Transcript - Impunity and Accountability in Colombia

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ALMUDENA BERNABEU: And so immediately this community is going to pure destruction. The working force is dead and the families are destroyed because either they-- You know, they left the men, but then they rape and kill the wife or the children. I mean, it’s full of destruction. And it takes years for these communities to reconstruct what they lost.

MARK SOMMER: For more than forty years, the Latin American nation of Colombia has been caught in a deadly crossfire between repressive government, right wing paramilitaries, and left wing guerrillas. Thousands of civilians have lost their lives in la Violencia. Millions more have been driven from their homes. Virtually none of the perpetrators have been brought to justice. Impunity remains the law of the land.

Now a series of official tribunals and unofficial truth commissions are seeking to discover what really happened, to give victims a chance to express their anger and sorrow, and perpetrators a chance to confess and serve time or be amnestied.

The challenge is immense and the results to-date quite meager. These efforts at what is called transitional justice are occurring in the midst of continuing armed conflict. Colombia remains a society ...(inaudible) by extreme economic inequality and haunted by the ghosts of the dead.

I’m Mark Sommer. Today on A World of Possibilities, “Impunity and Accountability in Colombia.” We’ll hear from human rights attorneys and a range of judges participating in Colombia’s truth-seeking tribunals. But first, we’ll hear from a victim of la Violencia, a rural farm worker who transformed her personal tragedy into a purposeful life, helping other such victims regain their dignity and strength. Listeners are advised that some descriptions of atrocities are graphic, and may not be suitable for children.

At age 43, Margarita Morales has endured personal tragedy on a scale that would surely have broken most people’s will to live. Yet with just one year of education, she’s not only regained her sense of purpose, but has become a leader in Colombia’s Association of Victims For Life. As you’ll hear through our interpreter, associate producer Naihma Deady, Margarita’s an eloquent voice for justice in a society where it remains largely unknown.

I understand that it’s probably very difficult to speak about the events that led to losing nine members of your family. And you needn’t tell us a great deal. But can you tell us just a little bit about how it happened that you lost nine members of your family?

MARGARITA MORALES: (through interpreter) Well, you know, not only have I lost three brothers in two years, I have a child that has been missing for seven years. My brother-in-law was killed. My son-in-law was taken and then killed. Four nephews of mine have been assassinated in conflict. And, you know, it’s not just nine members of my family. It’s more than that. As a mother, as a grandma, as a sister, as a neighbor, as a community member, I have to say that my loss has been more than just nine people.

And, you know, this suffering and this pain has made me train myself into mental health support. I counsel people in mental health to be able to get over our own community pain.

MARK SOMMER: When you first started organizing, how did you begin? Did you call a meeting of your neighbors?

MARGARITA MORALES: (through interpreter) Well, you know, my organizing actually really started when I started to meet up with some folks that had created a group where people that were grieving like me could go and understand what was going on with the paramilitary groups and the armed guerilla groups, you know? I used to work in the fields as a field worker with this place called Harvesting Life that was giving jobs to mothers, heads of households. And, you know, I would work in the fields and I would just start crying and crying. And I couldn’t stop crying.

So someone took me in and said, “Look-it here — I can show you this group that meets. And, you know, why don’t you come and meet this group?” And the first time I went there, they were showing us pictures of all the paramilitary groups and how they had been demobilized and what they were doing. And just these pictures really made me feel a lot of pain because of all the things that I had been living with my family.

And I went home and I was crying. And even my own family members were saying, you know, “Why are you going to those meetings? They just cause you pain.” Anyways, I felt strong and I kept going to these meetings. And in one of those meetings, I met this psychologist.

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And this psychologist took me in under her wing, helped me deal with my pain, trained me to be able to help other people deal with their pain. And this is where my strength for organizing my own community and helping my own community deal with their pain began.

MARK SOMMER: That’s very interesting. So there was a psychologist. Was this from some non-governmental organization? Where did the psychologist come from who helped you so?

MARGARITA MORALES: (through interpreter) Yes, you know, this psychologist that I met, this woman, she is part of a program in the city of Bogota called Program for Peace. And they send out psychologists to different communities. And she really helped me a lot. She took me under her wing. You know, when she was seeing my positive progress in my grievance and understanding everything that was going on with me and my emotions, she helped me understand so much.

