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Title: Colombia Human Rights Practices, 1995
Author: U.S. Department of State
Date: March 1996
COLOMBIA
Colombia is a constitutional, multiparty democracy in which the Liberal
and Conservative parties have long dominated the political scene.
President Ernesto Samper was the Liberal Party's candidate in the
relatively peaceful presidential and congressional elections held in
1994. Throughout 1995 Samper was beset by allegations that he knowingly
received campaign contributions from drug traffickers.
Responsibility for internal security resides in the Ministry of Defense
which oversees both the armed forces and the National Police. The
Department of Administrative Security, which is responsible for national
security intelligence, reports directly to the President. Civil unrest
and lawlessness continued to dominate society. The police and the armed
forces were responsible for widespread human rights abuse.
On August 16, President Samper declared a 90-day state of emergency
claiming this action was designed to combat the ever-increasing violence
in the country. On October 26, the Constitutional Court struck down the
declaration as unconstitutional for lack of justification that the level
of violence was extraordinary. Following the November 2 assassination
of prominent politician Alvaro Gomez Hurtado, the President again
declared a state of emergency. For 35 of the past 44 years, the
Government has operated under declared states of emergency which enable
the executive to rule by decree. These decrees frequently set aside
temporarily fundamental judicial guarantees of due process, and
sometimes have been incorporated into permanent law by subsequent
legislative action. Several violent guerrilla organizations continued
to operate, despite regular attempts by the Government to negotiate
peaceful settlements. Military cooperation with paramilitary groups in
remote regions of the country continued.
Colombia has a mixed private and public sector economy. The Government
continued an economic liberalization program and the privatization of
selected public industries. Crude petroleum rivals coffee as the
principal export and, as a result of the August 1994 discovery of
immense natural gas reserves, petroleum and gas exports play an even
greater role. Narcotics traffickers controlled vast numbers of
enterprises.
In an all-out campaign against narcotics traffickers, a special task
force arrested six top leaders of the Cali cartel. While violence by
narcotics traffickers against the population declined from previous
years, internecine violence among the trafficking organizations still
accounted for substantial numbers of homicides, kidnapings, cases of
torture, and attacks against the military and the police. Guerrillas
and narcotics traffickers collaborated, especially in rural regions of
the country. Their targets included politicians, labor organizers,
human rights monitors, and--overwhelmingly--peasant farmers.
The Government took steps to reduce human rights violations. The
President publicly acknowledged government responsibility for the 1989-
90 massacres in Trujillo. A special commission submitted a draft penal
reform proposal, which was designed to end the traditional sense of
impunity enjoyed by military and police personnel implicated in human
rights violations. The Government announced the formation of a special
task force to combat paramilitary groups, and several paramilitary
leaders were arrested. Despite these arrests, however, paramilitary
activity grew. In addition, both government and nongovernment sources
acknowledge that many military and police officers still regard human
rights with hostility and believe that the Government granted the
guerrillas excessive concessions during the peace process. This
process, which many hoped would bring guerrilla factions to the
negotiating table, came to a virtual halt in August, largely because of
guerrilla intransigence.
The number of human rights violations committed by government security
forces declined, but the overall human rights situation in the country
remained critical, with a variety of institutions--including the police
and the military--continuing to commit abuses such as political and
extrajudicial killings, kidnapings, torture, and other physical
mistreatment. The Government allowed the military to exercise
jurisdiction over military personnel accused of abuses, who in most
cases were not prosecuted. Other perpetrators of human rights abuses
include antigovernment guerrilla groups, narcotics traffickers, and
paramilitary groups. Rampant impunity is the core of the country's
human rights violations: 97 percent of all crimes go unpunished. In a
major setback for human rights, Attorney General for Human Rights
Hernando Valencia Villa resigned in August under pressure from members
of the military hierarchy. He subsequently left the country, alleging
that he had received numerous threats against his life.
The overburdened judiciary has a huge case backlog. Discrimination
against women, minorities, and the indigenous continued. Violence
against women, children and indigenous people also remained commonplace.
Vigilante groups, often supported or ignored by the police and the
military, engaged in "social cleansing"--the killing of street children,
prostitutes, homosexuals, and others deemed socially undesirable.
RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom
from:
a. Political and Other Extrajudicial Killing
The total number of murders in Colombia appeared to rise slightly during
the first half of 1995 compared with the
corresponding period in 1994. According to the National Police, there
were 83.71 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in 1994, considerably
higher than the 5-year average of approximately 78 per 100,000. When
President Samper declared the state of emergency in August, he stated
that 19,450 Colombians were the victims of homicide during the first 6
months of 1995 alone. This figure gave rise to considerable controversy
because it greatly exceeded National Police statistics. Many critics
suggested the administration used the higher figure to strengthen its
rationale for the state of emergency. Nevertheless, most observers
expected the number of homicides to exceed 30,000 by year's end.
The police and the judiciary have insufficient resources to investigate
most killings properly. It is also often difficult to identify
precisely which warring party was responsible for which violent
incident. As a result, it is frequently hard to distinguish between
political and nonpolitical murders. According to the Bogota-based
nongovernmental organization (NGO) Justice and Peace, there were 1,288
known or presumed politically motivated murders between January and
June. The Andean Commission of Jurists (CAJSC) estimated that 4 of the
10 victims murdered each day were targeted for their involvement with
political, labor, or social causes. Evidence was sufficient to
establish a probable perpetrator in only 35 percent of those cases. Of
the perpetrators identified, 45 percent were members of paramilitary
groups, 27.5 percent were guerrillas, and 24 percent belonged to the
armed forces or state security forces. CAJSC claimed that whereas 97
percent of all violent crimes go unpunished, the impunity rate for
politically motivated crimes is even higher. Although the number of
political or presumed political murders committed by the military and
the police fell by approximately 30 percent during the months of January
through June compared with the corresponding 1994 figures, security
forces continued to be implicated in cases of extrajudicial killings.
The independent, state-sponsored Office of the Public Ombudsman for
Human Rights (Defensoria del Pueblo) reported receiving 268 complaints
against the army alleging murder, forced disappearances, and threats
between January and June. Some of the complaints referred to 1994
incidents. There were no reports of mass summary executions by the
military or police forces.
The Public Ombudsman for Human Rights reported that it received 257
complaints between January and June implicating the police in arbitrary
killings. In August police shot and killed a small-scale coffee farmer
during a demonstration in Bogota, reflecting the police tendency to
adopt an adversarial stance toward demonstrations rather than to
facilitate them while ensuring public safety. Human rights monitors
also implicated the police in incidents of social cleansing--including
attacks and killings--directed against individuals deemed socially
undesirable such as drug addicts, prostitutes, transvestites, beggars,
and street children. They alleged not only that police failed to pursue
the social-cleansing death squads and tolerated their presence in high-
crime areas, but that off-duty policemen actually participated in social
cleansing operations. The Center for Investigations and Popular
Research (CINEP) reported 118 victims in 40 incidents of what it
considered social cleansing between January and June. In November the
Supreme Court sentenced two policemen to 20 years' imprisonment for the
1990 murders of two indigents in Bucaramanga, Santander department. The
Court determined that the two officials were part of a social-cleansing
network active in the area.
