May 15, 2002

Turning a Blind Eye

by Garry Leech

Not only have innocent civilians again been caught in the middle of Colombia's violent conflict with the tragic bombing of a church in Bojaya, they have also been used as political pawns in a cynical public relations ploy by the governments of Colombia and the United States. Following the killing of 119 people in Bojaya on May 2, President Andrés Pastrana called for the United Nations to investigate the massacre. The U.S. ambassador to Colombia, Anne Patterson, quickly backed Pastrana's call for an international investigation. But instead of demanding a senseless investigation into a crime in which the perpetrators had already admitted their guilt, Pastrana and U.S. officials should have instead been concerned with the collusion between the Colombian army and right-wing paramilitary forces that led to the fighting in Bojaya.

Citing the UN's willingness to send a team to investigate the Israeli army's alleged massacre of Palestinians in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, Pastrana called for a similar team to investigate the tragedy in Bojaya. But unlike the situation in Jenin where the Israeli army denied Palestinian claims that hundreds of civilians had been massacred, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) immediately admitted launching the homemade rocket that killed more than a hundred innocent civilians. The rebels said it was an accident, claiming that they had been aiming at paramilitary fighters near the church in which the victims had sought refuge.

During the past year, a lot of media and government attention has repeatedly, and rightfully, focused on the FARC's reckless use of rockets made from cooking gas canisters. It is a practice the rebels have repeatedly used to attack rural towns, usually attempting to target police stations. However, these projectiles routinely miss their targets and kill scores of innocent civilians. Rebel claims that they are not purposefully targeting the civilian population are unacceptable in light of the frequency with which civilians are killed by these weapons.

Employing a tactic that knowingly results in civilian deaths time and time again has turned many Colombians against the rebels. Although, in reality, there is little difference between FARC rockets missing their targets and errant U.S. smart bombs that have killed scores of innocent Afghanis and Iraqis in recent years. But according to political propagandists in Washington, it is terrorism when the FARC are responsible and merely a "regrettable mistake" or "collateral damage" when misguided attacks by the U.S. military result in civilian deaths.

Pastrana not only called the FARC attack in Bojaya terrorism, he ludicrously labeled it as "genocide." The Colombian leader called for a United Nations investigation fully expecting that the fact-finding mission led by the UN human rights envoy to Colombia, Anders Kompass, would issue a straightforward condemnation of the FARC. But Pastrana's public relations ploy was foiled when Kompass returned from Bojaya and criticized the ongoing collaboration between the Colombian armed forces and the paramilitaries.

The UN envoy reported that paramilitaries were still present in Bojaya after the Colombian military declared it had secured control of the area. Kompass stated that the presence of the paramilitaries, "along with the presence of the security forces, has created confusion among the civilian population." President Pastrana reacted angrily to the UN report, insisting that government security forces do not collaborate with the paramilitaries. He said that anyone with information suggesting otherwise should come forward, which is exactly what the UN investigation--called for by Pastrana himself--had done.

While it was clear that the FARC were primarily responsible for the deaths of 119 innocent civilians in Bojaya, prior to the UN fact-finding mission there had been little attention paid to the role of the Colombian army and the paramilitaries in this tragedy. In March 2000, the government abandoned the people of Bojaya by withdrawing all security forces stationed in the area after the FARC attacked the local police outpost. At the same time, the rebels defeated local paramilitaries and consolidated control over this remote jungle region in Chocó. But in the weeks leading up to the Bojaya tragedy, it had become evident to locals and human rights workers in the area that the paramilitaries, with the aid of the Colombian military, were moving back into the region.

The mayor of Bojaya and local human rights workers, knowing that the arrival of the paramilitaries would inevitably result in civilians being caught in a crossfire between the illegal armed groups, repeatedly requested military protection from Bogotá. In their coverage of the church bombing, many in the media mistakenly pointed out that these pleas were ignored, when in reality, far from turning a blind eye to the residents of this impoverished region, the Colombian military were actively involved in the events that were unfolding in Bojaya.

In mid-April, 450 heavily armed paramilitary fighters from the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) traveled down the Atrato River in eleven boats (according to the UN report, 250 AUC fighters in seven boats). Somehow this large conspicuous force passed unheeded through several military checkpoints along the river.

In massacre after massacre perpetrated by the paramilitaries, the Colombian military has aided right-wing death squads by providing intelligence, transportation, weapons, or simply allowing them to pass through military checkpoints unhindered in order to enter and escape targeted villages. Clearly, this was the scenario unfolding along the Atrato River in April as the military made no effort to prevent the paramilitaries from entering the region knowing full well they would confront the rebels and that, as is usually the case in Colombia's conflict, innocent civilians would be killed.

It is this collusion between Colombia's armed forces and right-wing paramilitaries responsible for more than 70 percent of the nation's human rights abuses that should concern Washington and Bogotá. But the Bush administration has decided to turn a blind eye to this brutal military-paramilitary alliance as it tries to convince the U.S. Congress to remove all conditions restricting current and future military aid to counternarcotics operations. The Bush White House is seeking to expand U.S. military involvement in Colombia by supporting the counterinsurgency campaign being waged by the Colombian military and its AUC allies who, unlike the FARC, are on both the U.S. State Department's and European Union's lists of terrorist organizations.

Instead of calling for the United Nations to investigate a tragedy in which the facts were evident to everyone, including the perpetrators, Pastrana and U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson should have been demanding an international investigation into Colombia's military-paramilitary partnership and how U.S. military aid is linked to this murderous alliance. It is the Colombian military's ongoing collaboration with paramilitary death squads that lies at the root of the huge majority of Colombia's human rights abuses, especially civilian massacres. Where were the calls by Pastrana and Patterson for an international investigation into recent massacres in Chengue, Buga and El Salado that were committed by paramilitaries aided by the Colombian military?

As for the FARC, it is time they heeded calls to stop using homemade rockets that repeatedly kill innocent civilians in rural towns. The inaccuracy of these weapons make them indiscriminate killers whose victims are often the very same people the rebels claim to be fighting for. And while it was the FARC's reckless use of a homemade rocket that directly caused the deaths of more than a hundred innocent civilians in Bojaya, the collusion between the Colombian army and paramilitaries was a significant contributing factor.

This article originally appeared in Colombia Report, an online journal that was published by the Information Network of the Americas (INOTA).

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