And what I learned is to view that my pain was not just my pain, but it was shared pain. And with this-- changing this view, I learned how to be-- how to have solidarity with my community and how to help others. You know? At this moment, I am now certified as a mental health promoter. And what I do is I help other victims grieve and overcome their grievance. You know? We learn that what we have, everything that we have now, even if we’re still displaced, we have it because we’ve earned it with our own hands. Our government doesn’t care for us. Nobody really cares for us.

And our truth is the real truth, because we are the people. We are the victims. We are the people that suffer this violence and suffer and have to deal with this truth.

MARK SOMMER: When you look at what happened to you and others in your village, do you assign responsibility to a certain group or a certain side of the conflict? Or do you think it’s a culture of violence that afflicts the guerillas, the paramilitary, the Colombian army, the government? Is it all of them?

MARGARITA MORALES: (through interpreter) Well we always say in my community that we are victims of the three groups, you know? We are-- Some of us are victims from displacement from the guerrilla group. Some of us are victims from paramilitary assassination. Some of us are victims from the government, people that are disappeared. So we are a victim of the three groups. We can’t just blame one group. And, you know, essentially, the state does not recognize how much we actually suffer. As civil groups, we’re in the middle of this conflict. And we’re the ones that are paying for it. We’re the ones that are suffering, you know?

And we end up being displaced. And we are field workers. We get sent to larger cities. And we don’t know what to do. We don’t know how to do it, so. Our blame has to be collectively for the three groups. We just want to learn the truth. We demand that the truth is known and be recognized as the victims that we truly are.

MARK SOMMER: As I understand it, you’ve also promoted a truth-seeking and memorialization process, a process by which you find out what happened and speak that truth to one another. Tell us about that process.

MARGARITA MORALES: (through interpreter) You know, we essentially are always looking for three things — truth, justice, and reparation. These are large terms that seem almost impossible because, you know, to this day, there’s still so many people that are missing, where we have no idea of their-- they’re dead, if they’re alive, you know, including my own son who has been missing for seven years. And I have no place to take flowers to him if he is dead. I cannot have a Mass in church if-- to know if he is dead or alive. You know?

So how can we claim truth, justice, and reparation of the state won’t even listen, you know? The truth is very important for us. And so as victims, this is what I’m trying to organize. And we’re trying to seek the truth. But there’s still so much mistrust against the state because it’s because of the state and the government that are people are disappeared. We have no reason as humans and as people to be so unkind to each other. We just want truth, justice, and reparation.

MARK SOMMER: Do some of the people who committed these crimes against your families and others in Grenada still live in the area?

MARGARITA MORALES: (through interpreter) Well, you know, it’s a little bit of everything. The perpetrators are people that are out-- from outside of our community in Grenada that came in and became part of our community. But we have to accept one truth.

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And that one truth is that these people became friends with our neighbors and our friends and our family members. And our neighbors, our friends, and our family members became involved and became a part of this conflict. So it’s a very harsh reality for us to know that it’s not just people from outside our community, but people within our community became involved in this and are part of this conflict.

MARK SOMMER: This is an association of victims. But at some point, do you have to move on from being victims? That is to say, do you have to break out of the notion that you must passively accept what happened to you and become and transcend that sense of being a victim?

MARGARITA MORALES: (through interpreter) Yes. You know, we have a regional organization whose slogan is, “From Victims to Citizens”. It’s a regional organization for all victims and all of us others, to listen to our voices, to listen to our truths, to help deal with the pain, and to continue to be able to move on in the correct way from a victim to become a citizen.

You know, when you’re a victim, you forget that you have a father, a mother, a brother, a son. You forget everything that is around you. You forget you need to go to work. You forget a lot of these things. So with this help and our voices being heard, we can transition from being victims to citizens. But it’s not to say that as we transition that we cannot be victims, you know? We can stop feeling like victims, but we cannot be denied the right of being victims. We have to make sure with this organization that victims that are transitioning from feeling as a victim to feeling as a citizen is done with dignity, it’s done with mental health, it’s done with a good transition where they can take care of their loved ones, they can have a job, and we can, you know, bring and project solutions and ideas to help our victim communities become functioning citizens of a community once again.

MARK SOMMER: Margarita Morales, vice president of the Association of Victims for Life in Colombia. After a short break, we’ll meet a human rights lawyer who’s investigating past atrocities in Colombia, and encouraging combatants to confess. Stay with us.