While incidents of extrajudicial killings by police and military forces
decreased, both government and nongovernment sources agree that
extrajudicial killings by paramilitary groups increased significantly,
often with the alleged complicity of individual soldiers or of entire
military units. The groups targeted teachers, labor leaders, community
activists, mayors of towns and villages, and, above all, peasants. Many
of these victims included members of indigenous communities.
The leftist coalition party known as the Patriotic Union (UP) lost over
2,000 of its members over the last 10 years in what the UP perceives as
a campaign of assassination waged against its leadership. UP leader
Hernan Motta is the party's member of the Senate, replacing UP leader
Manuel Vargas Cepeda who was assassinated in 1994. Initial reports
indicated that Cepeda's assassins might have been members of a
paramilitary group, but the investigation of his murder was still
underway at year's end. The UP implicated members of the state security
forces in many of the murders, but no final determination as to the
perpetrators has been reached. The UP brought a complaint, still
pending, before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that
charges the Government with "action or omission" in what the UP terms
"political genocide" against the UP and the Communist Party.
Although most paramilitary killings remain unsolved, in July members of
the army's 7th Brigade and the Prosecutor General's Technical
Investigative Corps arrested Arnulfo Castillo Agudelo, a paramilitary
leader implicated in the murders of an estimated 100 civilians since
1993 in Meta department. He was alleged to be a key figure in the
extensive paramilitary apparatus reportedly funded by emerald magnate
Victor Carranza, who has successfully avoided legal scrutiny.
Authorities continued to search for Fidel Castano, believed to be the
leader of paramilitary groups operating in Uraba.
Seven massacres in Cesar department from January through September
claimed the lives of 30 civilians, including farm laborers and
organizers. The governor of Cesar attributed the massacres to the
ongoing conflict between paramilitary and guerrilla forces, whose
victims were typically innocent civilians. In January paramilitary
forces killed seven and apparently forcibly kidnaped two citizens of the
Aguachica region of Cesar department in a continuation of a series of
killings and disappearances in that community that began in October
1994. An official investigative commission determined that paramilitary
groups active in Aguachica maintained close relations with commanders in
the army and other state security organizations. This investigation
resulted in the arrest of the army major who commanded the army base.
Meta department is another region that saw an escalation of paramilitary
activity. Paramilitary forces carried out at least 7 of the 19
extrajudicial murders between October 1994 and March 1995. Their
victims included three members of the leftist Patriotic Union Party and
various members of peasant organizations. The Meta Civic Committee for
Human Rights reported that known paramilitary leaders freely appeared in
public meetings. Having suffered the murders of 4, the forced
disappearances of 3, and the dislocation of 25 of its members since
1991, the Meta Civic Committee finally closed down its office in
Villavicencio because of increasing death threats against its members.
Instead, it opened a Bogota office with a small staff. At the same
time, the Government established a special commission to seek a solution
to the violence in Meta.
The banana-producing region of Uraba in Antioquia saw major conflicts.
The convergence of paramilitary groups, guerrilla forces, narcotics
traffickers, arms traffickers, and common criminals created a climate of
unrelenting violence from which the population has suffered for the past
8 years. However, direct armed engagements among these groups or
between them and the military, were rare. The military commander in
Chigorodo reported that two murders per day were normal for that
township. The town of Necocli alone suffered 130 murders, 122
disappearances, and the dislocation of 1,307 families during the
February to April period. In January a paramilitary group identifying
itself as the Self-Defense Forces of Fidel Castano tortured and murdered
six alleged guerrillas in Necocli.
According to estimates by Justice and Peace, guerrillas were responsible
for the extrajudicial killings of at least 64 civilians between January
and June. In the Uraba massacres of August and September alone,
guerrillas were responsible for over 60 of the approximately 90 murders.
To justify the executions, guerrillas regularly charged that their
victims were either informants for the army or related in some other way
to the State, or that they simply refused to support the guerrillas'
operations.
The National Liberation Army (ELN), too, killed scores of civilians. In
May ELN forces killed five peasants in Sucre for allegedly collaborating
with the army. Also in May, ELN forces killed five teenage girls and
one woman in Arauca for fraternizing with soldiers. In June ELN forces
bombed a building next to an orphanage, wounding several children. In
March the Minister of Defense formally denounced the ELN before the
Inter-American Commission of Human Rights for its persistent use of land
mines. Killings of noncombatants by guerrilla groups consistently
outnumbered casualties inflicted upon the military in armed engagements.
The President publicly acknowledged government responsibility for the
Trujillo massacres of 1989 and 1990, in which over 100 local residents
were killed. As a result, some of the victims' surviving family members
received indemnification from the Government. Investigation of the
Trujillo massacres continued. A special government antidrug cartel task
force captured a leading drug kingpin implicated in the Trujillo
massacres, but a central figure in the massacres, an army lieutenant
colonel, was discharged from the army without criminal sanction.
b. Disappearance
Colombia continued to suffer from extremely high overall rates of
disappearance and kidnaping. Human rights officials in the President's
executive offices confirmed approximately 1,200 reported kidnaping
cases. The Office of the Defender of the People received 98 reports of
forced disappearances attributed to organized criminals, police,
military, paramilitary, and guerrilla forces between January and June.
Authorities believe that the actual number of kidnaping victims was
significantly higher because many families choose not to report
kidnapings in order to protect ransom negotiations. Due to the complex
interplay of military, paramilitary, guerrillas, and narcotics-based
forces involved in the country's internal conflicts, it was often
difficult to distinguish between disappearances for political motives
and kidnapings for profit. It is clear, however, that guerrillas were
responsible for approximately half of all these crimes. The guerrillas
deny that their practice of kidnaping constitutes the taking of
hostages. In June FARC agents murdered two American missionaries held
since 1994. Arrests or prosecutions in any of these cases were rare.
In September President Samper appointed an antikidnaping czar to oversee
increased efforts to investigate and prevent kidnapings.
Colombian law codifies the act of forced disappearance as a crime.
However, the law relaxes the standard when forced disappearances have
been committed by military or police personnel, classifying them as acts
performed in the line of duty. Moreover, the proposed reform of the
military penal code submitted in August left unresolved the definition
of an act of service or act committed in the line of duty.
