The Social Origins of Human Rights Popular Responses to Political Violence in a Colombian Oil Refinery Town 1919-1993 Luis van Isschot Department of History McGill University October 2010 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy @Luis van Isschot, 2010 i Abstract This dissertation examines why, how and with what impact people living in conflict areas organize collectively to assert human rights. The focus is the emergence in the 1980s of a human rights movement in the oil enclave of Barrancabermeja. The Barrancabermeja-based Regional Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CREDHOS) was created in 1987 in the context of dirty war fought on multiple fronts between state security forces and their paramilitary allies, on the one hand, and Marxist insurgent groups, on the other. In exploring the history of a human rights movement in one of Colombia’s most chronically war-affected regions, this dissertation expands our understanding of how frontline activists interpret human rights principles from the bottom-up. Human rights movements cannot be viewed as axiomatic or simple humanitarian responses to political violence. The term “human rights” refers to contingent norms and practices that are derived from lived experiences of authoritarianism, war, poverty and social exclusion. In this dissertation I argue that social activists in the war-torn Colombian oil town of Barrancabermeja undertook human rights activism both as a strategy of self-preservation and as a transformative praxis. In Barrancabermeja, the struggle for human rights did not displace or supplant longstanding local struggles for social justice and political change. Rather, human rights was considered to be a form of social protest consistent with previously existing traditions of popular radicalism for which Barrancabermeja has become celebrated. ii Résumé Cette thèse de doctorat examine l’action collective en faveur des droits humains organisée par des personnes vivant en zone de conflit, analysant les raisons qui ont motivé cette démarche, la façon par laquelle elle fut mise en œuvre et ses impacts concrets. L’analyse cible particulièrement l’apparition d’un mouvement des droits humains dans l’enclave pétrolière de Barrancabermeja. Le Comité régional pour la défense des droits humains (CREDHOS) fut établi en 1987 alors que sévissait sur plusieurs fronts une guerre sale opposant l’État colombien et ses alliés paramilitaires aux insurgés marxistes. En ciblant la création d’un mouvement des droits humains dans une des régions de la Colombie les plus affligées par la guerre, cette thèse révèle comment les principes des droits humains peuvent être interprétés de façon singulière par les activistes en zone de combat. L’émergence de mouvements des droits humains ne peut être réduite à un réflexe humanitaire pour contrer la violence politique. Le concept même de droits humains fait référence à des pratiques et normes contingentes qui ont été modelées par l’expérience des régimes autoritaires, de la guerre, de la pauvreté et de l’exclusion sociale. Les gens qui militaient en faveur des droits humains dans l’enclave pétrolière de Barrancabermeja ont mis en œuvre leur activisme en poursuivant deux buts : d’une part, celui-ci constituait une stratégie d’autodéfense contre la violence politique; d’autre part, il représentait une pratique sociale réformatrice. Les luttes en faveur d’une plus grande justice sociale qui animaient déjà Barrancabermeja depuis des décennies n’ont pas été supplantées par ce nouvel activisme pour les droits humains. Au contraire, le militantisme entourant la promotion des droits humains était compatible avec cette tradition de radicalisme populaire qui avait fait la renommée de Barrancabermeja. iii For Nicolasa and Jordi. iv Acknowledgements This dissertation would never have been completed without the love and support I receive from Stephanie Conway. I want to thank her for her encouragement and understanding in the face of seemingly endless cycles of research, writing, revisions, and multiple trips to Colombia. She has shared my passion for this work, and that is everything in the world to me. I want to thank everyone in Colombia who shared their stories with me, many whose names appear in the pages that follow, and many others as well. Very special thanks to all of the people at CREDHOS for generously allowing me into their archives. I also want to thank Miguel Fernández, Glenis Pérez, Mirjam Koppe, Elena Rey, Camilo Castellanos, Eleanor Douglas, Katia Urteaga and Peace Brigades International for their hospitality and support, in Bogotá and Barrancabermeja. Thank you as well to all of my Colombian friends, teachers and mentors, especially Rosa Pinzón, Amanda Romero, Francisco Campos, Régulo Madero, Yolanda Becerra, Luisa