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December 9, 2002 Colombia Court Declares Rehabilitation Zones Unconstitutional On November 26, Colombia's Constitutional Court ruled that the suspension of civil liberties in two so-called Rehabilitation and Consolidation Zones established by President Alvaro Uribe was unconstitutional. The court's ruling means that the Uribe administration must either reform the authoritarian policies it has imposed on Colombians living in the zones or attempt to amend the country's constitution. In the meantime, the Colombian military can no longer conduct searches and arrests without warrants, restrict the movement of civilians, or prevent foreign journalists from entering these areas. Justice Alfredo Beltrán explained the court's ruling by stating, "Uribe can't go above the constitution; that's a dictator."
The forced photographing and fingerprinting of thousands of innocent Colombians was not the only infringement of civil liberties in Saravena. More than 500 residents were rounded up without warrants and detained in the local sports stadium. The huge majority were eventually set free—but not until the military had branded them like cattle by stamping their arms—when investigations failed to reveal any links between the detainees and the country's illegal armed groups; only 42 were held for any further questioning. It is no coincidence that the harshest violations of civil liberties resulting from Uribe's policies have occurred in Saravena, whose army base will be home for up to 100 U.S. Army Special Forces troops due to arrive in January 2003 as part of the Bush administration's global war on terrorism (see, Washington’s New Rules of Engagement). Uribe has used (and abused) the special military powers imposed on the region as a means of securing the town for the arrival of the U.S. troops whose mission is to protect the oil pipeline used by Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum. Not only does the court's ruling mean that the government must now find legal methods of ensuring the safety of U.S. troops stationed in one of the rehabilitation zones, it also hinders the Uribe administration's attempts to censor the press by insisting that foreign journalists request permission to enter the zones from the Interior Ministry. Foreign reporters were required to declare for whom they worked, where they were going, and for how long. Forcing journalists to obtain permission to enter the zones provided the government with the opportunity to censor any reporter they might deem to be critical of the Uribe administration (see, Uribe Administration Impeding Foreign Press). The Constitutional Court, established in 1991 under Colombia's newly-written constitution, has in the past decade proven itself to be the least corrupt of the country's governing institutions by ruling against presidential decrees, as well as national and foreign business interests, on numerous occasions. In 2001, the court restricted cutbacks in government social spending called for by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and earlier this year ruled on behalf of peasant communities displaced by the Cerrejón coal mine in La Guajira, which is owned and operated by a consortium of multinational mining companies (see, Generating Power and Poverty). In the eyes of many Colombians, the Constitutional Court is the most respected branch of the Colombian government, which leaves Uribe with little choice but to abide by its ruling as ignoring the court would seriously undermine his political legitimacy. As a result, administration officials are trying to abide by the court's decision, while at the same time frantically seeking alternative means of imposing military rule in conflict areas. While Uribe may be able to muster enough support in the Colombian Congress to amend the constitution, this promises to be a time-consuming proposition. Instead, the president has sought a quick fix for his dilemma in the Colombian Senate, which last week approved a bill that, if passed by the full Congress, would give the Attorney General's office the authority to transfer some judicial powers to the military and police in order to maintain public order in conflict zones. While the constitutionality of such a policy may also come up for review before the Constitutional Court, it would allow the Uribe administration to temporarily re-establish some of its authoritarian policies in the rehabilitation zones and buy the president some time if he does indeed decide to seek an amendment of the constitution. One way or another, it appears that Uribe is intent on imposing military rule in conflict areas that are of special interest to the political and economic elites in Bogotá and Washington. 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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In
September, Uribe issued a presidential decree that established the
two rehabilitation zones—one consisting of parts of Bolívar
and Sucre and the other in Arauca—as a means of combating Colombia's
illegal armed groups. Military commanders in the zones, whose power
under the decree superseded that of local elected officials, immediately
began violating the civil rights of Colombians living in these regions.
In Saravena, a town in the department of Arauca, the Colombian army
went from door to door photographing and fingerprinting every resident.
Unfortunately, the Constitutional Court's ruling that the military
refrain from conducting this illegal census comes too late to protect
the privacy rights of Saravena's citizens. This fact became apparent
when Colonel Jesus Ruiz of the army's 18th Brigade responded to
the court's ruling that the census was unconstitutional by stating
that it "doesn't matter, we already finished it."