For the first time in Colombian history, an army officer--
Brigade Commander Alvaro Velandia Hurtado--was discharged from active
duty in August for official misconduct by failing to prevent or
investigate the forced disappearance, torture, and murder of an M-19
guerrilla in 1987. The commander challenged the dismissal ordered by
the Attorney General for Human Rights after an exhaustive 5-year
investigation. Within days of the first ruling reversing the dismissal,
President Samper personally signed an award which the Ministry of
Defense presented to the commander. A higher court supported the
dismissal, however, and the President was obliged to fire the commander.
Attorney General for Human Rights Hernando Valencia Villa resigned under
pressure from the military hierarchy and the Attorney General and left
Colombia amid reports of threats against his security. At year's end,
the Prosecutor General's newly created human rights unit initiated an
investigation to examine further the forced disappearance and murder of
this M-19 guerrilla.
c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment
The law prohibits torture, but reports of incidents of police and
military beatings and torture of detainees continued throughout the
year. These abuses often occurred in connection with illegal detentions
in the context of counterinsurgency or counternarcotics operations.
Paramilitary groups operating in rural areas were also responsible for
instances of torture and sometimes took credit for their macabre work,
leaving menacing notes on the bodies of their victims. In many cases,
however, it was difficult to identify the perpetrators of torture since
cadavers which bore the traces of physical torture were rarely subject
to extensive forensic investigations. In May the Attorney General's
office brought charges against 7 members of the army, 17 members of the
National Police, and 3 detectives of the Department of Administrative
Security for their presumed participation in incidents of torture
throughout the country.
Prison conditions are harsh, especially for those prisoners with reduced
means of support. Overcrowding and dangerous sanitary and health
conditions remained serious problems. The International Committee of
the Red Cross (ICRC) continued to have access to most prisons and police
and military detention centers. However, the ICRC noted that local or
regional commanders did not always prepare mandatory detention registers
or follow notification procedures. As a result, accurate detainee
counts do not exist.
d. Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile
The Constitution includes several provisions designed to prevent illegal
detention. Suspects must be brought before a judge within 36 hours of
their arrest, and they have a right to petition for habeas corpus from
any judge. That petition, too, must be acted upon within 36 hours of
its application. Despite these legal protections, instances of
arbitrary detention continued, and a large percentage of the prison
population remained in an undetermined pretrial status. Under the state
of emergency, preventive detention was legal with or without prior
judicial authorization, but authorities were required to bring the
detainees before a judicial officer within 36 hours of their arrest.
Although authorities were able to increase the number of arrests, they
were unable to bring the detainees before the judicial authorities
within the required time, thus holding citizens without any
justification before eventually releasing them. The Government not only
failed in its stated objective to get criminals off the streets but also
violated the rights of suspects in the process. The Government ignored
the impact which its declaration of a state of emergency would have on a
judicial system that could not even address the needs of citizens under
normal circumstances.
Exile is not practiced.
e. Denial of Fair Public Trial
The judicial system is largely independent of the executive and
legislative branches, both in theory and practice. It continued to
experience growing pains as the various courts, prosecutor's offices,
and ministries attempted to define their roles and streamline their
operations following the judicial reorganization provided for in the
1991 Constitution. The court system includes the Supreme Court of
Justice, the Council of State, the Constitutional Court, the Judiciary
Council, and tribunal courts. The 1991 Constitution modified the
structure of the judicial branch by creating the office of the
Prosecutor General as an independent prosecutorial body. Prosecutors
bring criminal cases before the tribunal courts. A National Tribunal
serves as the first court of appeal in these cases. The Supreme Court
of Justice serves as the appellate court for decisions by the National
Tribunal; it is also the court in which elected officials are tried.
The Council of State is the appellate court for civil cases. The
Judicial Council is the administrative arm of the judicial system. The
Constitutional Court adjudicates cases of constitutionality.
The judiciary has long been subject to threats and intimidation when
dealing with narcotics and paramilitary cases. With the decline in
drug-related terrorism, there was a corresponding decrease in violent
attacks against members of the judiciary. Nevertheless, in June,
unknown assassins tortured and murdered family court judge Luis
Guillermo Acevedo. Justice and Peace reported that, of the 10 murders
which targeted lawyers between January and June, 7 were presumed to be
politically motivated. In September armed gunmen attempted to
assassinate President Samper's legal counsel; the counsel was wounded,
and two government security escorts were killed in the incident.
The 1991 Constitution formalized the "regional" or "public order"
jurisdictions, in which anonymous or "faceless" judges and prosecutors
handle narcotics and terrorism cases. Human rights groups continued to
charge that this system violated basic legal norms and procedural
rights. Prosecutors, judges, and witnesses agree, however, that the
protection provided by a faceless system is essential to any progress in
investigations and prosecution of human rights cases involving
massacres, forced disappearances, torture, extrajudicial killings, and
other acts of extreme violence. As in past years, the judiciary
remained overburdened and often in a state of chaos, staggering under a
backlog of over 1 million cases.
The Constitution specifically provides for the right to due process.
The accused has the right to representation by counsel, although
representation for the indigenous and the indigent historically has been
inadequate. The Government continued to labor under staffing and
funding shortages in an effort to develop a credible public defender
system.
The Attorney General investigates some allegations of human rights
abuses by members of the state security apparatus, drawing upon a
network of government human rights ombudsmen in over 1,000
municipalities. However, the Attorney General can only recommend
administrative sanctions; police and military personnel are rarely
punished commensurately for human rights abuses. The Office of the
Defender of the People has the constitutionally assigned duty to ensure
the promotion and exercise of human rights but is severely underfunded.
During the year, it completed expansion of regional offices to serve
citizens throughout the country. The number of cases referred to it
increased by almost 30 percent, largely because of its expanded reach
and increased public awareness of its function. The President has a
special adviser for human rights issues who investigates allegations of
abuse and disseminates human rights educational information.
In a major effort to end impunity for human rights violations, the
Prosecutor General's office opened a special human rights unit
consisting of faceless prosecutors assigned to major cases. The
Ministry of Defense also has a Secretariat for Human Rights which has
instituted human rights advisory offices at brigade level, developed
human rights training programs, and coordinated the project to reform
the military Penal Code. The National Police, which is under the
direction of the Minister of Defense, instituted a Special Office of
Oversight to monitor human rights violations by the police and expanded
human rights training. The new director of the National Police ordered
a major purge of corrupt and incompetent police officers. In general,
the purge was welcomed by the public and by human rights observers,
although some feared that the dismissed police officers would turn to
crime if given no means to find alternative employment.
While a late 1993 reform of the Criminal Procedures Code addressed
certain procedural shortcomings within the system, problems remained.
It was still difficult for defense attorneys to impeach or cross-examine
anonymous witnesses, and often they did not have unimpeded access to the
State's evidence. Supporters of the regional jurisdictions argued that
it was better to address those shortcomings than to abolish the system.