ANNOUNCER: This is A World of Possibilities. If you wish to contact us, please direct emails to info@aworldofpossibilities.org. This is the WFMT Radio Network.

MARK SOMMER: Welcome back. It’s A World of Possibilities and I’m Mark Sommer. Decades ago, private paramilitary forces in Colombia were organized by wealthy landowners with shadowy ties to the Colombian military to protect their investments in the mining, diamond, and cocaine trades.

The so-called United Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, is the largest of these groups. It has received millions of dollars from wealthy American businessmen, and is alleged to function like a covert arm of the Colombian armed forces.

So says Almudena Bernabeu, an attorney for the Center for Justice and Accountability in San Francisco. She’s been gathering testimony from credible witnesses to prepare evidence for upcoming trials in Colombia.

ALMUDENA BERNABEU: I have to say that I’ve been working in human rights, in, you know, international criminal law for over ten years, I guess altogether. And it is particularly hard to read and listen to the stories of what takes place and took place in Colombia. And it’s very random in the sense that some of those people will be chased. They ran away, and killed even later. I mean, it’s almost like a game. Some of the AUC and those guys who participate in these kind of killings, they take it a little bit of as a joke. And it becomes like these maybe few hours of pure agony where those who survive or-- Some people are forced to see their relatives being killed right in front of their eyes.

I don’t have numbers, but I think over 350 people were killed in this massacre. And I think it was also a later attempt to commit a massacre in the same region.

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Eventually they destroyed-- That’s another important thing that I would like to-- since you give me this opportunity-- It’s not only (which is, of course, horrible) it’s not only common to your town in killing everybody that you know and destroying your life, it’s what they do in the long-term. I mean, the level-- That experience is so hard on the people. There is so much pain, sort of a collective way of losing relatives.

And then-- And so immediately, these community’s going to(?) pure destruction, because mostly the working force is dead, the men. And the families are destroyed because either they’re-- you know, they left the men, but then they rape and kill the wife or the children.

I mean, it’s full destruction. And it takes years. And that’s what I would like people to be conscious for these communities, if at all, to reconstruct what they lost.

MARK SOMMER: It’s hard from the outside to understand how fellow citizens of Colombia could treat one another in this way. How do they explain afterwards, say in judicial proceedings, why they did this? What is their justification?

ALMUDENA BERNABEU: Well, I can tell you that there’s not too many of those that sound very rational. That’s a very interesting question that maybe more a psychiatrist or a therapist than myself can answer. For the most part, they look for justifications because they’re also humans. And then it’s always-- It’s either me or them. They see these people as, truly-- I mean, I don't think it’s honest, but I think they tell themselves that these people are going to go after them or they’re somehow enemies.

You know, they just see them as campesinos, people with little means and not educated. I mean, somehow it’s important for the human-- for human mind also to see the other as a lesser being of some kind, you know, to be able to be this cruel.

MARK SOMMER: And where are these paramilitaries recruited from? Are they also recruited from the poorer classes?

ALMUDENA BERNABEU: Yes, absolutely. And that’s another source of destruction.

MARK SOMMER: In other words, it’s poor against poor, but being engineered on behalf of a wealthy elite.

ALMUDENA BERNABEU: Exactly. Exactly.

MARK SOMMER: As you look at the long trajectory of human rights work-- After all, it’s been going on for some time. But it’s still relatively young, international law, human rights law, attempting to enforce itself in an environment in which impunity has reigned in many kinds of dictatorships around the world. Do you feel that progress is being made, however slowly?

ALMUDENA BERNABEU: Well, let’s see… I’m not stupid. And I’m a little bit of-- I have the tendency to be a little optimistic, as some people may say that I’m too optimistic. But I think I agree with you. The feeling some days-- And the bad days, you know, you get this melancholia because things keep happening, and horrible things keep happening. And then countries are looking some other direction. So you just feel, “Jesus, why am I doing this work for?”

But actually I don’t agree. I think that the challenges are phenomenal, huge, huge, huge. And the achievements-- I mean, to begin with, we have a discipline now called international criminal law that applies in national courts, for instance. I mean, that was unthinkable twelve years ago. So I think that there has been-- It’s very small within the frames of due process and national tribunal, toward international instances, the creation of the ICC. It just has to be slow, by definition, in part to be good and sustainable.

