Education International Internationale de l’Education Internacional de la Educación Bildungsinternationale COLOMBIA’s CLASSROOM WARS Political violence against education sector trade unions September 2009 Dr Mario Novelli Education International Contents Author’s foreword 1 Introduction 2 Political violence against educators: a growing problem 3 Understanding teachers as trade unionists 4 Background to education unions in colombia 6 Background to political violence in colombia 7 Historical context of state/civil society relations in colombia 7 Paramilitarism and the war against trade unionism 8 Recent political developments in colombia 9 Education and conflict in colombia 11 How are educators’ human rights violated? 13 The facts and figures 13 Political violence against education sector trade unions Political Assassinations 13 Death threats 16 Forced displacement 18 Arbitrary detention 20 Forced disappearances 22 Analysing the patterns of violence against educators 24 What strategies have been developed to mitigate and Manage the violence? 26 National legal and judicial protection measures 26 Setting up of human rights departments in each affiliate 27 International involvement with the human rights movement 27 Colombia’s classroom wars: classroom Colombia’s Conclusions 29 References 34 September 2009 Prepared for Education International by Dr Mario Novelli IS Academie: Education & Development, AMIDST, University of Amsterdam © 2009 Education International ISBN 978-92-95089-02-0 (paperback) 2 Printed in Belgium ISBN 978-92-95089-03-7 (PDF) Author’s Foreword This report1 is the product of the efforts of many organisations above, and particularly Berenice people and organisations. The fieldwork was carried for facilitating many of the contacts, Jorge, Juan out in Colombia between 3 April and 5 June 2007 Pablo for accompanying me on several trips, Blanca in conjunction with the Colombian human rights for great help in Medellín, and Emilio for both organisation NOMADESC and in consultation and transcribing all the interviews and for carrying out coordination with Education International and several interviews in Arauca. I would also like to FECODE, the major Colombian Teachers’ Trade Union thank several people at Education International: Federation. Assisted by several other trade union Jefferson Pessi, for his support with the project and social organisations involved in education since its conception; Jan Eastman, for her ongoing and/or human rights protection in Colombia: support on these and other issues relating to the ADIDA, ASPU, ASFAADES, SINTRAUNICOL, CINEP, ENS, area of education and conflict; Nancy Knickerbocker NOMADESC, Polo Democrático Alternativo, Comisión for editing the English version of the report; Eva Colombiana de Juristas, SINALTRAINAL, Red Europea Gorsse for the Spanish version; and finally Frédérik de Hermandad y Solidaridad con Colombia, and Destrée for the graphic design. the Colombia Solidarity Campaign, UK. During this In addition I thank my colleagues in AMIDST, period I travelled to the major Colombian cities of University of Amsterdam, for their support and Cali, Bogotá, Medellín, Antioquia, Buenaventura, critical feedback and particularly to those working and several surrounding rural areas and carried out violence against education sector trade unions Political on Geographic Information Systems software (Karin over 50 interviews with education trade unionists, and Els) for introducing me to its possibilities, and teachers, human rights workers and social to Merijn de Bakker who produced many of the movement and political leaders and met informally diagrams presented in this report. with many more. I also gathered a wide range of literature documenting specific cases of human The funding for the fieldwork was provided jointly rights violations carried out against educators by the Amsterdam Institute for Metropolitan across Colombia (legal testimonies, urgent actions, and Development Studies (AMIDST), University of press clippings, internal memos and emails) and Amsterdam, and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign collected statistical data on human rights violations Affairs, Education and Research Division, as part against educators from three well known and of a broader 5 year joint research partnership on internationally endorsed datasets produced by Education and Development. While I could not have carried out the research without all of this practical, the Colombian National Trade Union School (ENS), wars: classroom Colombia’s the Colombian Commission of Jurists (CCJ) and the intellectual and financial support, responsibility Centre for Research and Popular Education (CINEP). for the content and any inevitable omissions or I would like to thank the countless individuals inaccuracies are entirely my own. that helped me in this process from the different 1 For any comments and discussion on this report please contact Mario Novelli, [email protected], Department of Human Geography, Planning & International Development Studies, Universteit van Am- sterdam (UVA), Roeterseiland - Building G, Nieuwe Prinsengracht 130, 1018 VZ Amsterdam, Netherlands, Room 1.06D; Tel: +31 (0)2 05 25 4571 1 Education International Introduction Over recent years there has been a growing awareness of the scale of human rights violations against Colombian trade unionists (Amnesty, 2007). to the highly sensitive nature of the research, and According to the Colombian National Trade Union the widely contested views relating to the numbers School (ENS) between 1999 and 2005, of the 1,174 of human rights violations in Colombia, and who is reported murders of trade unionists throughout responsible, I have been cautious in the handling of the world, 816 were Colombian. What is less well statistics. For this report I have drawn exclusively on known is that more than half of these (416) were the database of the Colombian National Trade Union working in the education sector (see Figure 1). In School (ENS), which cross-checks all details of alleged both cases, the vast majority of these assassinations human rights violations via the local and national are attributed to right-wing paramilitary press, the trade union organisation in question, and organisations with links to the Colombian state data that exists in the two other major national (Amnesty International, 2007). non-governmental human rights databases – CINEP and the CCJ. In a highly politicised and dangerous While these figures are indeed shocking they represent environment such as Colombia this documentation only a partial representation of the nature and scale is not always available, and it is likely that many of violence, death threats, forced disappearances violations go unreported. Therefore it is my Political violence against education sector trade unions and displacement that the education community in hypothesis that the figures presented here represent Colombia continues to endure on a daily basis. Due an underestimate of the actual figures for human Figure 1(Escuela Nacional Sindical, 2007) rights violations against educators specifically, and 1999-2005 Comparison between world andtrade Colombian unionists more statistics generally. on According to FECODE, homicides of trade unionists 250 223 209 213 200 197 186 Colombia’s classroom wars: 150 145 140 137 129 115 100 94 96 Number of homicides 80 94 84 70 50 60 49 46 39 44 0 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 Year Repor ted assassinations of Reported assassinations of trade trade unionists w 2 orlwide unionists in colombia. Red par proportion of education trade unionistst is . the major national teachers’ federation, this ongoing repression represents one of the biggest challenges Political violence for the trade union organisation. against educators: During a United Nations mission to Colombia in 2003 on the ‘right to education’, Katarina Tomasevski, the A growing problem then Special Rapporteur for the UN Commission on Human Rights, was presented with a range of detailed information on the widespread violence From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, political violence against the education community in Colombia, and directed at the education community is becoming was shocked at both the levels of persecution and an all too common phenomenon. Nevertheless the failure of the Colombian government to bring to there remains very little research that focuses spe- justice the perpetrators. She noted that: cifically on this type of political violence. Recently there has been recognition of the scale of the The realization of the right to education cannot problem of political violence2 against the education be imagined without the protection of the system, with UNESCO commissioning a new report human, professional, trade union and academic (O’Malley, 2007), and there were high-level meet- rights and freedoms of teachers. The Special ings planned for 2008. Education International, Rapporteur recommends that immediate as the major international federation of education measures be taken to remedy the absence of sector trade unions, runs a designated office and their protection in Colombia. (UN Economic and webpage on violations of the human and trade un- Social Council , 2004: paragraph 41) ion rights of educators, which covers a wide range This report seeks to present the facts and figures of of ongoing violations across the world and demon- 3 political violence against educators, and also to go strates the scale of the problem. into more detail on the nature and dynamics of the way educators are affected by political violence in Over the