As a result of such considerations, judges may no longer base a
conviction solely on the testimony of an anonymous witness. Human
rights groups also criticized the Government's policy of allowing major
narcotics traffickers to surrender voluntarily and negotiate their
sentences. These critics charged that "small-time" defendants were at a
disadvantage under the system while powerful criminals received
deferential treatment. They also charged that the system, lacking
resources, could not effectively prosecute the major guerrilla leaders
and was left to handle only low-level criminals suspected of subversive
activity. Prosecutors reported, moreover, that potential witnesses in
major cases often doubted the Government's ability to protect their
anonymity.
Colombia does not imprison citizens for political beliefs or expression
of political convictions. However, the ICRC reported that it monitored
1,800 cases of citizens imprisoned under accusations of rebellion or
aiding and abetting the insurgency, which are punishable under law.
Many of these prisoners were noncombatants who in some cases were held
for months before formal charges were filed.
f. Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or
Correspondence
The law generally requires a judicial order for authorities to enter a
private home, except in cases of hot pursuit. In remote regions, the
military forces have civilian prosecutorial units delegated to them.
Human rights groups charged that these delegated units were
unconstitutional, and Congress refused to grant them permanent status.
Nonetheless, there were credible reports that they continued to
function, often facilitating army searches without bothering to apply
for search warrants from the courts. To address this problem, the
Ministry of Defense increased training in legal search procedures that
comply with constitutional and human rights.
A prosecutor must authorize telephone monitoring and the interception of
mail. This protection extends to prisoners held in jails. However,
various state authorities tap phones without obtaining authorization.
g. Use of Excessive Force and Violations of Humanitarian Law in
Internal Conflicts
The Government devoted much attention to the internal conflict. The
military forces, paramilitary groups, and particularly guerrilla
organizations violated international humanitarian law in Colombia's
internal conflict. On May 18, the Constitutional Court formally
declared Law 171 of 1994 to be constitutional; this law ratified without
reservation Protocol II of the Geneva Convention. By declaring the
Protocol to be equally applicable to both armed insurgents and
government forces, the Court challenged those guerrilla groups who have
refused to cease kidnaping, deploying land mines, and recruiting minors.
In February military helicopters and planes attacked the village of
Puerto Trujillo, Meta. They shot and killed one 49-year-old woman and
wounded several townspeople, including a 5-year-old child. The military
claimed that they believed guerrillas were in the village. A commission
comprised of both government and nongovernmental members determined that
the military received no return fire and that no guerrillas were present
in the village at the time.
A persistent, if unofficial, emphasis by the army on body counts as a
means of assessing field performance is a leading cause of violations of
international humanitarian law. Both NGO and military sources reported
that some units placed weapons in the hands of dead bodies in an effort
to create the impression that they had engaged in combat as members of
guerrillas forces. In April military authorities relieved an army
lieutenant colonel of his command and placed him under house arrest for
murdering local indigents and claiming that they were guerrillas killed
in action. Authorities also imprisoned seven noncommissioned officers
on murder charges in the same case. At year's end, the Prosecutor
General's Office was still investigating the case.
Paramilitary groups, who often allegedly operated with individual
soldiers or entire military units, usually carried out their violent
acts with impunity. In September the Intercongregational Commission of
Justice and Peace reported cases of torture, beatings, and death threats
against residents of several rural communities in Santander at the hands
of paramilitary forces working for a local landowner. Local military
units tolerated these acts and, in some instances, participated in them.
However, peasants whom paramilitary forces had driven out of the
community of La Leal were able to return to their homes under the
protection of a special army unit. In response, paramilitary members
threatened they would again drive out the residents of La Leal as soon
as their military protectors left. The report faulted civilian
authorities for refusing to investigate charges brought by the peasants,
thus allowing the 8-year saga of violence in the region to continue
unabated.
The violence reached a peak when paramilitary and guerrilla elements
killed some 90 civilians in a series of massacres between August 12 and
September 20. With unusual speed, the authorities arrested 13
paramilitary soldiers within a week of the first of the massacres.
Military authorities, regionally elected officials, the Catholic Church,
and former guerrilla leaders agreed that of the six massacres during
this period, five were probably part of a campaign by the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) against members and sympathizers of the
Hope, Peace, and Freedom Party. (These are former members of The
Popular Liberation Army (EPL) who laid down their arms in the early
1990's.) Critics charged that the army had advance knowledge of the
FARC plan to carry out the August 29 massacre but failed to take proper
measures to protect the population. The majority of the FARC's victims
were banana workers.
There were no reports of armed confrontations between the FARC and
paramilitary groups, despite the fact that the declared purpose of the
FARC's so-called dignity plan was to combat paramilitary groups. The
FARC massacre of September 20 took the lives of at least 25 banana
workers, including 5 women and 2 minors. After summarily executing the
workers, the FARC mutilated the bodies of five or six of the dead. In
response, the Government declared martial law in the Uraba region and
pledged to deploy large numbers of troops to protect the civilian
population. A government proposal to establish civilian security
cooperatives met with considerable resistance from local community
leaders and human rights observers who believed that such cooperatives
would raise the level of violence in the area.
The loosely organized guerrilla groups of the Simon Bolivar Coordinating
Board, which include the FARC and ELN, committed a host of violations
against humanitarian law, among them extrajudicial killings and
kidnapings (see Section 1.b.), as well as bombings and other acts of
sabotage. In March various FARC units attacked the headquarters of the
Agrarian Bank, the Coffee Growers Bank, and the local police in the town
of Ituango, Antioquia. They took hostages, wounded several citizens,
and killed one policeman and three civilians, including the 11-year-old
daughter of the police commander. The Jaime Bateman Cayon guerrillas
(dissident M-19 members who refused their leadership's order to lay down
their arms in 1990) destroyed installations at the Center for Sugar Cane
Research. In July the ELN injured seven children at an orphanage for
girls when it bombed an adjacent police station. Other acts of sabotage
and deployment of land mines by the guerrillas showed an equal lack of
concern for the civilian population. In September a car bomb wounded
several citizens and caused extensive damage to the Santander Financial
Corporation building in Bucaramanga. The governor of Santander reported
that guerrilla organizations declared that they would increase terrorist
acts in Bucaramanga.
Soldiers and police continued to be targeted by drug traffickers,
guerrillas, and common criminals on a daily basis. For example, in May
FARC-placed land mines in Tolima killed six soldiers. In July FARC
guerrillas attacked the village of Sueva, Cundinamarca, tortured and
murdered all five members of its police force, and set fire to the
bodies. In another July attack, the ELN dynamited a public road in El
Playon, Santander, killing seven policemen. In August in Miraflores
guerrillas killed 6 and wounded 29 antinarcotics police in a 72-hour
attack that nearly destroyed the village. After the attack, two army
soldiers died while attempting to deactivate landmines. The guerrillas
also fired on a Red Cross plane as it evacuated women and children from
Miraflores. In December a guerrilla attack on a police unit stationed
near Bogota resulted in the death of an 18-month-old child.
