On March 3, Juliette de Rivero, the representative in Colombia of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, OHCHR, presented the organization’s new Annual Report on Colombia, which summarizes the dramatic human rights situation in the country during the year 2021. Among the many issues of concern is the risk faced in the election of 16 peace seats, point 2 of the Peace Agreement, due to the place of armed groups in the different territories and urban centers, the lack of comprehensive State presence in rural areas, the increase in massacres, and more than 202 homicides of human rights defenders.
The 16 special peace seats should contribute to repairing the damage suffered by the victims of decades of armed conflict in Colombia, which had among many of its causes political exclusion. The 2016 Peace Agreement foresaw that in the departments most affected by the war – Arauca, Antioquia, Bolívar, Cauca, Caquetá, Cesar, Chocó, Córdoba, Guaviare, Huila, La Guajira, Magdalena, Meta, Norte de Santander, Nariño, Putumayo, Sucre, Valle del Cauca and Tolima – 16 special and temporary seats would be contested to strengthen the political representation of victims.
However, for five years the ruling Democratic Center party, with the hand of Álvaro Uribe behind it, and allied sectors of Congress opposed these seats. On November 30, 2017, the project that was in conciliation in the Senate was sunk by one vote. The fight to rescue them lasted five years, until the Constitutional Court, after an action by Senator Roy Barreras revived these peace seats on May 21, 2021 (Ruling SU-150). Several months later, on October 6, 2021, President Iván Duque finally signed Decree 1207 of 2021 which regulated Legislative Act 02 of 2021, thus recognizing the right of victims to occupy their seats in Congress for two terms: 2022-2026 and 2026-2030.
This long delay meant that instead of having years of preparation to guarantee the integrity of the election of the seats, only a few months were needed. On December 13, 2021, the registration period for candidates for the peace seats closed. Applicants must meet certain requirements such as being born in one of the municipalities of the constituencies or having lived in these for three consecutive years -this taking into account that some of them may be victims of forced displacement-, and be included in the Single Registry of Victims for any of the victimizing events contemplated in Law 1448 of 2011, individually or collectively. At the end of February of this year, 396 candidates were known to occupy the 16 peace seats, among which there are very questionable people such as the son of the paramilitary “Jorge 40”, Jorge Rodrigo Tovar Vélez, from the misnamed “Peace is Life Association”, accused of being a paper organization and vote-buying. Everything indicates that several aspirants are nothing more than tokens of the same old political machines.
The OHCHR report recognizes that the creation of the special transitional peace constituencies is a significant advance, precisely in relation to the political participation of the victims of the areas most affected by the armed conflict. But at the same time, Ms. de Rivero called attention to the high risk to the 16 peace constituencies in the elections on Sunday, March 13. The historic vote is at risk due to the presence of non-state armed groups and criminal organizations operating in the areas corresponding to these constituencies and their negative impact on the electoral process and democracy.
The factors that put the elections of the seats at risk are the same that affect the entire process of implementation of the 2016 Peace Agreement. The increase in violence documented in the report occurs precisely in these areas historically affected by the conflict and is the same that severely affects leadership, indigenous, peasant and Afro-descendant community life, and that of women in rural areas.
According to de Rivero, the violence has worsened and is mostly concentrated in four departments of the country: Antioquia, Cauca, Nariño and Valle del Cauca, which were also highly affected by the armed conflict at the time. It recorded a total of 100 cases of possible massacres, of which 78 were verified and mostly perpetrated in these four departments. These events were accompanied by limitations on ancestral and community practices, and other harassment by illegal armed groups against the civilian population, said de Rivero.
Mrs. de Rivero also reported that it is in the Pacific and Caribbean regions where there were higher indicators of multidimensional poverty, with 30.9% and 28.7%, respectively, and that at a general level the informal population amounted to 48.1%, which has an impact on the analysis of the situation of insecurity in the country. He called for the reinforcement of the integral presence of the State to deal with these situations, because otherwise, vulnerabilities may increase, such as those present in places like Quibdó, where economic deficits and the presence of armed groups already show their intensity. He specified that with the arrival of the State, there is greater access to justice and basic services, while impunity is reduced and the development of economic, social and cultural rights is promoted.
The representative indicated that the High Commissioner’s report presented 202 allegations of homicides of human rights defenders, of which 100 had a direct relationship between their murder and their social work. Seventy-five percent of these events took place in Antioquia, Chocó, Valle del Cauca and Cauca – again, areas with a high incidence of war. Meanwhile, 1,116 threats were registered against this population and against human rights organizations, in addition to what happened during the days of social mobilization.
We are in a vicious circle. The Peace Accord was signed to transform the structural causes of the armed conflict. By not having implemented it, the Duque government lends itself to sustain these same causes. It is responsible for a situation in which the increase of violence in rural areas where the peace seats are disputed puts them at risk, which is due to the complete absence of the State and the lack of implementation of the Peace Agreement. It is feared that a process that could have been transformative will fall short.
As is always the case, in the 2021 report, the High Commissioner made a series of recommendations to the Colombian State, urging it to implement the Peace Agreement; to follow up on the call of the populations affected by the violence for the adoption of Humanitarian Agreements for the protection of life and respect for human rights; the Ministry of the Interior to strengthen the capacity and methodology of the Intersectoral Commission for Rapid Response to Early Warnings to implement concrete measures to prevent violence; that the Regional Commissions of the Public Prosecutor’s Office be strengthened to follow up on the Early Warnings, through coordination between the Personerías, the Attorney General’s Office and the Ombudsman’s Office; and that the Government strengthen and, in some cases, reactivate the territorial roundtables on guarantees and strengthen the follow-up of their decisions, among other points. The road ahead could not be clearer, but it will be left for the next government.
