[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 184 (Wednesday, October 20, 2021)]
[House]
[Pages H5678-H5679]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              HUMAN RIGHTS AND PEACE IN DANGER IN COLOMBIA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I just returned from leading a fact-
finding delegation to Colombia from October 3 to 8.
  I have traveled to Colombia a dozen times since 2001. This time, I 
traveled to Cali, a city still reeling from intense protests this past 
spring and the security forces' excessive response.
  It was my second visit to Cali and my third to this specific region. 
I met with the mayor of Cali, the Catholic archbishop, youth who had 
protested, families whose children were killed during the protests, 
local journalists, and human rights defenders.
  I then traveled an hour south to the town of Santander de Quilichao 
in northern Cauca. The Department of Cauca leads Colombia in killings 
of social leaders and former combatants.
  There, I met with the U.N. Verification Mission team monitoring 
implementation of the peace accord and had a lengthy talk with the 
town's mayor. I spent the most time with Afro-Colombian, indigenous, 
campesino, women's, and LGBTQ organizations.
  The next day, I visited the San Juan community in Sumapaz, a formerly 
guerrila-controlled region in the Andes paramo, 3 hours south of 
Bogota.
  I traveled with representatives of Bogota's mayor, whose jurisdiction 
includes Sumapaz. I saw water projects being carried out by campesinos, 
indigenous, and former combatants. I attended a town meeting where 
everyone was free to have their say.
  In Bogota, I met with our embassy and President Duque, leaders of the 
Colombian police, the U.N. and the OAS, the International Committee of 
the Red Cross, U.S. and Colombian security analysts, Colombian members 
of Congress, human rights defenders, and journalists.
  I returned disturbed and worried, Mr. Speaker. I am deeply concerned 
about the state of human rights, peace, and democracy in Colombia.
  I will be listening closely to what U.S. officials say on these 
matters at the high-level bilateral dialogue this week in Bogota.
  The U.S. has spent over $8.2 billion in taxpayer money on military 
and security support for Colombia since 2000. Yet, large parts of 
Colombia aren't under government control or have been abandoned by the 
state.
  Human rights defenders and local leaders are targeted and killed. 
Journalists are threatened and subject to illegal surveillance. The 
drug trade is flourishing, and illegal armed groups grow in power.
  I am especially concerned by the frustration and fears I heard from 
organizations that have been fighting for peace for decades but today 
feel that things are going in a wrong and very dangerous direction.
  It is painful to remember the hope they felt during my last visit in 
2017, as they made plans inspired by the peace accord and its promise 
of progress.
  For them, Colombia has taken a giant step backward, much greater than 
understood from Washington before my trip.
  Then there were protests this spring where we saw the Colombian 
police react violently to legitimate demands for education, health, 
food, and jobs. Demonstrators were shot with live ammunition by a 
police force that receives U.S. aid.
  ESMAD, the riot police, not a recipient of direct U.S. grant 
assistance, because of its terrible human rights record, used crowd-
control equipment to wound, maim, and kill demonstrators. Some of this 
equipment was made in the U.S.A. and likely provided through commercial 
sales, which I believe should immediately stop.
  Mr. Speaker, what do you say to a woman who asks whether she is still 
a mother because her only child was killed in the protests? How do you 
comfort a father whose son served honorably with the Colombian military 
only to die at the hands of the Colombian police?
  I am also deeply concerned about the implementation of the 2016 peace 
accord. The agreement provides a roadmap to address longstanding 
problems in Colombia, including those that provoked the protests.
  But it is a comprehensive agreement that must be carried out 
holistically, not a few parts here and there, while ignoring, 
undermining, or slow-walking the rest.
  But there is reason for hope. In Sumapaz, I saw firsthand what a 
committed local government and an organized community can accomplish to 
establish peace, security, and development that benefits everyone, not 
just a privileged few.
  Mr. Speaker, I am proud of so many of our programs and projects in 
Colombia. I treasure the friendship between the United States and 
Colombia. As a friend and ally, it is critical that the U.S. speak 
frankly and forcefully about setbacks to peace, the need for serious 
police reform, and the dangerous human rights situation.
  If we care about the people of Colombia and their human rights, 
Congress has a responsibility to take a deep look at the situation 
inside Colombia and reevaluate the priorities of our aid.
  Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter from numerous 
nongovernmental organizations to Secretary of State Antony Blinken 
concerning the upcoming high-level bilateral dialogue.

                                                 October 18, 2021.
     Secretary of State Antony Blinken,
     The State Department,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Secretary Blinken: As you travel to Colombia for the 
     high-level bilateral dialogue, we urge you to use this 
     opportunity to press the Colombian government for progress on 
     flagging peace accord implementation and for actions on 
     critical human rights issues, including improving the dire 
     situation of human rights defenders, advancing the rights of 
     Afro-Colombian and indigenous people, addressing the needs of 
     poor and landless farmers, and confronting the serious 
     problems of police brutality and racial injustice.
