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The Peace Process in Colombia with the Autodefensas Unidas De Colombia-AUC

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The Peace Process in Colombia with the Autodefensas Unidas De Colombia-AUC The Peace Process in W oodr The P Colombia with the Autodefensas ow W eace Pr Unidas de Colombia-AUC ilson Center Repor ocess in Colombia with the ts on the Americas • #13 Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia Cynthia J. Arnson -A Sen. Rafael Pardo UC Carlos Franco Gustavo Villegas Rep. Rocío Arias Hoyos Amb. William B. Wood Michael Beaulieu Daniel García-Peña Latin American Program Michael Frühling Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars José Miguel Vivanco 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. Washington, DC 20004 Tel. (202) 691-4030 Fax (202) 691-4076 edited by Latin American Program Cynthia J. Arnson The Peace Process in Colombia with the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia-AUC Woodrow Wilson Center Report on the Americas #13 Edited by Cynthia J. Arnson ©2005 Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C. www.wilsoncenter.org Cover image: Mauricio Dueñas/AFP/Getty Images A member of the Calima Bloc of the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia turns in his weapon to Colombian High Commissioner for Peace Luis Carlos Restrepo, December 2004. Latin American Program The Peace Process in Colombia with the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia-AUC Edited by Cynthia J. Arnson WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS Lee H. Hamilton, President and Director BOARD OF TRUSTEES Joseph B. Gildenhorn, Chair; David A. Metzner, Vice Chair. Public Members: James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress; John W. Carlin, Archivist of the United States; Bruce Cole, Chair, National Endowment for the Humanities; Roderick R. Paige, Secretary, U.S. Department of Education; Colin L. Powell, Secretary, U.S. Department of State; Lawrence M. Small, Secretary, Smithsonian Institution; Tommy G. Thompson, Secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Private Citizen Members: Joseph A. Cari, Jr., Carol Cartwright, Donald E. Garcia, Bruce S. Gelb, Daniel L. Lamaute, Tamala L. Longaberger, Thomas R. Reedy WILSON COUNCIL Bruce S. Gelb, President. Elias F. Aburdene, Charles S. Ackerman, B.B. Andersen, Russell Anmuth, Cyrus A. Ansary, Lawrence E. Bathgate II, Theresa Behrendt, John Beinecke, Joseph C. Bell, Steven Alan Bennett, Rudy Boschwitz, A. Oakley Brooks, Donald A. Brown, Melva Bucksbaum, Richard I. Burnham, Nicola L. Caiola, Mark Chandler, Peter B. Clark, Melvin Cohen, William T. Coleman, Jr., David M. Crawford, Jr., Michael D. DiGiacomo, Beth Dozoretz, Elizabeth Dubin, F. Samuel Eberts III, I. Steven Edelson, Mark Epstein, Melvyn J. Estrin, Sim Farar, Susan R. Farber, Roger Felberbaum, Julie Finley, Joseph H. Flom, John H. Foster, Charles Fox, Barbara Hackman Franklin, Norman Freidkin, John H. French, II, Morton Funger, Gregory M. Gallo, Chris G. Gardiner, Gordon D. Giffin, Steven J. Gilbert, Alma Gildenhorn, David F. Girard-diCarlo, Michael B. Goldberg, Roy M. Goodman, Gretchen Meister Gorog, William E. Grayson, Ronald Greenberg, Raymond A. Guenter, Cheryl F. Halpern, Edward L. Hardin, Jr., John L. Howard, Darrell E. Issa, Jerry Jasinowski, Brenda LaGrange Johnson, Shelly Kamins, James M. Kaufman, Edward W. Kelley, Jr., Anastasia D. Kelly, Christopher J. Kennan, Willem Kooyker, Steven Kotler, William H. Kremer, Raymond Learsy, Dennis A. LeVett, Francine Gordon Levinson, Harold O. Levy, Frederic V. Malek, David S. Mandel, John P. Manning, Jeffrey A. Marcus, John Mason, Jay Mazur, Robert McCarthy, Linda McCausland, Stephen G. McConahey, Donald F. McLellan, Charles McVean, J. Kenneth Menges, Jr., Kathryn Mosbacher, Jeremiah L. Murphy, Martha T. Muse, John E. Osborn, Paul Hae Park, Gerald L. Parsky, Jeanne L. Phillips, Michael J. Polenske, Donald Robert Quartel, Jr., J. John L. Richardson, Margaret Milner Richardson, Larry D. Richman, Carlyn Ring, Edwin Robbins, Robert G. Rogers, Otto Ruesch, Juan A. Sabater, Alan M. Schwartz, Timothy R. Scully, J. Michael Shepherd, George P. Shultz, Raja W. Sidawi, Kenneth Siegel, Ron Silver, William A. Slaughter, James H. Small, Shawn Smeallie, Gordon V. Smith, Thomas F. Stephenson, Norman Kline Tiefel, Mark C. Treanor, Anthony G. Viscogliosi, Christine M. Warnke, Ruth Westheimer, Pete Wilson, Deborah Wince-Smith, Herbert S. Winokur, Jr., Paul Martin Wolff, Joseph Zappala, Richard S. Ziman, Nancy M. Zirkin ABOUT THE CENTER The Center is the living memorial of the United States of America to the nation’s twenty-eighth president, Woodrow Wilson. Congress established the Woodrow Wilson Center in 1968 as an international institute for advanced study, “symbolizing and strengthening the fruitful relation- ship between the world of learning and the world of public affairs.” The Center opened in 1970 under its own board of trustees. In all its activities the Woodrow Wilson Center is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, sup- ported financially by annual appropriations from Congress, and by the contributions of founda- tions, corporations, and individuals. Conclusions or opinions expressed in Center publications and programs are those of the authors and speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Center staff, fellows, trustees, advisory groups, or any individuals or organizations that pro- vide financial support to the Center. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 Cynthia J.Arnson, Deputy Director, Latin American Program, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Part I: Key Issues in the Negotiations Process Senator Rafael Pardo, Colombian Senate 17 Carlos Franco, Director, Presidential Program for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law, Government of Colombia 23 Gustavo Villegas, Director, Peace and Reconciliation Program, Office of the Mayor, Medellín 27 Congresswoman Rocío Arias Hoyos, Colombian House of Representatives 39 Part II:The Role of Third Parties and Issues for the International Community The Honorable William B.Wood, United States Ambassador to Colombia 45 Michael Beaulieu, Principal Specialist, Mission to Support the Peace Process in Colombia, Organization of American States (OEA/MAPP) 57 Daniel García-Peña, Director, Planeta Paz 63 | v | Michael Frühling, Director, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Bogotá 69 José Miguel Vivanco, Director, Human Rights Watch/Americas) 75 Biographies of Participants 81 | vi | ACKNOWLEDGMENTS he Latin American Program wishes to thank the Ford Foundation for its generous support of this publication and other T Program activities. This publication is based on a conference of the same name held at the Woodrow Wilson Center on June 28, 2004. I am grateful to Teresa Whitfield, visiting fellow at the Center on International Cooperation of New York University, and Marcela Sánchez of The Washington Post for serving as panel moderators at the June conference. Presentations made in June have been revised and updated for this publication. Aldo Civico of Columbia University, Patricia Vásquez of Colombia en Perspectiva, and Michael Reed-Hurtado provided invaluable advice and assistance. I also wish to express thanks and gratitude to Elizabeth Bryan, Trisha Fields, Allison Werner, Tamara Taraciuk, Cristina Jiménez and Kelci Lowe, all of the Latin American Program who provided additional research assistance as well as logistical support. Michelle Furman did a splendid job with layout and design. With humility, I remind the reader that any remaining (and surely inad- vertent) errors are my sole responsibility. —Cynthia J.Arnson January 2005 | vii | INTRODUCTION CYNTHIA J. ARNSON n December 2002, Colombia’s largest paramilitary group, the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (United Self-Defense Groups of I Colombia, AUC) declared a unilateral cease-fire, meeting a pre-condi- tion of President Álvaro Uribe Vélez for entering into formal peace talks with the government. The government and the AUC officially opened a dialogue in the town of Santa Fe de Ralito, Córdoba, in July 2003. The AUC pledged to fully demobilize by December 2005 and expressed its support for the goal of a “Colombia without drug trafficking.”1 Although Colombia has engaged in a number of peace processes with guerrilla insurgent groups since the early 1980s,2 the Uribe admin- istration has been the first to open talks with the paramilitaries, estimat- ed to number between 15,000 and 20,000 fighters.3 Paramilitary groups were created and sanctioned by the state beginning in 1965, in order to combat guerrilla groups active since the 1960s in areas of the country with limited or no state presence.4 Current AUC leaders thus view themselves both as heroes and patriots for having responded to guerrilla threats and attacks, protecting civilians and providing security where the government was unwilling or unable to do so. “We are not to blame for being involved in a conflict which we never wanted, which we never started,” AUC leader Salvatore Mancuso told a reporter. “We have sub- stituted and replaced the state, providing all the needs of the population. They don’t have credibility or legitimacy among these people,” he con- tinued. “We do.”5* * The issue of having served the nation was frequently marshaled by paramilitary commanders in arguing against criminal sanctions for war-time abuses. In an appearance before the Colombian Congress in July 2004, for example, Salvatore Mancuso stated, “as compensation for our sacrifice to the country, for having liberated half of the Republic from guerrillas and preventing another Cuba or Nicaragua from consolidating itself on our soil, we cannot receive prison.” See Héctor Latorre, “Colombia/AUC: paz sin cárcel,” BBC Mundo, July 28, 2004. | 1 | Cynthia J. Arnson Paramilitary organizations underwent a transformation
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