Antinarcotics police reported continuing confrontations with
paramilitary groups in Tolima.
Internecine violence among guerrilla groups has a long history. In
August a regional judge sentenced dissident FARC leader Javier Delgado
to 19 years in prison for the 1985 massacre of 180 rival FARC guerrillas
in Tacueyo, Cauca.
Section 2 Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:
a. Freedom of Speech and Press
All citizens have the right to seek a judicial injunction or motion
(tutela) in cases involving violations of basic constitutional rights.
This provides all persons and organizations, including the media, with a
mechanism to denounce both private and government violations of basic
constitutional rights.
The authorities generally respected these constitutionally protected
rights but were prone to apply subtle (and sometimes not so subtle)
pressure on certain media when their core interests were threatened.
Most media, however, were disinclined to bend. For example, in April
journalists at leading news magazine Semana complained publicly that
agents representing the President's office inquired about the contents
of an upcoming article which was to criticize President Samper. The
President's office immediately denied attempting to intimidate Semana
staff, but the denial was not considered credible. Other signs of
government efforts to influence the media included occasional calls on
patriotic grounds to limit negative reporting which might hurt
Colombia's image in the world and implied threats that government
advertising might be withdrawn. In spite of these efforts, print and
broadcast media regularly criticized the Government without
recrimination. The privately owned print media published a wide
spectrum of political viewpoints and often voiced harsh antigovernment
opinions without administrative reprisals. The Government imposed some
restrictions on electronic media coverage of incidents of public
disorder and of drug terrorist activity and reserved the right to
prohibit coverage of certain news events that could affect state
security.
Based on the Government's Decree 221 issued in January, the National
Penitentiary and Prison Institute issued a resolution in March
prohibiting journalists from visiting inmates of high security
facilities.
Some observers charged that anticorruption legislation passed by the
Congress on May 30 directly violated constitutional guarantees of
freedom of the press. They suggested that the restrictions imposed upon
media reporting of pending anticorruption cases deprived the public of
its right to know about misconduct by public officials. Under the state
of emergency the Government may regulate the media only if the
information will endanger lives or directly induce public disturbances.
The Government may use television and radio stations as it deems
appropriate but may not prohibit reports of human rights violations.
The Government may not establish an official censorship board, but
accredited media associations are to act as a self-regulatory tribunal.
In February publisher Juan B. Fernandez escaped assassination when a
contract killer revealed that two former agents of the National Police
investigatory apparatus SIJIN (fired in 1992 for alleged involvement in
the murder of seven citizens of Barranquilla) had hired him to
assassinate Fernandez. In April the Bogota circle of journalists
publicly condemned the threats and intimidation suffered in particular
by journalists covering narcotics trafficking. In May Ombudsman for
Human Rights Jaime Cordoba Trivino reported that 107 journalists had
been murdered since 1980. In December hit men in Armenia, capital of
Quindio department, assassinated Ernesto Acero Cadena, a prominent
journalist known for his harsh criticism of corrupt officials. While
very few of these cases were ever definitively resolved, it was apparent
that journalists were often victims of guerrilla groups, paramilitary
organizations, and narcotics traffickers.
The Government generally respected academic freedom, and there exists a
wide spectrum of political activity throughout the country's
universities. Teachers at the elementary and secondary levels in
guerrilla-controlled territory were often threatened and intimidated by
local guerrillas and paramilitary groups. Paramilitary forces killed at
least 19 teachers in Uraba.
b. Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association
The Constitution provides for freedom of peaceful assembly and
association, and the Government respects these rights in practice. The
authorities do not normally interfere with public meetings and
demonstrations and usually grant the required permission except when
they determine that there is imminent danger to public order. Any
organization is free to associate with international groups in its
field. NGO's criticized the Government's response to the coffee
workers' strike in the spring and summer. Among the incidents cited was
the August 14 police shooting of a peasant who participated in a
peaceful march by the small-scale coffee growers in Bogota. In
addition, there was police harassment and the arbitrary arrest of some
peasant protesters in Ibague, and the use of excessive force to
dismantle the tent city set up by the protesters.
c. Freedom of Religion
The Constitution provides for complete religious freedom, and the
Government respects this right in practice. There is little religious
discrimination. Roman Catholic religious instruction is no longer
mandatory in state schools, and a Constitutional Court decision in 1994
found unconstitutional any official government reference to religious
characterizations of the country. The Government permits proselytizing
among the indigenous population, provided it is welcome and does not
induce members of indigenous communities to adopt changes that endanger
their survival on traditional lands. In May the Samper administration
issued a regulatory decree implementing the Law on the Freedom of Cults
which provides a mechanism for religions to obtain the status of
recognized legal entities.
d. Freedom of Movement Within the Country, Foreign Travel,
Emigration, and Repatriation
The Constitution provides citizens with the right to travel domestically
and abroad. Outsiders wishing to enter Indian tribes' reserves must be
invited. In areas where military operations against guerrillas are
underway, police or military officials occasionally required civilians
to obtain safe-conduct passes; guerrillas reportedly used similar means
to restrict travel in areas under their control.
Guerrilla incursions, military counterinsurgency operations, guerrilla
and paramilitary conscription, and land seizures by narcotics
traffickers often forced peasants to flee their homes and farms. In its
1995 Report on Violence and Internal Forced Displacement in Colombia,
the Colombian Conference of Bishops noted that approximately 600,000
Colombians, or 2 percent of the population, were displaced persons.
Displaced persons continued to face a crucial dilemma: while they could
not stay in conflict zones because of legitimate fears for their
safety, they were rejected and perceived as an economic drain in the
regions and cities which were their most common destinations.
Colombia has had a tradition of providing political asylum since the
1920's. During the 1970's, Colombia granted asylum to Argentine,
Chilean, Uruguayan, and Paraguayan citizens seeking refuge from
dictatorial regimes in their own countries. The Government reserves the
right to determine eligibility for asylum, based upon its own assessment
of the political nature of the persecution an applicant may have
suffered. In a controversial decision, the Government granted asylum to
former Haitian dictator Prosper Avril, who remained in the Colombian
embassy in Port au Prince at year's end.
