Crimes Of War Project > Magazine

The Crisis of Internal Displacement
By Hiram A. Ruiz

August 2001

Whole towns abandoned, buildings in decay, fields gone fallow—it is a not unusual sight in the terrorized Colombian hinterlands. The war between leftist guerrillas and rightwing paramilitaries is the direct cause of massive internal displacement, a humanitarian crisis that was all but hidden until the year 2000 when Plan Colombia attracted a new wave of media attention to the region.

According to the U.S. Committee for Refugees, in 2000 alone more than 315,000 persons became newly displaced, bringing the total since 1985 to 2.1 million. Violence and displacement are not limited to any one area of Colombia. Civilians have been displaced from (or within) 27 of Colombia's 32 departments (states).

Most of those who become internally displaced or who flee overland to neighboring countries are farmers and inhabitants of villages and small towns that have been attacked by the paramilitaries. A disproportionate number are Afro-Colombians and indigenous people. Some 32 percent of all displaced families are headed by women, and an estimated 45 percent of the displaced are children aged 14 or younger.

They flee to mushrooming shantytowns on the outskirts of Colombia’s large cities, or cobble together settlements in the countryside, where they live in poverty and continue to fear for their lives. The cities are overcrowded; competition for jobs is fierce; local services have been strained to the breaking point; tension and conflict build.

The work available to displaced persons is hard, poorly paid, and usually temporary--for example, on construction or road building crews, which hire by the day. Driven to desperation, many individuals labor for even less than the standard low wage, which generates resentment on the part of other local poor people. Others turn to the informal economy, buying fruit and vegetables, cigarettes, or other products from markets and wholesalers and then selling them on street corners or house to house. Some prepare food to sell on the streets. Still others take in washing.

Displaced persons tend to lack for proper documentation. Individuals from remote rural areas have never had the documents that city dwellers routinely receive. People fleeing suddenly often leave their documents behind. Lacking official papers, it is impossible to vote, work in the formal sector, own property, drive, send children to public schools, or receive treatment at public hospitals.
The psychological consequences are severe. According to the Colombian Catholic Bishops’ Conference, the experience of displacement is one of "suffering, tears, and self-doubt...[accompanied by] feelings of impotence, vulnerability, and victimization."

Targeted by Both Sides

Since the mid-1990s, the rightwing paramilitary AUC (Autodefensas Unidas de Córdoba—United Self-Defense Groups of Córdoba)—an umbrella organization that encompasses most of the paramilitary groups—has been responsible for most of the killing and forced displacement of civilians. According to the Colombian Ministry of Defense, "[They] generate terror and panic. They commit atrocities, and do so in public view, so that everyone in the community will flee in a stampede." The paramilitaries were responsible for 76 percent of the 671 massacres committed between January and October 2000. In the first three months of 2001, they massacred some 530 civilians.

The paramilitaries ostensibly depopulate towns and villages to deprive the guerrillas of support. However, their underlying objective is to drive peasants from the land for the benefit of their wealthy patrons—large landholders, business people, and narco traffickers.

Colombia’s two main guerrilla groups, the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Colombian Armed Revolutionary Forces) and the ELN (Ejército Nacional de Liberación-National Liberation Army) commonly target local officials, civic leaders, and business owners whom they perceive as opponents. Following these attacks and murders, other civilians flee to avoid a similar fate.

The FARC and the ELN fund their insurgencies through the kidnap for ransom of wealthy and middle-class civilians and taxes on coca growers and narco traffickers in areas under their control. The FARC frequently recruit minors, some as young as nine years old. Many families flee guerrilla-controlled areas to safeguard their children.

The Colombian army is seldom directly guilty of human rights abuse or forcible displacement of civilians, but many observers say that is because paramilitaries now do the dirty work. According to Human Rights Watch, in 2000 "there continued to be abundant, detailed, and continuing evidence of direct collaboration between the military and paramilitary groups."

Government Response Grossly Inadequate

In 1997, the government passed a law that outlined the many services to be provided for the displaced, but did little toward implementation. The government shifted assistance to the displaced from agency to agency, resulting in confusion, false starts, and bureaucratic entanglements.

Finally, in 1999, the government transferred responsibility for helping the displaced to the Red de Solidaridad Social (Social Solidarity Network, hereafter the Red). A national public entity directly under the administration of the Office of the President, the Red has delegations in Bogotá and 32 departmental capitals. While governmental response to the emergency needs of displaced persons has improved, attention to post-emergency services is still virtually non-existent. The Red has formulated plans for projects aimed at helping longer-term displaced persons to support themselves, but says it lacks funds for implementation.

A January 2001 report by the Theme Group on Displacement (TGD), a body comprised of UN agencies and other international organizations working in Colombia under the coordination of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is scathing: "The action of the State has been limited and sporadic compared to the seriousness of the phenomenon of displacement. Moreover, most of the [government] agencies mandated to provide assistance to displaced populations have shirked their responsibilities." In its 2001 "Annual Report on Human Rights Practices," the U.S. State Department found that "The Government has no systematic program or budget to make adequate provisions for humanitarian assistance to the displaced."

