Colombia

Colombia has been plagued by conflict since the 1940s, when a 10-year civil war called "La Violencia" occurred. During this war, approximately 200,000 civilians were killed. The war ended in 1958, with the installation of a new president, but violence continued in rural areas outside of the Colombian government's reach. Since the war, the governments in place have not had much control over the nation, which has allowed guerilla warfare to persist. According to the American Non-Governmental Organizations Coalition for the International Criminal Court (AMICC), "more than 4 million people have been displaced, the number of kidnappings amounted to 486 in 2007, and 1,106 people were either killed or injured by landmines in 2006."

The Actors:

The FARC:
One of the guerilla forces is the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejercito del Pueblo (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army, FARC-EP). The FARC was created in 1964 with the main goal of overthrowing the government to create a Marxist regime. It currently has 12,000 members, making it not only the largest but also the oldest revolutionary movement in Latin America. The FARC is known for allegedly committing a number of human rights abuses: bombings, murder, rape, torture, terrorist attacks, drug trafficking, kidnapping, hijacking, extortion, and forced displacements.

The AUC:
In reaction to the FARC, a group of landowners and drug dealers joined in 1997 to create the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, AUC). According to the AMICC "just like the force they try to combat, they allegedly use terror tactics such as massacres, selective killings and threats, mainly against human rights defenders and trade union and other social movements' leaders, journalists and members of Government. Over the past 10 years the paramilitaries, with support of the Colombian army and government, have killed some 15,000 trade unionists, peasants and indigenous leaders, human rights workers, land reform activists, leftwing politicians and their sympathizers."

The ELN:
A third guerilla group in Colombia is the Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional (National Liberation Army,ELN). The ELN was founded in 1964 in response to the Cuban revolution, and is anti-capitalism. Its main targets are oil and electricity industries, but the ELN is also involved in kidnappings, bombings, hijacking, and extortion.

Recent Years
Recently, Colombian institutions have been working to uncover truths about the paramilitary organizations in the country. They have found that these organizations have accumulated massive amounts of wealth and influence through alliances with politicians, the military, and businesspeople. The Colombian Supreme Court has been investigating over 60 members of the Colombian Congress for working with the paramilitary groups. The "Justice and Peace Law" is offering reduced sentences to paramilitaries for full and truthful confessions to the courts. Despite these efforts, the President Uribe's administration has been trying to block or sabotage investigations. This could partly be blamed in the fact that most of the 60 members of the Colombian Congress being investigated are from President Uribe's coalition.

In May 2008, Colombia extradited many of the paramilitary leaders to the United States for cocaine trafficking charges. This may break the chain of command in the paramilitaries and also there is a larger chance for these leaders to serve long prison terms for their drug crimes. But, these extraditions interrupted the process of getting these leaders to confess to their crimes and human rights abuses. With their extradition and eventual sentences in American prisons, these paramilitary leaders will be out of the control of Colombian authorities. This means that these paramilitaries will most likely stop providing information to Colombian authorities about human rights violations they have committed. Also, their extradition puts these high-ranking paramilitary leaders out of the reach of the ICC in any eventual trial because the United States has not yet ratified the Rome Statute.

The current administration denies that there are any paramilitaries in the country. However, many of the 30,000 demobilized individuals proved to be civilians recruited to pose as paramilitaries. Also, new paramilitary groups are constantly cropping up, often led by mid-level paramilitaries from other groups. These 22 new groups are reported to be committing human rights abuses such as extortion, threats, killing, and forced displacement.

Neither the FARC nor the ELN have been silenced by the government's recent attempts to quell paramilitary violence. These attempts include the "Peace and Justice Law' and also disarmament talks with paramilitary leaders. The FARC takes part in numerous kidnappings, and is still holding hundreds of hostages. Also, in August 2008 the FARC was accused of planting a bomb in Ituango, Colombia that killed 7 people and injured 50.

Due to the violence that has been running rampant through the country for such a long time, an estimated 3 million people are internally displaced people as of 2009. Women have been deemed especially vulnerable, and in 2004 the Constitutional Court ruled that the failure to protect displaced women was a violation of human rights. In 2008, the Colombian government began programs to aid vulnerable women.

The Colombian Army and Child Soldiers
The Colombian army has been killing an increasing number of civilians. In order to feign results in their pursuit of paramilitaries, government troops have allegedly taken civilians from their homes, killed them, and then dressed them up as combatants. The Defense Ministry has deemed these killings as prohibited, but President Uribe has denied that these problems exist, signaling possible signs of corruption at the highest level of government.

 Among other human rights issues, the use of children as soldiers has been prevalent in Colombia. No one under 18 was recruited for the Colombian military; however, children have been paid to act as informants to the military. Also, children have been offered economic incentives to become "peasant soldiers". This scheme was instituted by the government in 2002 to increase the size of its military by creating a peasant army of 20,000 members. Also, the Colombian government continues its "soldier for a day" program which exposes children to military facilities in hopes to gain recruits for the future.

Paramilitary groups continue to use children under the age of 15 throughout the country. According to a Human Rights Watch report, over 11,000 children were fighting in "irregular armies". Many boys and girls received training at the age of 13. The FARC claims that they only use children over the age of 15, but this does not seem to be the case. Also, the FARC has begun to recruit children from Amazonian tribes in Brazil. Girl recruits to the FARC are often subjected to sexual harassment, and forced to use birth control or get abortions if they become pregnant. Children have also been used by the ELN and AUC.

ICC Impact
Despite the fact that Colombia signed ratified the Rome Statute in 1998, and ratified it in 2002, they declared that the ICC's jurisdiction over Colombian citizens with respect to war crimes would be deferred seven years, or until September 2009. The ICC has also stated that it will not intervene if Colombia holds trials and proceedings for those most responsible for the crimes committed. To aid in this process, Colombia passed the Justice and Peace Law in 2002. Under this law, if members of any armed rebel force agreed to abandon the group, they would "face a maximum conviction of five to eight years if they released hostages, made a sincere and full confession, helped to locate the corpses of the disappeared people and paid damages to victims" (AMICC). This approach has been relatively successful and 1,626 cases are in the beginning stages. In 2006, it was discovered that 70 members of the Colombian Congress were involved in dealings with the AUC, such as financing the rebels in order for the congressmen to keep control over their municipalities. Along similar lines, the Colombian army is known for colluding with the guerilla forces and committing human rights violations such as sexual harassment, arbitrary arrests, and indiscriminate killings.