Break the spell or more of the same? 1 Colombian Platform for Human Rights, Democracy and Development Secretaría Técnica Corporación Cactus Correo electrónico: [email protected] Carrera 25 Nº 51-37, oficina 301 Tels.: (571) 345 83 40 - (571) 345 83 29 Comité Editorial: Corporación Cactus, Colectivo de Abogados José Alvear Restrepo (Cajar), Instituto Latinoamericano de Servicios Legales Alternativos (ILSA) Edición: Carlos Enrique Angarita Foto carátula: Jesús Abad Colorado Fernanda Pineda Palencia Caricaturas: Vladdo: Cortesía Revista Semana – Publicaciones Semana S.A. Antonio Caballero: Revista Semana – Publicaciones Semana S.A. Chócolo: Cortesía del autor Preparación editorial: Marta Rojas Traducción: Luke Holland Diseño: Paola Escobar Versión impresa en español: Ediciones Antropos Bogotá, Colombia, Noviembre de 2009 Los artículos que aparecen en este libro son responsabilidad de sus autores. Se permite la reproducción parcial o total de esta obra, en cualquier formato, mecánico o digital, siempre y cuando no se modifique su contenido, se res- pete su autoría y se mantenga esta nota. 2 Break the spell or more of the same? 3 ho IND 6 Presentation PART 4: COMMODIFICATION OF THE TERRITORY PART 1: CONTEXT 126 Rural and food issues under the Uribe government Juan Carlos Morales González 11 The Democratic Security Policy in its regional context: old affinities with the North, new contradictions with the Southr 139 The human right to water, environmental crisis Consuelo Ahumada and social mobilisation INDEX Rafael Colmenares Faccini 19 The bankers get rich while misery spreads Jorge Iván González 149 Commodifying public goods: deepening exclusion and poverty An analysis of waste management policy 24 In time of crisis, the bank doesn’t serve during the Álvaro Uribe government Juan Diego Restrepo E. (Chronicle) Federico Parra PART 2: THE POLITICAL REGIME 160 African palm: the embargoed prosperity of Colombia’s Northern Coast 33 The regression of a country Ricardo León Cruz (Chronicle) Camilo Castellanos 166 Chocó refuses to starve to death INDEX 45 Neither state of opinion, nor rule of law: a state of loyalty Juan Diego Restrepo (Chronicle) Alejandro Mantilla Quijano PART 5: COMMUNITIES 59 Between a gang of thieves and their subjects: 174 The situation of women ethical questions in the era of “democratic security” Corporación Cactus, Tribunal de Mujeres y DESC. Carlos E. Angarita S. The “My rights Are Non-Negotiable” Campaign 68 “They have money and they want more”: 184 “With a stable job everything would change for me” Uribe’s brothers and the land of Mosquera Omaira Páez (Chronicle) Sandra Yanneth García Herrera (Chronicle) INDEX 188 A policy of systematic exclusion: the deficit of decent jobs facing PART 3: DEMOCRATIC SECURITY? Colombian workers and their union organisations 75 Concealment techniques: Colombian Campaign for Decent Jobs new tendencies in extrajudicial executions in Colombia Alberto Yepes, 204 Cane cutters: slavery or mechanisation in times of dictatorship Coordinación Colombia Europa Estados Unidos Berenice Celeyta (Chronicle) 93 “Parapolitics”, a phenomenon which refuses to disappear 208 Indigenous peoples, their traditional territories and capital’s new León Valencia, Oscar Fernando Sevillano forms of appropriation Mauricio Caviedes INDEX 109 Extradition and other mechanisms of impunity: monitoring the “Justice and Peace Law” 218 Gathering our determination to work “en Minga” José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers Collective Jorge Caballero (Chronicle) 116 It is dangerous to think differently, PART 6: KEEPING HOPE ALIVE or to show dissent for governmental policies 226 Social activism in Colombia, 2002-2009 Hollman Morris (Chronicle) Social Movements Team-Cinep (Centre for Investigation and Popular Education) 120 “Our sons are innocent workers, not delinquents or guerrillas” Nicolás Murillo Faucher (Chronicle) INDEX Chronicles 4 Break the spell or more of the same? 5 INDEX INDEX in accordance with the complaint lodged by the Coor- key issues of labour reform, political reform, the Justice dinación Colombia-Europa-Estados Unidos Roundtable and Peace Law, the law of victims, the negotiation of free on Extrajudicial Executions. This section is completed by trade agreements”, thereby facilitating the rise in discrim- the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers Collective, which indi- ination against women and the violation of their rights. cates how, in the framework of the Justice and Peace Law, Additionally, as is well demonstrated by José Luciano the government has configured a “route of impunity, with Sanín and Juan Bernardo Rosado, “in the last seven years which it has impeded the appropriate judicial processing the imbalance between the rights of businesses and the of crimes against