So I think that it’s part of the challenge, you know, how you create the basis for something that can last for the next-- I don't know-- for a hundred years, ideally. But I think it has been phenomenal, phenomenal events in the last fifteen years, yes.

MARK SOMMER: Hmm. Well thank you very much, Almudena.
 

ALMUDENA BERNABEU: Thank you.

MARK SOMMER: Thank you very much for speaking with us. Fascinating and important conversation.

ALMUDENA BERNABEU: Thank you very much. It was a pleasure. Really great questions. I really appreciate it.

MARK SOMMER: Almudena Bernabeu, an international human rights attorney with the Center for Justice and Accountability in San Francisco.

Once evidence has been gathered to bring perpetrators of these atrocities to court, the wheels of justice turn painfully slowly. Proceedings in the Peace and Justice Tribunal established in 2005 have thus far produced just one conviction, and as yet, no sentencing. Judge Uldy Teresa Jimenez is president of the superior courts and peace tribunals in Bogota. I asked her to put the current reconciliation efforts in historical context.

ULDY TERESA JIMENEZ: (through translator) I think we’re all familiar with the fact that for over fifty years, Colombia has been suffering violent acts, may it be paramilitary acts, guerilla acts.

 

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Historically, there has been a lot of turmoil in our country. So society has been wanting to give a place to these victims that have suffered from torture, homicide, and displacement like the field workers and the indigenous people have been displaced from their land.

So this law came about in order to be able to respond to how our society was suffering in that way, and also to the international community, in order to be able to respect and abide human rights. With this said then, the Peace and Justice law became implemented. And as it mentions in its first article, it’s implemented to facilitate the peace process, to reconstruct and renegotiate, to repair what the victims have suffered, and to reintegrate those who come and truthfully declare what they have done.

MARK SOMMER: Let me first ask you why the Peace and Justice Commission has been in operation for three years, and you’ve only to-date found one person who is willing to come forward? When it is a voluntary process, how do you persuade people to join in the process, when they can seemingly avoid the entire judicial system with impunity?

ULDY TERESA JIMENEZ: (through translator) Well, here is the thing. There’s two or three really complex situations going on here, which is why it may seem that in three years only one case has been fully processed and is about to be sentenced. One declaration can have, within its context, more than one thousand crimes by more than one person, because these people belong to groups. So the people that have come up and declared, there has been thousands of declarations, but only one has been fully processed because only this one has been fully investigated, facts verified, and victims have been verified as well.

So these investigations take longer than we even expected. We never had the expectation that a process that-- this process that we opened up would take such a long time to be able to come up with one sentencing for each person that is coming and declaring their crimes. It’s fifty years of violence in our country, fifty years of torturing humans, of human rights abuses. And we have to verify every single fact in order to be able to give the sentencing to the person that is declaring their acts.

MARK SOMMER: Tell us, Judge, then the story of the parrot, that is, a perpetrator of the violence I assume, and also the story of a victim whose history very strongly affected you.

ULDY TERESA JIMENEZ: (through translator) Okay, the parrot, as he is known with his alias, he is a twelve-year member of a front in the northern part of Colombia where-- The front’s name that he belonged to was [Spanish]. And this name is in honor of a member for that region that was very powerful in the front. And he had died. So it was in his honor. And this front--

MARK SOMMER: The front is a guerrilla group?

ULDY TERESA JIMENEZ: (through translator) Um, the front [Spanish] is a paramilitary group. And the parrot decided to demobilize from this group and is an example of the first process that is receiving a sentence through this law.

He declared, out of many other crimes, the ones that made of most impact to everybody were a double homicide. This double homicide was a terrible event in that it was the assassination of a young woman that was being candidate for mayor for a small town in a city in our country. She did not associate with any paramilitary groups or guerrilla groups. She just was purely a representative of the people and wanted to run for mayor.

Because she didn’t associate with any paramilitary groups, her assassination was ordered so that a person that was backed up by a paramilitary group could come in and become the mayor just like in any other places around our country.

The way that she was killed by the parrot and his colleagues was, she was in her house, having a meeting with a lot of people. And they came in the house and shot her to death. As they were shooting her to death, her daughter, her twelve year-old daughter, came to her aid and was killed in the bullets as well.

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This is one of the most important or impacting events from the declarations of the parrot. But there was another one as well where this one man, an older man, was getting off from the bus. And the parrot went ahead and shot him as he was stepping down from the bus. He was shot as an example for those who did not want to be members or back the paramilitary group that he belonged to in the area that they controlled.