       As organizations that have followed events in Colombia for 
     many years, many of us with programs and close partners in 
     the country, we are gravely disappointed that to date the 
     Biden Administration has not placed sufficient emphasis on 
     these issues and hope that your visit will mark a change. We 
     urge you to avoid public statements that praise the U.S.-
     Colombian partnership while skirting over the deeply 
     disturbing patterns of human rights violations that should be 
     a major focus of U.S. concern and diplomacy.
       Police brutality. In response to massive, largely peaceful 
     demonstrations against a regressive tax initiative, 
     unemployment, and social exclusion, Colombian security 
     forces, particularly the national police and the ESMAD riot 
     squad, killed and injured protesters, mainly teenagers and 
     young adults. Eighty-seven civilians were killed in the 
     course of the protests according to the Defender la Libertad 
     human rights campaign. Police shot live ammunition and 
     projectiles into crowds, including in one case into a group 
     of families and neighbors assembled for a candlelight vigil 
     for a young man killed the day before, causing major 
     injuries, loss of eyesight, and death. Police and ESMAD 
     targeted, along with protesters, human rights defenders, 
     journalists, and medical brigade members who provided first 
     aid to protesters and police. Police sexually abused young 
     women protesters and threatened women first aid responders 
     with rape. Family members of victims of police brutality and 
     human rights defenders seeking justice for police abuses are 
     stigmatized and their lives threatened. Following these 
     tragic events, rather than taking significant action to 
     advance dialogue, police reform, and prosecutions of abusive 
     security forces, the Colombian government has presented only 
     superficial police reforms and appears focused on 
     investigating and prosecuting protesters and those who helped 
     them. Few cases of security force abuses during the 2021 
     protests are moving forward in civilian courts; 13 homicide 
     cases involving security forces have been reported as 
     inappropriately in the military justice system, which rarely 
     results in justice.
       Peace accord implementation and situation of human rights 
     defenders. The historic 2016 peace accords, a major legacy of 
     the Obama-Biden Administration due to its support for 
     negotiations, are at risk due to weak implementation. As of 
     September 2021, 292 FARC ex-combatants have been killed since 
     laying down their arms. Moreover Colombia remains one of the 
     most dangerous countries on earth to be a human rights 
     defender; 158 human rights defenders were killed so far this 
     year in 2021, according to the United Nations. For the second 
     year in a row, Colombia leads the world in murders of 
     environmental and land rights defenders, according to Global 
     Witness. Colombia's community leaders are in danger precisely 
     because they are building peace on the ground, while the 
     government has failed to implement its peace accord 
     commitments, including dismantling paramilitary networks, 
     protecting

[[Page H5679]]

     communities, and bringing effective and rights-respecting 
     state presence into conflict zones. Peace accord 
     consolidation is especially weak in terms of implementing the 
     Ethnic Chapter and gender provisions; protection of human 
     rights defenders, social leaders, and communities; 
     dismantling paramilitary networks; protection of ex- 
     combatants; provision of adequate programs for farmers 
     committed to coca eradication, and implementation of the 
     comprehensive rural reform, including provision of land to 
     displaced persons, poor farmers, and indigenous and Afro-
     Colombian people. While U.S. aid to advance peace accord 
     implementation is important and well-targeted, the failure to 
     advance peace accord implementation is not primarily a 
     question of resources, but of political will.
       As you dialogue with the Colombian government, we ask you 
     to publicly as well as privately:
       Insist, as a condition of any future U.S. security 
     assistance, that the Colombian government implement serious 
     police reform, including transferring the police from the 
     Defense Ministry to a civilian agency, ensuring all human 
     rights abuses by police are tried in civilian courts, 
     dismantling the ESMAD, revising use-of-force-protocols, and 
     establishing external oversight and controls over the police. 
     Limiting reforms to increasing human rights courses and 
     revising internal disciplinary procedures is not an adequate 
     response. The U.S. government should also encourage progress 
     on prosecuting cases in civilian courts against security 
     force members involved in abuses in the context of the 
     protests, raise concerns regarding specious or excessive 
     prosecutions of protesters, and urge the Colombian government 
     to respect the right to protest.
       Urge the Colombian government to recommit to fully 
     implementing the peace accords. It is essential to maintain 
     U.S. diplomatic and financial support for implementing the 
     accords as the central framework for U.S. policy towards 
     Colombia. Please also express publicly support for the work 
     of the tripartite transitional justice system, namely the 
     Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), the Truth Commission, 
     and the Search Unit for the Disappeared.
       Express publicly your concerns about the grave dangers 
     faced by Colombian human rights defenders and social leaders 
     and emphasize the importance of their role in building peace 
     and defending the rule of law. U.S.-Colombia actions to 
     address climate change should also include protection of the 
     rights and lives of endangered environmental activists, who 
     are on the frontlines of efforts to protect the planet.
       Urge the Colombian government to promptly and regularly 
     convene the National Commission on Security Guarantees 
     established by the peace accords, which should include 
     participation by civil society, government, and ex-
     combatants, to develop and implement a plan for dismantling 
     paramilitary and other illegal armed networks and for 
     providing security to human rights defenders, communities, 
     and ex-combatants. This long-delayed commitment, central to 
     bring rights-respecting security to conflict zones and 
     protecting human rights defenders, must advance.
