Colombian talks seek National Convention
By Dara Mac Neil
On Sunday 12 July, delegations representing Colombian civil
society and the country's insurgents will meet in the German town
of Mainz. The meeting is considered vitally important in the
process of securing peace and a negotiated solution to Colombia's
long-running conflict.
Included in the 40-strong delegation scheduled to meet the
guerrillas are a number of powerful figures in Colombia's
political and business life. They include the Attorney General
and a representative of Colombia's business sector. A number of
those involved in the talks belong to the non-governmental
National Council for Peace.
Stressing the meeting's significance, Pablo Beltran of the
National Liberation Army (ELN) said it was important to realise
that peace could not be achieved solely through dialogue between
the Colombian government and the insurgents. Civil society had an
equally crucial role to play.
The influence of civil society in Colombia has grown
significantly in recent years. This stems in large part from the
corresponding loss of power experienced by the country's central
government. Thus, central authority has ceded as much as 50% of
Colombia's territory to the control of the insurgency movement
while, even within the remaining half, its power is both weak and
contested.
In recent years, disclosures concerning the army's control of
right-wing death squads, coupled with evidence of government
connections with the country's drug cartels, have served to
further undermine central authority.
Consequently, as Bogota's power diminishes, so does its ability
to either prosecute the war against the guerrillas, or influence
the outcome of any peace negotiations.
Although the agenda for the Mainz talks remains open, they will
have as their focus the creation of a National Convention. It is
envisaged that this will involve the participation of all sectors
in Colombian society in the search for a negotiated solution.
This would include those sectors targeted by right-wing
paramilitatries: trade unions, human rights and indigenous
activists. The National Convention could therefore act as vehicle
for the inclusion of those selfsame sectors in Colombia's
political and economic life. This would reverse the process of
`exclusion' that was the chief aim of the Colombian death squads
and their paymasters.
By murdering trade unionists and civil and human rights
activists, the Colombian establishment was crudely signalling the
politics they practiced - of equality, justice and change - were
beyond the bounds of what was deemed permissible.
Indeed, Amnesty International - in a report published earlier
this month - has effectively substantiated charges that the
right-wing death squads operate with the support of Colombia's
security forces.
Significantly, Amnesty notes that while human rights violations
(often a euphemism for outright murder) committed by the
country's security forces have diminished, those perpetrated by
the death squads have risen dramatically.
This trend was first noted by Colombian human rights' groups.
Further investigation produced evidence that it was not a
coincidence. Rather, it was central to the counter-insurgency
strategy developed by the Colombian authorities in the early
1990s.
Thus, the death-squads assumed responsibility for the murder and
harassment of dissidents, while the security forces availed of
the opportunity to improve their tarnished image.
However, the attempt to eliminate Colombia's radical opposition
has failed. If anything, the murder-by-proxy strategy merely
strengthened the country's insurgency.
Thus, the proposed National Convention has the potential to
become the means towards a genuine transformation of Colombian
society.
At the very least a successful Convention, in which the hitherto
excluded sectors of Colombian society participate, offers far
more than a simple government-guerrilla agreement ever could.
d that such a Convention can even be discussed is a reflection
of Bogota's inability to impose a `peace settlement', or curtail
the parameters of such a settlement within a framework of its own
creation.
Meanwhile the ELN, while signalling its enthusiasm for the
forthcoming talks, has made it clear there will be no laying down
of arms in advance of a negotiated settlement. It is also
understood that the ELN have met with the larger FARC guerrilla
group, in advance of the Mains meeting.
Mexican dirty war escalates
The Mexican government is to step up its' Dirty War against rebel
groupings located in the southern states of the country.
According to Mexican human rights' groups, the government is
preparing to suspend individual civil liberties and
constitutional guarantees in the southern state of Chiapas.
The state is home to the rebel Zapatista National Liberation Army
(EZLN). This would effectively cede control of the entire state
to the Mexican military, providing the legal cover necessary for
a determined offensive against the rebel communities.
It follows the expulsion from Chiapas of a number of overseas
observers and civil organisations, many of whom worked with the
indigenous population of Chiapas. Since the EZLN revolt of 1994,
the indigenous of Chiapas have set about organising a network of
alternative communities, wherein the government writ does not
run. The presence of overeas observers - including Irish people -
served as a deterrent to the Mexican military, whilst also
providing the Zapatistas with a support structure for the
construction of their autonomous communities.
Consequently, their expulsion from Mexico was seen as an attempt
to undermine and eradicate that support structure. Thus, the
latest move would indicate that the government is preparing the
way for a violent supression of the EZLN.
Mexican authorities frequently justified the earlier expulsions
on the grounds that the overseas observers were interfering in
Mexico's internal affairs and thereby breaching the country's
national sovereignty.
However, the concern with national sovereignty does not appear to
extend to US military and intelligence personnel, whose presence
in Chiapas has been documented.
The Mexican constitution allows for the suspension of liberties
where there exists a grave threat to ``public peace.''
The decree currently awaits the signature of the Mexican
president. There is fear that the government is also preparing
for an offensive against other rebel groups - such as the EPR -
in the neighbouring states of Oaxaca, Guerrero, Veracruz, Puebla,
Nayarit y Sonora.
Although currently preoccupied with their plans for war, the
Mexican authorities might pause to consider a World Bank report
issued at the end of June. It characterises the southern states
of Mexico as being trapped between ``misery and terror.'' The
region of the country it describes is that earmarked by the
Mexican authorities for violent surpression.
The Bank confirms that poverty and inequality are increasing at
an alarming rate, in the southern part of the country. Mexico's
southern states, it contends, are not included in economic
progress that occurs elsewhere in the country.
Hardly surprising that the states worst affected - Chiapas,
Oaxaca and Guerrero - are also home to large indigenous
populations and, latterly, armed rebel groupings such as the EZLN
and the EPR (Popular Revolutionary Army).
The Bank also notes that the indigenous communities in these
states are engaged in a long-running campaign to reclaim their
rights. However, the Bank points out, the Mexican state has
responded with violence.
This includes arbitrary arrest, torture, disappearances,
executions and massacres. In the state of Guerrero alone, there
have been 63 extrajudicial executions, over the past three years.
The Bank also cites the existence of hundreds of political
prisoners.
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