What was more impacting of these declarations were that during the process, the hearing process and the investigation process, there was a hearing for the victims. And the victims were the family members of these people that the parrot had declared he had killed. And during these hearings, the parrot had the opportunity to apologize in person and in word to the mother and sisters of this lady that-- and whose daughter and the lady were killed. He apologized in person. And they actually accepted his apology. And that was very-- That was very-- It created a huge impact.

And he also declared or asked for forgiveness to the other members of the family of the other people he has killed. Within this investigation, the victims have not received any sort of reparation for this because the sentencing has not gone through. Once the sentencing goes through, then the reparation process for the victims of this particular case will begin. With this noted, I wanted to say that just with him, there are 28 other crimes that have been declared that are still being processed in order to finish his sentencing.

MARK SOMMER: You have been living in a society that has been ravaged by this violence for more than half a century. Do you have any reason to believe this will come to an end, this violence, any time soon?

ULDY TERESA JIMENEZ: (through translator) Well, yes. You know, if I did not believe that peace could happen in my country, I would definitely not be a part of this process and of this Peace and Justice law. You know? I think that as a person, being optimistic or losing your optimistic (sic) is not a good thing. You know, I have to be positive and I have to have optimism, because this is what keeps me going.

But at the same time, I have to be real, you know? And this violence and these wars in our country, there’s a lot of social factors for these, you know? It’s not just about the focus that we’ve been giving to this conversation. But there’s other things like the drug trafficking, the social inequalities that exist in our country in terms of the extreme poor and the extreme rich, you know? And as long as these social factors keep being present, along with the history of our paramilitary groups and everything else, you know, the peace process is going to be lengthy.

I don't believe that complete peace might be seen by my generation. But I am very much struggling and fighting to find peace for the generation of my children, you know? What we are doing now at this moment is taking the first steps to demantelize(?) these armed groups. And, you know, we also need the cooperation of the other social groups in other parts of society to demantelize the other social factors like the drug trafficking and the social inequalities that exist in our country, to achieve peace in this place.

MARK SOMMER: Justice Uldy Teresa Jimenez, president of Colombia’s Peace and Justice Tribunal in Bogota.

You can learn more about transitional justice in Colombia on our website, at AWorldOfPossibilities.org. While you’re there, we invite you to subscribe to our podcast and archives. You’ll also find us on iTunes and a special educational portal, iTunes U. I’m Mark Sommer. This program is distributed by the WFMT Radio Network and was made possible with support from the Compton Foundation.

We’ll take a short break, and then return with more insights about the transition to justice in Colombia. And we’ll hear more from our first guest, Margarita Morales.

MARGARITA MORALES: (through interpreter) I realize how, with my strength, I could do more for others and I could be even stronger.

MARK SOMMER: Stay with us.

ANNOUNCER: We’d like to hear your thoughts about this program. Please write us at information@aworldofpossibilities.org. This is the WFMT Radio Network.

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MARK SOMMER: Welcome back. It’s A World of Possibilities, and I’m Mark Sommer. Today, we’re looking at the tragic armed conflict between the military, paramilitary death squads, and armed guerrillas that has plagued the Latin America country of Colombia for more than half a century.

La Violencia has left thousands of civilians dead and driven several million more from their homes. Javier Ciurlizza has plenty of experience with efforts to bring perpetrators to justice in the aftermath of armed conflicts. In addition to his current work as director of the Colombia Program at the International Center for Transitional Justice, he has guided truth commissions and judicial processes in Peru, Paraguay, Kenya, Indonesia, and Liberia. He spoke with us from his office in Bogota.

JAVIER CIURLIZZA: Well, transitional justice was a term created in order to explain the difficult forms in which justice could be met in the middle of transitions from authoritarian regimes into democratic governments and also from internal armed conflicts or internal wars into peaceful settlements. And that was applied widely throughout the world in South America, Argentina, Chile. South Africa came after that. And more than thirty countries throughout the world have passed through different mechanisms in which truth seeking, reparation for big things, prosecutions of those who are responsible for crimes, and guarantees of non-repetition are the basic four elements of transitional justice.

MARK SOMMER: Is the war still going on in Colombia, essentially?