Section 3 Respect for Political Rights: The Right of Citizens to
Change Their Government
Citizens exercise this right in regular, secret ballot elections that
have historically been considered fair and open, although critics
maintain that vote buying is a regular feature of elections in some
regions. Presidential elections are held every 4 years. The Liberal
and Conservative parties have long dominated the political scene with
one or the other customarily winning the presidency. The President
serves only one term and may not be reelected. All citizens are
enfranchised at age 18. Public employees are not permitted to
participate in campaigns but, with the exception of the military, may
vote. Officially, all political parties operate freely without
government interference. Those that fail to garner 50,000 votes in a
general election may lose the right to present candidates and may not
receive funds from the Government. However, they may reincorporate at
any time by presenting 50,000 signatures to the National Electoral
Board.
In 1994 the country held a national presidential election as well as
congressional, gubernatorial, and mayoral elections. For the first
time, the country also elected a Vice President, Humberto de la Calle,
who ran on the Liberal party ticket with presidential candidate Ernesto
Samper. The office of Vice President was created by the 1991
Constitution and replaced a less powerful "presidential designate,"
elected by congress. Liberal party representatives dominated the
congressional elections, providing a Liberal majority in both houses.
However, bipartisan coalitions were still often necessary for the
Liberals to enact legislation. Throughout 1995 Samper was beset by
allegations that he knowingly received campaign contributions from drug
traffickers.
There are no legal restrictions, and few de facto ones, on the
participation of women or minorities in the political process. Seven
female senators and 19 female representatives served in Congress,
including the First Vice President of the House of Representatives. The
Ministers of Labor, Environment, and Education were women, as were the
President's advisers for social policy, human rights, and Bogota issues.
Two seats in the 102-seat Senate are reserved for representatives of the
indigenous population, and 2 in the 165-seat House of Representatives
are reserved for citizens of African heritage. Both the African-
Colombian and indigenous populations continued to expand their social
and political agenda, and an indigenous politician, Jesus Pinacue, was a
vice presidential candidate on the unsuccessful ticket of the AD/M-19
Party in 1994. Senator Piedad Cordoba de Castro, an African-Colombian
woman, is a senior member of the Liberal party.
Section 4 Governmental Attitude Regarding International and
Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Violations of Human Rights
Human rights groups active in Colombia include the Center for
Investigations and Popular Research, the Andean Commission of Jurists,
the Intercongregational Commission for Justice and Peace, the Permanent
Committee for the Defense of Human Rights, the Episcopal Bishops
Conference, the Latin American Institute for Alternative Legal Services,
and Peace Brigades International.
NGO's investigated and reported on a number of human rights abuses,
including killings by FARC and ELN forces; the paramilitary murders of
19 teachers in Uraba; the lack of military protection in Uraba; the
paramilitary persecution of the Meta Civic Committee in Sabana de Torres
and of the Barrancabermeja Human Rights Committee known as CREDHOS; the
guerrilla and paramilitary campaigns against Hope, Peace, and Freedom in
Uraba; and the government response to the coffee growers' strike. NGO's
were nearly unanimous in their criticism of the declaration of the state
of emergency. In August the NGO members of the Joint Commission on
Human Rights formed in 1994 withdrew from the Commission as a protest
against the state of emergency as well as President Samper's approval of
an award for General Alvaro Velandia (see Section 1.b.).
The Government generally did not interfere with the work of human rights
NGO's. These NGO's were often threatened and intimidated by the
guerrillas, paramilitary groups, or individual members of the police and
military forces. Many prominent human rights monitors worked under
constant fear for their physical safety.
When President Samper took office in August 1994, he publicly admitted
that the human rights situation reflected a "shameful and troubling
reality." He also pledged to work closely with representatives of the
ICRC and the Colombian Red Cross and declared an "open door" policy with
respect to international and local human rights NGO's. In general, the
Samper administration abided by that pledge. However, the relationship
deteriorated over the course of the year for a number of reasons. Human
rights observers and many community leaders believed that the Ministry
of Defense pilot project to institute rural civilian defense
cooperatives legitimized vigilante justice. Despite positive steps such
as the historic acknowledgment of government responsibility in the
Trujillo massacres, a corps of government human rights monitors and
advisers was often on the losing side in policy disputes. The
resignation of the Attorney General for Human Rights and the decoration
of the general he had accused of human rights abuses sent a negative
signal about the administration's support for the government human
rights apparatus. President Samper's declaration of the state of
emergency further strained his administration's relationship with NGO's.
On October 27, the U.N. Committee on Human Rights formally declared the
Government responsible for the 1987 arrest, disappearance, torture, and
subsequent murder of Nydia Erika Bautista de Arellana. In another case,
the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued on December 8 a finding
of government responsibility in the 1989 disappearances and presumed
deaths of Isidro Caballero and Maria del Carmen Santana. At year's end,
both cases were under criminal investigation by the Prosecutor General's
office.
Section 5 Discrimination Based on Race, Sex, Religion, Disability,
Language, or Social Status
The Constitution specifically prohibits discrimination based on race,
sex, religion, disability, language, or social status. In practice,
however, many of these provisions are not enforced.
The Government does not discriminate against homosexuals, although there
are relatively few open ones among the political and business elite of
the country. Unofficial, societal discrimination undeniably exists.
Homosexuals are often listed as victims of social cleansing. Those
targeted by social-
cleansing groups are almost exclusively involved in the sex industry.
Women
Rape and other acts of violence against women are pervasive in society,
and like other crimes, are seldom prosecuted successfully. The law
provides relatively mild sentences, ranging from 6 months to 8 years,
for crimes of sexual abuse and allows for significant sentence
reductions based on the conduct of the convicted perpetrator. In most
cases, the assailant is released because the law permits the
probationary release of criminals convicted of crimes carrying minimum
sentences of less than 2 years. The law does not penalize marital rape
or other forms of marital sexual abuse. Many jurists and women's
advocates called for a reform of the law. In May the Supreme Court
ordered the arrest of a man who had ignored a restraining order and
continued to sexually assault and beat his wife. The 15-day sentence
and fine was the first ever passed by a court for spousal abuse. The
Bogota police reported that, of the 170 reports of sexual abuse received
between January and June, it could legally detain the perpetrators in
only 36 cases. In those cases detention was permitted by virtue of the
fact that the crimes were committed in conjunction with other crimes.
The Constitution prohibits any form of discrimination against women and
specifically requires the authorities to "guarantee adequate and
effective participation by women at decisionmaking levels of public
administration." Even prior to implementation of the 1991 Constitution,
the law had provided women with extensive civil rights. Despite these
constitutional provisions, however, discrimination against women
persists.
The quasi-governmental Institute for Family Welfare (ICBF) and the
presidential adviser's Office for Youth, Women, and Family Affairs
reported high levels of spousal and partner abuse throughout the
country. The ICBF conducted programs and provided refuge and counseling
for victims of spousal abuse, but the level and amount of these services
were dwarfed by the magnitude of the problem.