       Urge the Colombian government to uphold the rights of Afro-
     Colombian, indigenous, and Palenquero people. Ask the 
     Colombian government to prioritize implementing the peace 
     agreement's Ethnic Chapter. The government should convene the 
     Special High-Level Mechanism with Ethnic Peoples (IANPE), 
     mandated by the peace accords, to discuss the best methods to 
     implement the Ethnic Chapter and should work with Afro-
     Colombian and indigenous authorities and civil rights groups 
     to guarantee its consolidation at the local and regional 
     level. In addition, urge the Colombian government to 
     implement the humanitarian accords with communities that 
     serve to protect such communities, ensure assistance and 
     protection to internally displaced persons, and address 
     racial discrimination including the Humanitarian Accord Now 
     in Choco. We would greatly welcome the revitalization of the 
     U.S.-Colombian Racial Action Plan (CAPREE) and the 
     development of a joint U.S.-Colombian strategy with specific 
     steps to address structural racism.
       Urge the Colombian government to prioritize full and 
     effective implementation of provisions to achieve ``a genuine 
     structural transformation of the countryside'' as agreed 
     under the Comprehensive Rural Reform chapter of the peace 
     accords. This is critical to address the exclusion and 
     inequality in rural areas, particularly in access to land, 
     which is a root cause as well as a consequence of conflict in 
     Colombia. Only limited progress has been made in implementing 
     provisions to improve access to land, due in part to 
     administrative delays and inadequate allocation of resources, 
     and to a focus on formalizing tenure rather than 
     redistributing land. Peace is unlikely to be sustainable as 
     long as many poor, landless, marginalized, and displaced 
     rural families see no improvement in their lives and 
     livelihoods, which depend on access to land.
       Urge the Colombian government to address the failure to 
     uphold its commitments outlined in the Labor Action Plan 
     (LAP) and ensure that labor rights are fully applied and 
     protected in Colombia. As detailed in the U.S. Department of 
     Labor's recently released Second Periodic Review of Progress 
     of the Colombia Labor Rights Complaint Submission dated 
     October 7, 2021, a number of issues and benchmarks of the 
     2017 Submission Report recommendations have not been 
     satisfactorily addressed and improved upon by the Colombian 
     government. As the lack of labor rights enforcement and 
     protection are an underlying factor in economic inequality 
     and civic unrest, advancement on labor rights issues is 
     critical and should be strongly emphasized by the U.S. 
     government with Colombia.
       Insist on progress on reforms of Colombian military and 
     intelligence services, including to end persistent patterns 
     of surveillance over human rights defenders and other civil 
     society leaders, journalists, and judicial personnel. While 
     members of the military who committed gross human rights 
     violations can receive transitional justice benefits by 
     collaborating with the JEP and providing the truth about 
     their crimes, the Colombian government must still be urged to 
     provide accountability for the more than 6,000 extra-judicial 
     executions by members of the Colombian armed forces, largely 
     of poor young men executed and dressed up in guerrilla 
     uniforms to be claimed as enemy dead.
       The United States should also uphold the peace accords 
     directly through its own policy choices. First, the United 
     States should support counternarcotics policy that abides by 
     the peace accords' drug policy chapter. Such support must 
     focus on working with small farmer communities to eradicate 
     and replace coca, providing sufficient support for such 
     farmers and communities to thrive, and must refrain from 
     employing harsh and ineffective tactics such as aerial 
     spraying. Restarting spraying will be seen as undermining the 
     accords and will drive away farmers from cooperating. The 
     peace accords emphasize dismantling drug trafficking and 
     money laundering networks, which are U.S. priorities. Second, 
     the United States should remove the Comunes Party from the 
     terrorist list. It is counterproductive to maintain on this 
     list ex-combatants who have shown their commitment to peace 
     for the last five years. It demonstrates an ambivalence 
     towards accords the United States helped to forge and hampers 
     the ability of the United States and partners to provide 
     support for reintegration and even for broader community 
     development programs in areas with ex-combatants' presence.
       It is in the interests of both Colombia and the United 
     States that peace be consolidated, police and military become 
     more rights respecting, discrimination and violence against 
     Afro-Colombian and indigenous peoples end, and human rights 
     defenders be able to operate without fear for their lives. 
     Only by challenging the Colombian government to address these 
     serious underlying problems in Colombia can the United States 
     contribute to this more hopeful future.
           Sincerely,
       Amazon Watch; American Federation of Labor and Congress of 
     Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO); Chicago Religious 
     Leadership Network on Latin America; Colombia Human Rights 
     Committee; Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good 
     Shepherd, U.S. Provinces; Global Exchange; Global Ministries 
     of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and United 
     Church of Christ; Healing Bridges.
       Institute for Policy Studies, Drug Policy Project; 
     International Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights; 
     Latin America Working Group; Missionary Oblates; National 
     Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd; Oxfam; 
     United Church of Christ, Justice and Local Church Ministries; 
     Washington Office on Latin America; Witness for Peace 
     Solidarity Collective.

                          ____________________