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Abandon free trade plan with Colombia
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When I heard that Prime Minister Stephen Harper was travelling to Colombia, I was immediately interested, guardedly hopeful - and flooded by recent memories. Will Harper see and hear the Colombia I did last November?
Seventy thousand people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Colombia in the last 20 years. Most are victims of paramilitary groups; others have been caught in a crossfire between guerrilla groups and Colombia's military. Paramilitary, sometimes providing "security" for multi-national resource extraction companies, force hundreds of thousands of people from their land every year: More than 3.5 million people are now internally displaced in Colombia, a number surpassed only by Sudan.
Where do they go? Many end up in Colombia's cities that are now bursting with internally displaced people. I met dozens of such families, refugees in their own land; many had been forced to move three times or more. Tragically, families shrunk with each move because at least one spouse or child had "disappeared" or been killed.
As a KAIROS, Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives, board member, I was invited last November to be a judge at Colombia's International Tribunal Against Impunity. Organized by the National Movement of Victims, a coalition of national and local human rights organizations in Colombia, the tribunal was hosted by the Colombian Senate's Human Rights Commission.
The tribunal called as witnesses youths from Ciudad Bolivar and Cazuca, two communities crawling up the 300-metre hills half-embracing Bogota.
One-and-a-half million internally displaced people make their homes in these dusty and dangerous warrens. Local human rights groups report that paramilitaries and police have killed 600 young people there since 2001.
We judges, including church leaders from around the world, heard powerful, heart-wrenching testimonies from 21 courageous witnesses; the youngest was an 11-year-old girl. Mothers, fathers, teachers and friends of victims altogether painted terrible and terrifying pictures. The testimonies provided clear evidence of forced disappearances, extra-judicial executions, kidnappings, torture, sexual abuse and omnipresent intimidation.
During breaks in the proceedings, youth danced, recited poetry and sang in creative defiance of their lives' daily horror.
Although without legal jurisdiction, the tribunal sounded a moral call for justice. In this land of rampant impunity, perpetrators operate with no worry their crimes will be investigated. The legal system offers little hope of justice for victims.
This tribunal was unprecedented, taking place in Colombia's senate chamber and thus the government's cradle of power. Here we deliberated about the state's indirect and direct complicity in crimes against humanity. In the end, we found Colombia's government guilty on three levels of impunity: of failing to protect the rights of civilians; of complicity in these crimes; and of establishing, even promoting, a state of impunity. The international community, including Canada, was also found complicit in this impunity through economic policies and support for the demobilization process that has legitimized this impunity.
As Canadians we still like to think of ourselves as defenders of international human rights. Yet, this verdict should unsettle us because it highlights how Canadian policy in Colombia undermines human rights. Canada, along with many others in the international community, is financially and politically supporting a process led by the Colombian government that claims to be demobilizing the paramilitary. It sounds good, but, in fact, it is fundamentally and dangerously flawed. The Colombian government claims that 32,000 paramilitary have been demobilized since December 2003. Yet, there are no guarantees that these paramilitary will not re-arm and their structures remain intact. In fact, some 60 groups of re-armed "demobilized" paramilitary have already emerged. Their continued campaign of terror hits the young people in Cazuca and Ciudad Bolivar especially hard. Their motto remains: Never go out after dark.
Furthermore, the demobilization process has been criticized from the beginning by international human rights organizations and experts, including the United Nations, for ignoring victims' rights to truth, justice and reparations. Although, Canada's support is minimal, any support legitimizes a process that is entrenching impunity and injustice in Colombia.
Secondly, and astonishingly, Canada intends to pursue a free trade agreement with Colombia. Apart from our misgivings about free trade because of our experience with the United States, this should profoundly disturb Canadians because of the known human rights crisis in Colombia. The UN has called Colombia the hemisphere's "worst humanitarian crisis."
Furthermore, the recent U.S. free trade agreement with Colombia has met widespread opposition. And finally, a Colombian political scandal known as "para-politics" keeps growing: 14 government officials so far have been arrested for links with paramilitaries.
Does Canada need more reasons NOT to pursue a free trade deal with Colombia?
Harper's official Colombia agenda covers trade and investment. Yet, he and our government need to look first and foremost at human rights. Did Harper hear from any of the hundreds of thousands of victims in Colombia? Did he hear any of the testimonies I heard? Did his staff and our government listen? Will he continue to be haunted by memories and the stories of the people he meets in Colombia, even months after his trip?
Rev. James C. Dekker is the pastor of Covenant Christian Reformed
Church in St. Catharines and is the secretary of the board of KAIROS,
representing the Christian Reformed Church of North America.
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