According to figures published by the United Nations, women's earnings
for nonagricultural work correspond to approximately 84.7 percent of
men's earnings for comparable work. Women constitute a high percentage
of the subsistence labor work force, especially in rural areas. Women's
groups such as Promujer and the Association of Twenty-first Century
Women reported that the social and economic problems of single mothers
remained great throughout the year, despite government efforts to
provide them with training in parenting skills, reproductive rights, and
birth control.
Children
Despite significant constitutional and legislative commitments to the
protection of the rights of children, these were only minimally
implemented. The Constitution imposes the obligation on family,
society, and the State to assist and protect children, to foster their
development, and to assure the full exercise of these rights. A special
Children's Code sets forth many of these rights and establishes services
and programs designed to enforce protection of minors.
In June the Government announced a program to improve opportunities for
youth, including obligatory environmental service, the creation of clubs
for adolescents, employment for 150,000 teenagers, and subsidies for
instruction and on the job training. The Attorney General's office
recommended better interagency coordination for child protection; better
control of licensing agencies, schools, daycare centers and other
organizations offering services to children; more vigilance on the part
of government agencies to ensure compliance with the Children's Code;
legislation to increase awareness of children's issues; and
establishment of a network for abused children.
Child prostitution was commonplace in the five major cities. In May the
press gave wide coverage to the discovery of a child pornography ring in
Bogota. The public was outraged when the police released the
perpetrators due to the laxity of the law. An attorney from the
Attorney General's office investigating the case was assassinated in
July.
Children's rights were frequently abused. Vigilante gangs often linked
to the police killed street children in several major cities as part of
social-cleansing killings (see Section 1.a.). Merchants and citizens'
groups allegedly hire off-duty police agents and contract killers to rid
neighborhoods of children suspected to be beggars and thieves; the
Office of the Defender of the People reported clear complicity by police
officers in some of these killings. In conflict zones, children were
also often caught in crossfire between the security forces, paramilitary
groups, and guerrilla organizations. Deadly landmines known as "leg
breakers" laid by guerrillas killed or mutilated many children in these
areas. Despite national and international condemnation, guerrilla
groups continued to recruit minors. A survivor of the Uraba massacre of
September 21 reported that a boy of 10 to 12 years of age was among the
guerrillas who killed 25 farm laborers. Children were the most
vulnerable victims of the mass displacement of rural populations. In
May nine children died of starvation in the Valencia region of Cordoba
as they attempted to escape from paramilitary violence and guerrilla
engagements with the army.
People With Disabilities
The Constitution enumerates the fundamental social, economic, and
cultural rights of the physically disabled, but serious practical
impediments exist to prevent disabled persons' full participation in
society. There is no legislation that specifically mandates access for
people with disabilities. The Constitutional Court ruled in September
that physically disabled individuals must be given access to and
assistance at the voting stations. In August the Constitutional Court
ruled that the social security fund for public employees cannot refuse
to provide services for the disabled children of its members, regardless
of the cost involved.
Indigenous People
There are approximately 82 distinct ethnic groups among the 800,000
indigenous inhabitants. The Constitution gives special recognition to
the fundamental rights of indigenous people. Under its provisions, two
senatorial seats are reserved exclusively for indigenous representation
and a special criminal and civil jurisdiction, based upon traditional
community laws, functions within Indian territories. The Ministry of
Interior, through the Office of Indigenous Affairs, is responsible for
protecting the territorial, cultural, and self-determination rights of
Indians. Ministry representatives are located in all regions of the
country with indigenous populations and work with other governmental
human and civil rights organizations to promote Indian interests and
investigate violations of indigenous rights. Nonetheless, members of
indigenous groups suffer discrimination in the sense that they have
traditionally been relegated to the margins of Colombian society. Few
opportunities exist for those who might wish to participate more fully
in modern life.
There are some 334 designated Indian reserves that are run by
traditional Indian authority boards which handle national or local funds
and are subject to fiscal control by the national Comptroller General.
These boards administer their territories as municipal entities, with
officials locally chosen or elected according to Indian tradition.
Indigenous communities are free to educate their children in traditional
dialects and in the observance of cultural and religious customs. The
Constitutional Court reaffirmed in March that indigenous men are not
subject to the national military draft.
Despite protective efforts by the Government, Indians were frequently
the victims of violence throughout the year by government security
forces, paramilitary groups (often sponsored by landowners), narcotics
traffickers, and guerrillas. In zones where the guerrillas were active,
such as the Sierra Nevada and Valle de Cauca, the security forces often
suspected the indigenous population of complicity with narcotics
traffickers and guerrillas. Most of the incidents in which Indians were
attacked or threatened stemmed from land ownership disputes concerning
the designated Indian reserves. The National Land Reform Institute
estimated that some 40 indigenous communities had lost the legal title
to land they claimed as their own and that roughly 100 other groups had
title claims that were not recognized or reconciled.
In April, 500 members of the Zenu tribe began a mass exodus from Uraba
to return to Sucre, a region they left in the 1980's in search of a
better standard of living. Caught in the conflict among guerrilla,
paramilitary, and military forces, they cited incidents of physical and
psychological torture, abductions, arson, and other threats.
Unidentified assassins murdered three Zenu leaders, including
reservation governor Jose Elias Suarez, in the first 3 months of 1995,
which led to the Zenus' decision to leave Uraba.
National/Racial/Ethnic Minorities
Two million Colombian citizens of African heritage live primarily in the
Pacific departments of Choco, Valle del Cauca, and Narino, and along the
Caribbean coast. They represent roughly 4 percent of the general
population. Blacks are entitled to all constitutional rights and
protections but have traditionally suffered from economic
discrimination. Despite the passage of the African-Colombian Law in
1993, little concrete progress was made in expanding public services and
private investment in the Choco or other predominantly black regions.
The Navy makes little effort to recruit African-Colombians, despite
their traditional ties to the sea and maritime commerce.
Section 6 Worker Rights
a. The Right of Association
The law recognizes the rights of workers to organize unions and strike.
The Labor Code provides for automatic recognition of unions that obtain
at least 25 signatures from the potential members and comply with a
simple registration process at the Labor Ministry. The law penalizes
interference with freedom of association. It allows unions to freely
determine internal rules, elect officials, and manage activities, and
forbids the dissolution of trade unions by administrative fiat.
According to Labor Ministry estimates, only about 8 percent of the work
force is organized. Unions are free to join international
confederations without government restrictions.
The 1991 Constitution provides for the right to strike by nonessential
public employees and authorizes Congress to pass enabling legislation
that would define "essential." Since this has not yet been done,
existing legislation which prohibits public employees from striking is
still in force. Before staging a legal strike, unions must negotiate
directly with management and--if no agreement results--accept mediation.