Serrano, Rafael Velásquez, Fernando Acuña, Matilde Vargas, Pedro Galindo, Alfonso Torres Duarte, Germán Plata, Mauricio Archila, and John Jairo Bedoya. Thanks are also due to William Mancera for his fantastic assistance conducting research in the libraries of Bogotá. Thank you to Winifred Tate for her feedback and encouragement. Thank you to Catherine LeGrand for all of your energy and wisdom along my academic journey. When I lived in Colombia in 1998, several years before I began my PhD, a friend of mine who taught history at the Universidad de la Paz in Barrancabermeja, Germán Plata, told me about Catherine LeGrand. He had never met her, but said she had written a clásico of Colombian history, and that I absolutely had to v look her up when I got back home to Montreal. I could never have imagined just how significant his advice would prove. Catherine LeGrand’s insights and always pertinent guidance have made this entire process a pleasure for me. Thank you to my parents Joyce Canfield and Carlos van Isschot, my sister Andina van Isschot and Bernard Pelletier. Also thanks to my sister Isabel van Isschot and Carlos Osorio. I think that my father must know, but it bears repeating here, that he has inspired me with his love of Latin American history and his rebellious spirit. In this dissertation I have tried to honour a vision of social and political justice in Latin America that I first learned at home. I have felt very closely accompanied by him these past years. My mother’s love, intellect and strength seem boundless to me. She has taught me the importance hard work and respect, which are probably the most important values I could bring to my research process. Special thanks Christopher Conway. Our many conversations about his experiences as a member of a Scottish tank crew in the Second World War and an advocate for prisoners’ rights in the Canadian penal system have had a big impact on my thinking about the politics of remembrance, the costs of war, and human dignity. Thanks Chris for being such a wonderful storyteller and an incorrigible nonconformist. In Washington, D.C., thanks to Michael Evans and Carlos Osorio at the National Security Archive at George Washington University, and Viviana Kristicevic and Michael Camilleri at the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL). At McGill University, special thanks to Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert and Stephen J. Toope for their generosity and support. Thank you as well to Philip Oxhorn, Iain Blair and of course Samuel J. vi Noumoff. Thank you to Colleen Parish, Jody Anderson, Silvia Crawford, and all of the staff at the Department of History. This project was made possible through the support of the Fonds québécois de recherche sur la société et la culture (FQRSC), the McGill Centre for Developing Area Studies (now the Institute for the Study of International Development), the McGill University Department of History, and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) through Cristina Rojas at Carleton University. vii Map 1. Political Map of Colombia1 1 http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/map/colombia_map.htm viii Map 2. Magdalena Medio Region of Colombia2 2 Source: Observatorio de Paz Integral (OPI), a joint project of the Universidad de la Paz, the Corporación Regional para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos (CREDHOS), the Diocese of Barrancabermeja, the Human Rights Ombudsman (Defensoría del Pueblo) and the Program for Development and Peace of the Magdalena Medio (PDPMM). ix Map 3. Barrancabermeja City Map3 The city of Barrancabermeja (official population 191,000 as of 2005 census) is located on the Magdalena River, approximately 500 kilometres from the Caribbean coast, in a humid lowland region known as the Magdalena Medio. Barrancabermeja is divided into four quadrants: central, southeast, northeast, north and south. The central district is separated from the other areas of the city by a railroad track. The state-owned oil refinery is located northwest of the city’s main commercial distict. 3 Source: International Institute of Seismology and Earthquake Engineering. http://iisee.kenken.go.jp/net/seismic_design_code/colombia/microzonation/fig9_barranca bermeja.html x Table of Contents Abstract ii Dedication v Acknowledgements v Maps viii Introduction: Human Rights as Social Protest 1 PART I: Foreign Enclave (1919-1961) 32 Chapter 1: Oil Workers, Colonos, and the Roots of Radical Political Culture 33 PART II: City and Region (1961-1980) 84 Chapter 2: Nationalization, Local Development and the Cold War 84 Chapter 3: The Birth of the Civic-Popular Movement 121 PART III: Dirty War (1980-1993) 160 Chapter 4: Violence in the Countryside and the Transformation of a Company Town 161 Chapter