JAVIER CIURLIZZA: Well, technically, this is not precisely a civil war. If we understand civil war as a conflict that divides sharply the country in two sides, with popular support for both of them, what we have in Colombia is an internal armed conflict between some guerrilla movements that defies a democratic government that has legitimate power to repress the guerrilla movement according, however, to the international standards and the ...(inaudible) of respect of human rights. In that sense, a conflict is still ongoing, both between the guerrillas and the government, but also intervening several other armed actors like paramilitary groups or drug trafficking bands that make the Colombia conflict very difficult to understand and very difficult to manage and to solve.

MARK SOMMER: How many people have died? And how many people have been displaced by this war

JAVIER CIURLIZZA: The figures, approximately, given by U.N. agencies and NGOs says that between seventy and one hundred-thirty thousand persons have been killed by the conflict, and that around 15,000 persons remained disappeared. What we do have is a more precise figure of displaced people. According to governmental figures, around of three million Colombians were forced to leave their homes and moved into the cities mainly, creating a humanitarian drama that is still a big, big problem in the country.

MARK SOMMER: I think most listeners have a sense of what guerrillas are and how they operate. But paramilitaries seem to be a very important force, not just in Colombia, but in many other Latin American countries. They’ve had a very dark and destructive role in many cases. Who are they? How are they financed? And what is their relationship with both drug cartels and the Colombian government?

 

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JAVIER CIURLIZZA: The current paramilitary activity in Colombia started mainly at the end of the ‘80s, beginning of the ‘90s. It was the creation of several cartels like the Medellín cartel, the Cali cartel, or the enemies of these cartels in order to control the drug business. In the ‘90s, after the death of Pablo Escobar and the extradition of several of the top leaders of the drug trafficking organizations, new leaders appeared, but more connected with the protection of economic activities like cattle or multinational business that were in Colombia.

These protected activities were justified because the state did not have the power to do it. However, year after year, reports of killings, disappearances, and massacres were received and attributed to these paramilitary organizations, some of them with strong links with the army.

At the end of the ‘90s, the paramilitary groups were so strong and they had so much money, that they decided to create a national front called Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, United Self-Defenses of Colombia, that brought together the most important groups and represented a serious challenge to the state in terms of the monopoly of the force.

So the state started finally to combat these groups. They obviously displaced the guerrilla groups from many places, and some people in Colombia think that they were a necessary disease in terms of bringing peace. However, if we look at the figures and if we consider the facts, we can conclude easily that paramilitary activity only brought destruction, death, created hundreds or thousands of victims, and finally did not work in terms of building peace in Colombia. That’s why (and happily) this Self-Defense of Colombia, this front, decided to agree with the state, a demobilization process through a law called Peace and Justice.

MARK SOMMER: And in this process that president Álvaro Uribe has initiated, is there a general sense, and do you feel that it has been fair, both to victims of the paramilitaries and to the paramilitary personnel themselves? Or has it been biased in one way or another?

JAVIER CIURLIZZA: Unfortunately, the answer is that the process has been, in some sense, biased. The persons who claim the benefits were incorporated into a well funded program of(?) reinsertion(?), received educational benefits, employment benefits. However, the victims-- and we’re talking about around 150,000 victims and has been registered as victims of the paramilitary groups-- has received nothing so far.

Currently, a victim of the paramilitary organization, the only thing that he or she can expect from the Colombian government is a reparation that has been approved, but not still paid, of around $8,000 dollars per person according to the violation that happened. But this reparation would be paid during ten years. So that would mean $800 dollars a year per victim.

MARK SOMMER: Why do you think this bias appears to exist? Has the Colombian government had indirect connections with the paramilitaries? Has the Colombian army used them as surrogates at various times? Or are they truly independent of them?

JAVIER CIURLIZZA: That’s a very difficult question. And I would try to be very precise in the terms because we have to be very careful. Let me start saying that, we cannot say that the Colombia state is a paramilitary or criminal state as a whole. That’s not simply true. This is not a dictatorship. This is not a criminal government. Democracy in Colombia is very alive and is very active. And the independence(?) of power is real in terms of the-- There is a judiciary that exert control over the executive. And there is a democratic process in which the freedom of the press is respected. And the institutions are quite sophisticated for Latin American standards.

However, impunity in Colombia has been ...(inaudible) and it’s a structural factor of the daily life of the country. And in terms of human rights violations, it is relatively socially acceptable that the state, especially army, can violate human rights in exchange for peace and security.