By law, public employees must accept binding arbitration if mediation
fails; in practice, public service unions decide by membership vote
whether or not to seek arbitration.
In 1993 the International Labor Organization (ILO) criticized 10
provisions of Colombian law, including: the supervision of the internal
management and meetings of unions by government officials; the presence
of officials at assemblies convened to vote on a strike call; the
suspension of union officers who dissolve their unions; the requirement
that contenders for trade union office must belong to the occupation
their union represents; the prohibition of strikes in a wide range of
public services which are not necessarily essential; various
restrictions on the right to strike; the power of the Minister of Labor
and the President to intervene in disputes through compulsory
arbitration; and the power to dismiss trade union officers involved in
an unlawful strike.
Public primary and secondary school teachers went on strike for higher
wages three times between January and late May. The Government declared
the strikes illegal and threatened reprisals against members of the
Colombian Federation of Educators. The strike settlement reached on May
24 allowed for a 26-percent wage increase, falling far short of the
teachers' demands but exceeding the Government's 18-percent limit set
for other public workers. In addition, the Government agreed not to
take disciplinary action against the striking teachers.
The Government restructured but did not privatize the state petroleum
company Ecopetrol in a move that allayed workers' fears of massive
layoffs. In May Ecopetrol and the Union of Syndicated Labor (USO)
signed a collective work convention for 1995-96. The USO leadership,
however, declared that it remained in open conflict with the Government
with regard to the cases of union leaders subject to detentions by the
Prosecutor General's office, outstanding arrest orders, and
administrative investigations by the Attorney General's office. The
leadership reported further that USO participants in the collective
bargaining with Ecopetrol had received death threats from presumed
paramilitary groups active in the oil producing region of Magdalena
Medio.
Labor leaders throughout the country continued to be the target of
attacks by guerrillas, paramilitary groups, narcotics traffickers, the
military, police, and their own union rivals. According to figures
published by Justice and Peace, during the first 6 months of 1995, 13
labor activists were murdered in connection with their labor activities.
Another 2 were murdered presumably because of their labor activities,
and 16 were kidnaped, detained illegally, and threatened. In the
banana-producing region of Uraba, organized workers historically
belonged to the extreme left wing of the labor movement but refused to
cooperate with the FARC. Over a 45-day period in August and September,
paramilitary and FARC guerrilla forces murdered some 90 civilians in
Uraba. Of that number, approximately half may have been targeted for
their participation in or sympathy with the National Syndicate of Agro-
Industry Workers, a labor union closely associated with the Hope, Peace,
and Freedom movement of demobilized EPL guerrillas.
The list of killings, intimidations, and arbitrary arrests of labor
union leaders includes the murders of Association Nacional de Usuarios
Campesinos (ANUC) president William Gustavo Jaime Torres in August and
ANUC director for Sucre, Manuel Herrera Sierra, in April; the June
disappearance, torture, and murder of teachers' union member German
Rodriguez; the attempted murder of the president of the Syndicate of
Workers of Yumbo, Fidel Castro Murillo, in July; and the attempted
murder of Jesus Tovar Durango, president of Sintraigro, the syndicate of
agricultural workers. Numerous threats against other labor leaders were
reported.
b. The Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively
The Constitution protects the right of workers to organize and engage in
collective bargaining. Workers in larger firms and public services have
been most successful in organizing, but these unionized workers
represent only a small portion of the economically active population.
High unemployment, traditional antiunion attitudes, and weak union
organization and leadership limit workers' bargaining power in the
private sector and in agriculture.
The law forbids antiunion discrimination and the obstruction of free
association. Government labor inspections theoretically enforce these
provisions but, because of the small number of inspectors and workers'
fears of losing their jobs, the inspection apparatus is weak. The new
Labor Code increases the fines levied for restricting freedom of
association and prohibits the use of strike breakers.
Collective pacts, agreements between individual workers and their
employers, are not subject to collective bargaining and are typically
used by employers to obstruct labor organization. Although collective
pacts must be registered formally with the Ministry of Labor, the
Ministry does not exercise any oversight or control over them.
The Labor Code also eliminates mandatory mediation in private labor-
management disputes and extends the grace period before the Government
can intervene in a conflict. Federations and confederations may assist
affiliate unions in collective bargaining.
Labor law applies to the country's seven free trade zones (FTZ's), but
its standards are difficult to enforce. Public employee unions have won
collective bargaining agreements in the FTZ's of Barranquilla,
Buenaventura, Cartagena, and Santa Marta, but the garment manufacturing
enterprises in Medellin and Risaralda, which have the largest number of
employees, are not organized. National labor leaders claim that in
these FTZ's the provisions of the Labor Code dealing with wages, hours,
health, and safety are not honored.
c. Prohibition of Forced or Compulsory Labor
The Constitution forbids slavery and any form of forced or compulsory
labor, and this prohibition is respected in practice.
d. Minimum Age for Employment of Children
The Constitution bans the employment of children under the age of 14 in
most jobs, and the Labor Code prohibits the granting of work permits to
youths under the age of 18. This provision is respected in larger
enterprises and in major cities. Nevertheless, Colombia's extensive
informal economy remains effectively outside government control. Some
800,000 children between the ages of 12 and 17 work, according to Labor
Ministry studies. These children work--often under substandard
conditions--in agriculture or in the informal sector, as street vendors,
in leather tanning, and in small family-operated mines. Working
children are exposed to the same risks which affect adult workers,
including exposure to toxic substances and accidental injuries, all of
which contribute to impaired physical development. In May the
Government launched a media outreach campaign to inform child laborers
of their rights and where to turn for help. No figures were available
to measure the impact of this effort.
e. Acceptable Conditions of Work
The Government sets a uniform minimum wage for workers every January to
serve as a benchmark for wage bargaining. The monthly minimum wage was
approximately $124 (Col$ 118,000). Over one-quarter of workers earn the
minimum wage. Although consistent with the Government's anti-inflation
policies, it fails to provide an adequate standard of living for a
worker and family, which, by government estimates, would require two-
and-one-half times the minimum wage.
The law provides for a standard workday of 8 hours and a 48-hour
workweek but does not specifically require a weekly rest period of at
least 24 hours, a failing criticized by the ILO. Legislation provides
comprehensive protection for workers' occupational safety and health,
but these standards are difficult to enforce, in part due to the small
number of Labor Ministry inspectors. In addition, unorganized workers
in the informal sector fear that they will lose their jobs if they
exercise their right to denounce abuses, particularly in the
agricultural sector. According to the Labor Code, workers have the
right to withdraw from a hazardous work situation without jeopardizing
continued employment. In general, a lack of public safety awareness,
inadequate attention by unions, and lax enforcement by the Labor
Ministry result in an unacceptable high level of industrial accidents
and unhealthy working conditions.
(###)
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