Worthy and
Unworthy Victims in Colombia's War of Terror
by
Doug Stokes
Dissident Voice
March 12, 2003
In
the narratives of the worlds global media corporations familiar themes can be
traced. One such theme that occurs time and again is the designation of worthy
victims; poor unfortunates caught up in a spiral of violence. Invisible however
are the unworthy victims; those poor unfortunates who have also been caught up
in a spiral of violence, but due to the fact that their deaths do not lend
weight to the narratives of the powerful, can be ignored or worse still never
acknowledged. An example would be the Kurds in Northern Iraq. Worthy victims
whilst their terrible suffering under Saddam suits the interests of the
powerful, whilst their brothers and sisters across the border in Turkey are
unworthy victims. Their suffering not only ignored by the powerful, but
massively amplified with the flow of western arms and legitimacy throughout the
years of Turkey's war on its Kurdish minority.
This familiar pattern of
worthy and unworthy victims is now being played out in Colombia, the worlds
third largest recipient of global US military aid and the US's latest ally in
its war of terror. On the 7th of February a car bomb went off outside El Nogal,
one of Colombia's elite clubs for the mega-rich. The bomb devastated the
building and killed 37 people, and was almost certainly planted by the FARC,
Latin America's largest and oldest guerrilla movement. The death of these
people was rightly condemned. But now their deaths are being weaved into a
powerful narrative of worthy victims that justifies plans to increase the militarisation
and bloodshed for Colombia's unnamed and unacknowledged unworthy victims; the
poor and the displaced. Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe's immediate response
to the bombing was to call for more US military aid to fight the FARC. He
stated bluntly that "nations shouldn't ask Colombia to tolerate terrorism
while the U.N. is deciding the matter of Iraq," Uribe has also promised to
carry out far reaching proposals to strengthen the longstanding US backed war
of terror in Colombia by committing his administration to double the size of
the Colombian military and create a new network of a million civilian informers
to perform a counter-intelligence role. Prior to the El Nogal bombing Uribe had
declared a state of "internal commotion" that allowed the Colombian
state to prohibit public rallies and impose curfews and order searches without
a court order with Fernando Londono, Colombian Interior and Justice minister
stating that "we all have to be aware that terror leads to extreme
instability in Colombia. For this reason, the government has decided to declare
a state of internal commotion". On September 10th 2002, Uribe also passed
his first military decree that has allowed for the creation of military
"Zones of Rehabilitation and Consolidation". In these zones direct
military rule replaces existing local government and military authorities can
carry out arrests and searches without a warrant. Uribe is also pushing for
tighter control of the Colombian media by passing laws which seek to restrict reporting
on Colombian 'counter terrorist measures' with sentences of eight to twelve years
in prison for anyone who publishes statistics considered ''counterproductive to
the fight against terrorism,'' as well as the possible ''suspension'' of the
media outlet in question. These sanctions will apply to anybody who divulges
"reports that could hamper the effective implementation of military or
police operations, endanger the lives of public forces personnel or private
individuals,'' or commit other acts that undermine public order, ''while boosting
the position or image of the enemy''. The innocent civilians caught up in the
El Nogal bomb therefore have been added to a narrative of worthy victims that
in turn lends further legitmation for Uribe's new national security strategy.
But what of the unworthy
victims? Colombia's military has one of the worst human rights records in the
Western Hemisphere and has well documented and long standing ties to the AUC, a
paramilitary group headed by Carlos Castano. Although the AUC has sought to
cast itself as an independent political actor the US State Department notes
that the AUC is "a mercenary vigilante force, financed by criminal activities"
and was the "the paid private"
army of "narcotics traffickers or large landowners". The collusion between
the Colombian military and these private armies has led the Colombia Commission
for Justice and Peace to label Colombian military and paramilitary forces
"parastate" forces so as to diminish the alleged separation between
these armed actors. This in turn is largely to counter the 'triangulation' of
Colombian violence that is regularly portrayed in mainstream international
media. This portrays the Colombian military as a neutral arbiter between the
armed left (the FARC) and the armed right (the AUC), when in fact the Colombian
military and paramilitaries are two sides of the same counterinsurgency coin.
These parastate forces are
responsible for over 80 percent of all human rights abuses in Colombia. In the
last fifteen years, an entire democratic leftist political party was eliminated
by right-wing paramilitaries; 4000 activists were murdered in the 1980s; in
2002 over 8000 political assassinations were committed in Colombia with 80
percent of these murders committed by paramilitary groups; three out of four
trade union activists murdered worldwide are killed by the Colombian
paramilitaries whilst 2.7 million people have been forcibly displaced from
their homes. According to the UN, lecturers and teachers are "among the
workers most often affected by killings, threats and violence-related displacement."
Paramilitary groups also regularly target human rights activists, indigenous
leaders, and community activists. This repression serves to criminalize any
form of civil society resistance to US-led neo-liberal restructuring of
Colombia's economy and stifle political and economic challenges to the
Colombian status quo with Castano arguing that his paramilitaries "have
always proclaimed that we are the defenders of business freedom and of the
national and international industrial sectors". Amidst this repression
over half of Colombia's population live in poverty according to the World Bank,
with those most vulnerable being "children of all ages".
Talks between Uribe's
government and the AUC are ongoing with Justice Minister Fernando Londono
stating that both sides "are working very sincerely". A regional
commander of the AUC declared, "Uribe is like heaven compared to
Pastrana". Gordon Sumner, former President Reagan's special envoy to Latin
America outlined the best way to publicly incorporate the paramilitaries within
the new CONVIVIR "counter terrorist" networks: "First, have them
answer the law, cut out the drugs, and embrace human rights" then try to
"bring them under the tent, to fight against the guerrillas, who are the
biggest threat". He went on to note that in Colombia the "battle is never
too crowded with friends". Uribe has commenced negotiations with the AUC
(and has thus recognized them as a distinct political actor) and has received
endorsement for his policies from the US. Colin Powell has broadly supported
Uribe's policies and argued that the US is "firmly committed to President
Uribe and his new national security strategy," with the Bush administration
working "with our Congress to
provide additional funding for Colombia."
The unworthy victims then
are the poor and displaced who are regularly targeted by state and parastate
forces. Their deaths are far more numerous and far more dreadful in the
systematic and long-standing manner in which they are killed, and yet
completely ignored by the world's mainstream media. The El Nogal bombing,
whilst terrible, is being used to influence international opinion which in turn
will increase the suffering of Colombia's 'unworthy' victims and provide more
US funding for Uribe's militarisation of Colombia under the pretext of the US's
global 'war on terror'.
Doug Stokes is an academic at Bristol University,
UK. His research is on the continuity of post-Cold War U.S. foreign policy in
the global South, in particular those policies that continue to lead to
large-scale civilian suffering. He has published extensively on U.S.
counterinsurgency in Latin America with a strong emphasis on Colombia. Read
more of his work at www.dougstokes.net.