UNITED NATIONS CERD Distr. International Convention GENERAL on the Elimination of All CERD/C/COL/14 Forms of Racial 5 May 2008 Discrimination ENGLISH Original: SPANISH COMMITTEE ON THE ELIMINATION OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION REPORTS SUBMITTED BY STATES PARTIES IN ACCORDANCE WITH ARTICLE 9 OF THE CONVENTION Fourteenth periodic report of States parties due in 2008 Addendum COLOMBIA*, ** [29 February 2008] * This document contains the 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th and 14th periodic reports of Colombia, due on 2 October 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008, respectively. For the 8th and 9th periodic reports of Colombia (consolidated document) and the summary records of the meetings at which the Committee considered those reports, see documents CERD/C/332/Add.1 and CERD/C/SR.1356, 1357 and 1362. ** In accordance with the information transmitted to the States parties regarding the processing of their reports, the present document was not formally edited before being sent to the United Nations translation services. GE.08-42184 (EXT) CERD/C/COL/14 page 2 CONTENTS Paragraphs Page I. BASIC INFORMATION ABOUT COLOMBIA................................... 1-45 3 A. Political organization..................................................................... 2-7 3 B. Territory......................................................................................... 8 4 C. Culture and religion ....................................................................... 9-11 4 D. Sociodemographic context ............................................................ 12-23 4 E. Economic context .......................................................................... 24-26 6 F. Armed Violence............................................................................. 27-36 7 G. Legal framework for the protection of human rights .................... 37-45 8 II. INFORMATION CONCERNING ARTICLE 2 OF THE CONVENTION ...................................................................................... 46-454 10 A. General information on ethnicity in Colombia.............................. 46-143 10 B. Article 2......................................................................................... 144-196 59 C. Article 3......................................................................................... 197 73 D. Article 4......................................................................................... 198-202 73 E. Article 5......................................................................................... 203-399 74 F. Article 6......................................................................................... 400-402 128 G. Article 7......................................................................................... 403-454 131 III. REPLIES TO THE RECOMMENDATIONS RECEIVED ................... 455-494 145 A. Recommendations made by the Committee following the consideration of the ninth periodic report...................................... 457-473 145 B. Recommendations made by the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people .......................................................................... 474-492 149 C. Insufficiency of resources to implement the Recommendations... 493-494 154 CERD/C/COL/14 page 3 I. BASIC INFORMATION ABOUT COLOMBIA 1. Colombia is a social State, governed by the law and organized as a unitary, democratic, participatory and pluralistic republic, decentralized with autonomous territorial units. It is founded upon respect for human dignity, the work and solidarity of the individuals constituting it and the primacy of the general interest. A. Political organization 2. The 1991 Political Constitution establishes three branches of public power: the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. The President of the Republic is Head of State and Head of Government and is elected for a term of four years by popular vote. In accordance with Legislative Act No. 02 of 2004, amending the Political Constitution, the President may be re-elected for a further term. After four years of government (2002-2006). Dr. Álvaro Uribe Vélez was re-elected President of the Colombians in May 2006 for a further presidential term which will end in 2010. 3. Ministers and heads of administrative departments direct and control the public administration; their number and their titles are determined by law. The departmental governors and municipal mayors are elected by popular vote. Public institutions, supervisory bodies and State-owned and mixed and commercial enterprises also form part of the executive branch. 4. The legislative branch consists of the bicameral Congress of the Republic, which amends the Constitution, adopts legislation and exercises political control over the Government and the administration. The upper House, or Senate, comprises 100 senators who are elected by national constituency and two more who are elected in special constituencies for indigenous peoples. The lower House or House of Representatives is made up of 241 representatives elected by regional and special constituencies. Legislators are elected for a period of four years. 5. The judicial authorities render independent and autonomous decisions. They consist of the Constitutional Court, which is responsible for maintaining the supremacy and integrity of the Constitution; the Supreme Court of Justice, which is the highest court of ordinary jurisdiction (with criminal, civil and labour divisions); the Council of State (the highest court for administrative disputes, and the Division of Consultation and the Civil Service); the Higher Council of the Judiciary (the highest administrative and disciplinary organ of the judiciary); the Office of the Public Prosecutor of the Nation (the Prosecutor-General and deputy prosecutors) as the investigating body; the judicial district higher courts (usually located in departmental capitals and presided over by circuit or municipal court judges); and the Military Criminal Court, responsible for judging crimes committed by members of the forces of law and order on active service and connected with that service. 6. The public supervisory bodies are made up of the Office of the Controller-General of the Republic and the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The latter is the responsibility of the Attorney-General of the Nation, who is elected by the Senate; its function is to ensure compliance with the Constitution, laws, judicial rulings and administrative decisions, protect human rights and defend the collective interests of society and the environment and oversee the official behaviour of persons in public positions, including those held through popular vote, act CERD/C/COL/14 page 4 as the preferred holder of disciplinary authority, and perform the required investigations and impose the appropriate sanctions. 7. The People’s Advocate, under the direction of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, ensures the promotion, exercise, dissemination and defence of human rights, and is elected by the House of Representatives. B. Territory 8. Colombia is a country of considerable geographical, ethnic and cultural diversity. It covers an area of 1,141,748 km2 and is divided into the following territorial units: departments, districts, municipalities and indigenous territories. The municipality is the basic unit of the State’s political and administrative structure. There are currently 32 departments, 4 districts and 1.098 municipalities. C. Culture and religion 9. The people of Colombia are predominantly of mixed race. There are four main ethnic and social groups that stand apart from the majority of the population both geographically and culturally: the Afro-Colombian communities and the native islanders (Raizales) – accounting for 10.62 per cent of the population, the indigenous peoples – accounting for 3.3 per cent of the population – and the Roma or Gypsies. 10. Spanish is recognized as the national language, although it has marked dialectal and regional characteristics. There is also great linguistic wealth among the country’s indigenous communities; 64 languages, from 22 families of indigenous language, have been identified. The Raizales of San Andrés and Providencia form part of the Afro-West Indian culture: they use English as their official language and San Andrés Creole in the home. In the Caribbean area of mainland Colombia, the inhabitants of San Basilio de Palenque speak Palenquero (the other Afro-Colombian Creole language). The Roma or Gypsy groups. Of Eastern European origin, speak their own language, Romany. Article 10 of the Political Constitution recognizes the languages and dialects of ethnic groups as official in their territories and stipulates that the education provided in communities with their own linguistic traditions will be bilingual. 11. The 1991 Political Constitution established freedom of worship; thus everyone has the right to profess their religion freely and to disseminate it individually or collectively. According to the Register of Religious Groups, there are at present nearly 1,000 such groups in Colombia; however, the predominant form of worship is Christianity and the majority denomination is Roman Catholicism. D. Sociodemographic context 1. Population 12. According to the latest general census (2005), the country has 42,090,502 permanent inhabitants, making it the third most populated country in Latin America after Brazil and Mexico, and the twenty-eighth in the world. Of the total population, 51.2 per cent is female and 48.8 per cent male; 75 per cent lives in urban