colombian State, demanding political protection measures. All these requests are very concrete and, according to the platforms, are easy to put into practice, like: implementing the measures and recommendations of the UN and the Organisation of American States (OAS); applying the principal of distinction found in International Humanitarian Law; designating special prosecutors to investigate paramilitary structures; and publicly recognising the democratic legitimacy of all organisations in civil society.[26] These requests show that political protection measures are not just the dream of a better world; they are concrete proposals that could be a first step so that goals such as the end to impunity and paramilitarism, or a negotiated end to the Colombian armed conflict could be a reality someday in the future.