humanity within Colombian jurisdiction. rights of workers has become sharper”, resulting in an Presentation This is underpinned by the employment of extradition as “exclusive labour market” with 18 million workers living a juridical mechanism which is added to other strategies in poverty. With all this in mind, Mauricio Cavieded re- of impunity, carried forward since 2002.” members that “in the moment when the most historically This latest edition of the “El Embrujo” (“The Spell”) series With respect to the Colombian POLITICAL REGIME, relevant social movements seem to have been weakened Behind all this is the purpose of making possible is extensive and rich in content. We offer readers, both of old and dark alliances, the authors clarify how long- by repression and internal contradictions, some authors significant economic projects committing the strategic within the country and at the international level, analysis standing politicians have been many years in the making consider the indigenous movement and the mobilisation recourses, which are public in character, which exist in of the context and characteristics of the current political and how they have consolidated their positions and radi- it leads to represent a barrier to the expansion of capital- our TERRITORY. A round condemnation of these actions regime in Colombia, and its strategies of consolidation, calised their approaches during the “democratic security” ism, through the exercise of autonomy in its territories comes under the banner “neither bought, nor sold”. “In along with studies of the the structural policies which era. Camilo Castellanos employs the thesis of Luis Jorge and the strengthening of articulation with other social the case of rural policy… the current government de- have been driven forward by the governments of Álvaro Garay which describes the “coopted reconfiguration of sectors”. signed a framework which seeks, above all, to benefit the Uribe Vélez. We also offer examination of the impacts of the state” by a narco-political and paramilitary mafia, agroindustrial and transnational sectors, along with large In conclusion, we affirm that there is still HOPE. This the Democratic Security policy on specific populations which has been gestating for more than two decades, landowners, concentrating factors of production, pro- is the finding of a detailed analysis of the social mobilisa- and the expressions of resistance that have arisen from and concludes that this entity has today become a power duction itself and the income of the sector”, as affirmed tions that took place between 2002 and 2009, presented the social movement. Furthermore, throughout the doc- bloc which has led to “Colombia changing regressively in by Juan Carlos Morales. Moreover, Rafael Colmenares ar- by the Social Movements Team-Cinep. This organisation ument there are chronicles of personal experiences and the first decade of the 21st century”. In the same sense, gues that “in Colombia, for some time now, one of the suggests that the actions identified in the study have the testimonies from individuals and communities that show, Alejandro Mantilla affirms that the current regime in Co- most aggressive policies of commodification and priva- “effect of placing in evidence the networks of social, eco- in more direct and vital language, the human experience lombia is distinguished by its premodern character given tisation of the water and sewage services has been pur- nomic, political and cultural conflicts which exist, even of this national, regional and local panorama. that “… does not need from the public sphere (…) in- sued, with projections expanding towards control of the though governmental and business bodies attempt to With regard to CONTEXT, between combatants and stead the key is loyalty to the head of state”. This has sources of water… in a geopolitical context character- evade or deny, and not to process them”. bankers, the protagonism of two types of actors be- all been possible, as argued by Carlos Enrique Angarita, ised by the tendency towards growing scarcity of water, comes evident. Both globally and regionally they have thanks to the fact that the current government managed which primarily affects the countries of the First World”. From the journey undertaken here, two major ele- been imposing their dynamics, within which Colombian to incorporate into its political functioning an ethos that Finally, in another article, Federico Parra reveals how “the ments which, in our judgment, play the central role in the society and its government play a decisive role. In this corresponds to the perspective of “the ethics of the gang commodification of public goods associated with pow- Colombian reality, emerge. Within this context we aim to regard, Consuelo Ahumada considers that, despite