WUNRN

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Website Link on Report: Breaking the Silence: In Search of Colombia's Disappeared

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Full Report in Spanish

http://www.usofficeoncolombia.org/

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Guardian UK - http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2010/dec/09/colombia-disappeared

COLOMBIA - WOMEN IN SEARCH OF THE DISAPPEARED - NEW REPORT

New report reveals the hidden human tragedy of the 30,000 'disappeared' in Colombia

A staffer of the Colombian district attorney's office gets data of a disappeared person. Photograph: Raul Arboleda/AFP/Getty Images

The weathered face of Colombian farmer Blanca Nieves Meneses is overcome by sorrow as she stands before four small coffins. She has been looking for her daughters for 10 years, ever since they were "disappeared" by the paramilitaries in Putumayo, south Colombia. But now all that is left of her girls, the youngest of whom was only 13, are bones. Her only remaining daughter, Nancy, is with her mother at the ceremony and says, between sobs: "I never thought that this is the way they would be returned to me."

Colombian victims of forced disappearances, and their families, have long been overlooked. In a country where the death toll from assassinations, massacres, criminal murders and battlefield casualties – where there are bodies – is so high, disappearances have remained out of focus.

Mention disappearances in the Latin American context and most people think mainly about Argentina, where some 30,000 people were disappeared during the dirty war, or Chile, where 3,000 people were killed or disappeared. Yet, a new report by the US Office on Colombia and the Latin America working group education fund, Breaking the Silence: In Search of Colombia's Disappeared, reveals that there are around 30,000 forced disappearances registered in Colombia. However, the total number is likely to be much higher as many cases have yet to be recorded in a still relatively new national database, and many disappearances are not registered at all.

In Colombia, victims of forced disappearances include human rights defenders, trade unionists, Afro-Colombian and indigenous people and poor rural farmers and their families.

All the armed groups have been responsible for disappearances in Colombia, from the left-wing guerrillas to the right-wing paramilitaries, who often destroyed the bodies of their victims, burying them in unmarked graves or throwing them into the river. Colombian human rights groups have long been reporting allegations of soldiers detaining people, who then disappear and are later found dead. The army often claims they are guerrillas killed in combat. To date, cases involving more than 3,000 alleged executions of civilians by the armed forces were registered in the civilian justice system.

Victims' families face numerous obstacles in their fight for truth and justice. They are stigmatised and often portrayed as guerrillas who deserve their fate. This can often lead to the family being threatened and forcibly displaced. This was the case for Meneses, who waged a 10-year struggle to find her missing daughters. Right after her daughters disappeared, she and Nancy sought help from local government authorities. The mayor told her he was afraid to help. Finally, the two women went directly to the paramilitary leaders, who told Meneses to "disappear yourself if you don't want us to kill you too". In October 2001, she left with her grandchildren for the province of Nariño, where she lived for five years, while Nancy continued searching for her sisters. In 2006, paramilitaries took over her mother's house, in which Nancy lived.

No state help

In many cases the main economic providers for a family is the one who has disappeared, leaving the family in a precarious state. While family members have the legal right to receive assistance, they can only access it by providing a death certificate for their missing loved one. This causes even more trauma for them as they don't know whether their loved one is dead or alive, and if they declare them dead the search for that person can be closed.

Consuelo de Jesus David, a poor farmer from the province of Uraba, tells how she has struggled to provide for her family after her husband and son were disappeared by the guerrillas 13 years ago. She received no help from the state so she began to search for her son and husband herself. She was subsequently threatened by the guerrillas and forced to abandon the family farm and seek refuge in the city of Medellin. Without the help of her husband and eldest son she has struggled ever since to provide for her family.

The Colombian government has developed an advanced legal framework for addressing disappearances, but this framework is rarely effectively applied. The government has also made advances in the search for the disappeared, creating a centralised database, conducting exhumations and the return of remains to victims' families. But much more needs to be done. Disappearances are far from a problem of the past. The task that confronts Colombia is not only finding those disappeared and achieving justice for the thousands of forced disappearances that have occurred over the last 30 years. The challenge is also to end the practice; every week in Colombia people disappear. Until that happens, people like Meneses will continue to suffer the interminable sorrow of uncertainty.