Colombia Strengthens Military Accountability

Beginning in 2004, former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe began a controversial security policy aimed at reasserting Colombian sovereignty over vast swathes of the countryside. This land had fallen under the defacto rule of the Fuerzas Armadas Revoluionarios de Colombia (FARC),a long lived left-wing guerrilla movement. The FARC had become an increasingly effective fighting force over the 1990s and early 2000s as the group began to receive a massive boost in resources through their increased involvement in the drug trade. They had become able to maintain a sophisticated structure of roaming military divisions capable of a engaging in sustained combat operations with the police and military. There were even instances of the FARC capturing and destroying whole police stations. Uribe's "Democratic Secutiry Strategy" prioritized military defeat of the FARC over a negotiated political settlement, mainly in response to the perceived failure of the political option during the Pastrana Administration. While the policy has been very successful in weakening FARC's command and control structure, it has regrettably led to several political scandals for the Uribe's administration that underscore the difficulties the Colombian state is still having in consolidating it's democracy.

The "Parapoliticas" scandal broke out in 2006 when evidence arose of the ties between Colombian politicians and the right wing paramilitaries that showed how criminal groups tied to drug trafficking and violence were allowed to intimidate leftist groups. Also, it became increasingly apparent that the Army itself was perpetrating extra-judicial killings in order to inflate their numbers to give the appearanc ethat more guerrillas were being killed than actually were. These scandals expose the difficulty the Colombian state continues to have in maintaining transparent and accountable institutions acting within the rule of law.

However, recently there has been an encouraging development in making the Army accountable to the Colombian judicial system. Eight elite Colombian soldiers were found guilty of the extra-judicial killing of a civilian who they claimed was a left-wing guerrilla. Hopefully, this ruling will show the Colombian army that they cannot act with impunity and must act within the bounds of law set by the civilian administration.

Here is the BBC story:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11520225