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So Colombia suffered the same syndrome of many other countries in the world, and not necessarily here in the south, but also in the north. When there is a threat that is very real and very actual, people tend to prefer security to human rights.

And so in Colombia, what we have had is a sacrifice of certain human rights in terms of gaining security. And this created environment in which some parts of the army, some parts of the political establishment decided that it was a good idea to have links with illegal activities in order to combat other illegal activities. That was a very perverse speech: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” So violence, as always, is complex, but we can say that the plan Colombia has make the country stronger in terms of military terms, but weaker in terms of social terms.

MARK SOMMER: Javier Ciurlizza, human rights attorney and Colombia program director for the International Center for Transitional Justice. After this short break, we’ll return for some final words from ground level with Margarita Morales, vice president of Colombia’s Association of Victims for Life. I’m Mark Sommer. Stay with us.

ANNOUNCER: To receive a weekly podcast of this program, find us in the iTunes store, or follow the link at AWorldOfPossibilities.org.

MARK SOMMER: We’ll conclude this program where we began, at the grassroots with Margarita Morales, the 43 year-old campesina who lost nine members of her immediate family to Colombia’s deadly crossfire. But with just one year of education, she chose to turn her personal tragedy into public service, linking victims to one another in a shared mission to redeem their lives through their own truth-telling in the face of official impunity.

MARGARITA MORALES: (through interpreter) You know, my parents, as humble field workers, never really had the chance to provide an education for us children. I started to work cleaning other people’s houses when I was seven, and I never really had the opportunity to go to school.

During my teenage years, I thought I had a chance to go to school and was able to complete third grade elementary school. And then I had to stop going to school to keep working. And, you know, as a grown mother, I’ve always wanted to go back to school. And everything that I’ve done in my life has been without an education. But even at my humble 43 years of age, I am still trying to find ways to be able to go back to school. This is something that I want very much.

MARK SOMMER: I’m really struck by what you said earlier in this conversation about you-- the breakthrough for you from being a victim to regaining your sense of dignity and purpose was when you realized that the suffering wasn’t yours alone, that many other people had experienced something similar, and that you could gain comfort and solidarity from that realization. Is that right?

MARGARITA MORALES: (through interpreter) Yes, because of this or when I realized this as learning that my pain was collective and that we all needed to aid each other. I realized how, with my strength, I could do more for others, and I could be even stronger and overcome my pain, you know? And this is why even at this age, I continue to look for ways to be able to finish my schooling, so I can have the knowledge to help my community even more than what I am doing now. It’s kind of funny. My daughters keep telling me that it’s hard to go out for a walk with me and have me all to themselves because when we go out for a walk in my town, everybody wants to talk with me and ask me questions, and wants to help.

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And, you know, I am very proud to know that my own community has made me be such a strong person today. And I know that, as much as I want to continue my studies, I am hoping to be fortunate enough to be able to find ways and resources to go back to school. But at this point, it’s god’s will. And he will know what else to do for me.

MARK SOMMER: Margarita, people will be listening to this from all over the world, and many people who could never imagine living a life with as much suffering as you do, others who have suffering in other circumstances. What would you say to them about how to deal with suffering in their own lives? What have you learned from this that you would impart to others?

MARGARITA MORALES: (through interpreter) I have always told my community members to not stay locked up, to not stay grieving in their pain. You have to recuperate and pick up your dignity. And I would say, “Pick up your dignity and pick up your comfort, and go out there and realize that you cannot be blinded.” You need to participate in groups and in your community, because realizing that others may share the same suffering that you are going through is such a breakthrough. It’s so important.

And I also remind the people that I talk with that, how can we be complaining so much about our pain and suffering when we have two eyes, a mouth, a nose, two hands that work, two legs that work? And we are here complaining when we see others that maybe are missing limbs or in wheelchairs, and they are happy. How can that be? You need to be as happy as they can be. You need to stop complaining.

I would say to be solidare(?) and to not judge and criticize. That is my main, main thing. I feel that it’s not worth to point fingers, to judge and criticize. That just causes a lot of more pain. My motto is that the guilty is not just the person who shoots and kills someone or hurts someone, but also that one person who points and judges.

MARK SOMMER: Final question for you, Margarita — with all that’s happened to you and to those around you, do you still love life?