Regional and local authorities are also strapped for resources. A May 2001 report by the Brookings-CUNY Project on Internal Displacement describes conditions in Cartagena that are typical of those in major cities around the country: "In Barrio Nelson Mandela...home to almost 50,000 displaced persons, many of African descent, there are no basic services such as plumbing, electricity, and sewage.... The local government has 'turned its back on the barrio."

According to CODHES (Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement), a respected Colombian NGO that documents the situation of displaced persons, 66 percent of displaced Colombians lack all access to health services.

What help there is comes from Colombian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the Catholic Church, and other religious organizations, many of which have funding from the European Union. Until the late 1990s, all of the international NGOs assisting displaced Colombians (mostly working through local implementing partners) were European but, more recently, U.S. NGOs have also begun to help. The International Committee of the Red Cross provides emergency assistance, and the World Food Program provides food aid to some 230,000 displaced persons. UNHCR provides technical support and coordination mechanisms between the Colombian government, NGOs, and displaced persons' associations. UNHCR also trains the armed forces on the prevention of displacement and protection of displaced persons.

Human rights and humanitarian aid workers who seek to protect and assist the displaced are themselves increasingly at risk. Several have been murdered (four in 2000 alone), disappeared, or kidnapped, many others have been threatened. In 2000, 39 human rights workers had to flee the country or go into hiding. According to the UNHCHR, the Colombian government has made "no significant progress...in adopting effective measures to counter the increase in attacks and threats against national and international humanitarian aid agencies providing assistance to the displaced."

The Plight of Children

In a March 2000 report on children and forced displacement in Colombia, CODHES said that "77 percent of children and young people who were receiving education in the areas of expulsion did not enter academic institutions after being displaced." While public education is supposed to be available to the displaced, many children stay out of school because their parents can’t buy them shoes, uniforms, or books, or pay the registration fees that even public schools charge in order to make ends meet. In shantytowns, there generally are no schools.

Unable to study and living in dire poverty, many children are forced to beg in the streets of Colombia's major cities. According to CODHES, "Displaced minors have to live among diverse kinds of violence such as juvenile gangs, urban militias, and other groups who impose norms and codes which limit their rights and prolong the scenarios of threats, fear, and death which are characteristic of the zones of expulsion [the areas from which displaced persons fled]." Many young people get entangled in crime and prostitution. Others are recruited by the same armed groups that were responsible for their displacement in the first place.

Displacement Intensifies Persecution

Displaced persons face dangers from all sides. The Brookings report notes, "The very fact that they have fled areas of fighting provokes suspicion.... Many [displaced persons] continue to fear for their lives." Paramilitaries and guerrillas sometimes comb the cities for people they have targeted. According to the UNHCHR, the leaders of displaced communities are particularly at risk.

In March 2000, paramilitaries killed three displaced leaders in Turbo, Valle del Cauca Department; in June, they killed more than a dozen displaced persons who just days earlier had fled to Buenaventura, on the Pacific coast, following an attack on their villages by paramilitaries. In September, paramilitaries threatened to kill displaced persons in Tulua, also in Valle Department, if they did not return to their homes. The government's only response was to establish a commission to study the situation. According to the UNHCHR, in the absence of concrete government action to protect them, many of the displaced "felt constrained to submit to the paramilitaries' will."

Speaking Out

For many years, the displaced kept silent and invisible for fear of being re-victimized. More recently, however, they have begun to assert their demands. There are now more than 60 displaced persons' organizations in Colombia, most of which are small, not very organized, and lacking in resources. With the help of local and international NGOs, some have managed to implement plans and projects.

In February 2000, representatives of the various organizations formed the National Coordination of Displaced Persons to demand that the government initiate a permanent dialogue with the group, "with the objective of discussing and proposing solutions to the problem of forced displacement."

Frustration has led some groups to pursue more belligerent tactics. For five months in 1998, 100 displaced persons occupied the office of the Defensoria del Pueblo (Human Rights Ombudsman). Protests increased in 1999, especially in Bogotá: One group briefly seized the UNHCR office; in December, about 60 displaced persons occupied the office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The government has refused to yield to the group's demands, saying it cannot provide them assistance, that it is unable to provide to other displaced persons. As this goes to press, protesters continue to occupy the ICRC.

Speaking out carries the high price of persecution by the paramilitaries, guerrillas, and the armed forces. The Brookings report noted, "Colombia is probably the world's most dangerous country for leaders of displaced persons' organizations." On May 11, 2001, just days after the Brookings report was published, its assertion was proven all too true. Darío Suárez, one of the founding members of the National Coordination of Displaced Persons, was assassinated in the city of Neiva, in Huila Department.The Pastrana Government has publicly embraced the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, which proclaims the right of every person to be protected from being arbitrarily forced from his or her home. The only way to halt new displacement is to end the war, which doesn’t seem likely in the near future. In the meantime, the government must honor its commitment to the Guiding Principles and do more to safeguard its most vulnerable populations. If it fails to live up to this obligation, it will impose even more suffering on the beleaguered Colombian people.