MARGARITA MORALES: (through interpreter) What a nice question you ask. Let me tell you that, at times I feel so disappointed that I’ve even wanted to take my life away, you know? In all honesty, it hurts to have to say it. I’ve lived through many situations, and I think that humans are not giving the value and importance that we deserve to have.

All in all, life is beautiful, but it hurts to know how the life of a human being is worth nothing, and the life of an animal is worth so much more. When is a human being is worth almost nothing? But with everything that has happened to me and keeps happening to me, I always say, what are we in this world for, and if everything we do is bad, is a sin?

But I cannot blame because I have also always said that the culture that my ancestors came from and raised me in is machista. And instead of doing us good, it has done much harm. But even so, with all this, I have learned and have been involved with many beautiful. Honestly, I have to say that first I lost my faith in god because I lost all faith. We are Catholics, but one removes oneself from the church with all that one lives through and what we are told to believe. But all those beautiful people that have given value to who I am, my work, and have shown me and helped me get up and be strong and live again--

But there are times when the illusion, the will to live just drains out of you. And I can say that I am alive because of all of those beautiful people around me that have given me strength to move on, that have told me that I am worth a lot as a human, as a person, that can help in her community. And this has made me value my life and to think about how I have to get through this on my own.

Life has given me many disillusions and many pains that have put me in-between a rock and a hard place. And in these moments, you have to decide either to live or not. Our god is who knows, because one doesn’t really know. One cannot buy one’s life. But once you realize that no one can live your life for you but yourself, and realize that we tend to try and live others’ lives instead of our own--

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So I started to see that, and I had to live my own life and let others think whatever they want. My life is worth much more than any other who thinks that living the life of another is better.

So this I have questioned a lot. So now I have learned to be a woman, to stand up straight. I practice my rights, and I practice the rights for my community if they are violated, which does not makes us be unvalued humans. And it does not hinder us to be able to have our own thoughts. Today, I want to start my life anew, alone, because I want to start my life with the one daughter I have left living with me. So many things. But what I do know is that life is worth a lot, and I work and rescue the value of life, independent from who the person was. By respecting others’ ways of being and thinking-- Because we’re all human beings that make mistakes. And we have to respect others’ thoughts. So I value and rescue(?) their respect for human life.

MARK SOMMER: Thank you so much, Margarita. Your life is worth more than you can even know.

MARGARITA MORALES: [Spanish]

MARK SOMMER: Margarita Morales, vice president of the Association of Victims for Life in Colombia. Margarita’s interpreter has been our bilingual, bicultural associate producer, Naihma Deady.

Margarita’s testament is a triumph of the human spirit. Yet for all its eloquence, it doesn’t obviate the urgent need to create enforceable systems of law to bring highly placed criminals to justice. Violence, criminality, and impunity are by no means confined to poor countries in far corners of the world. We’ve seen in recent times that even in longstanding democracies like The United States, criminal behavior in high places with ramifications that dwarf even the violence in Colombia, goes unprosecuted.

Impunity gives the green light to those who see the law as either an annoying obstacle to their ambitions or a weapon they can wield to intimidate those who dare get in their way. Transitional justice has thus far achieved, at best, mixed success. Truth and reconciliation commissions have no authority to put criminals behind bars. Most hear only a tiny fraction of the victims’ stories, fewer still of the perpetrators’ confessions.

Now that we see that none of us is safe from such highly placed criminality, it becomes all the more vital to establish consistent enforceable standards of human rights that are applied equally to the rich and poor, the powerful as well as the powerless. Politicians are fond of saying, “Nobody’s above the law.” Then they go on acting as if it doesn’t apply to them. Maybe now, in the District of Columbia, as well as the country of Colombia, it’s time to bring truth to power.

I’m Mark Sommer. And this has been A World of Possibilities, made possible this week by a grant from the Compton Foundation. We hope you’ll come by our website and discover our new mini-podcast, which features highlights of each new program. It’s at AWorldOfPossibilities.org.

ANNOUNCER: You’ve been listening to A World of Possibilities with host and executive producer, Mark Sommer. Access the full interviews with our guests, read more about the issues, and subscribe to our podcast at AWorldOfPossibilities.org.

The recording engineer is Mike Schwartz. Associate producers, Naihma Deady and Matt Fidler. The senior producer is Gregg McVicar. And I’m Gabriela Castelan. This is the WFMT Radio Network.

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