Searching for Colombia’s Disappeared
This post is written by Lisa Haugaard and Kelly Nicholls 
We already knew that Colombia has one of the highest numbers of internally displaced persons in the world, the highest rate of murder of trade unionists. But Colombia is ranking near the top on yet another tragic indicator: disappearances, according to a new report, Breaking the Silence: In Search of Colombia's Disappeared, just released by the Latin America Working Group Education Fund and the U.S. Office on Colombia. More than 51,000 people are registered by the Colombian government as disappeared or missing, a number that includes some people who may be found alive. Those who were forcibly disappeared range in official statistics from over one quarter of that total, according to the National Search Commission, to more than 32,000, according to the Attorney General's Justice and Peace office. But the real total is likely to be much higher, as new and old cases are entered into a consolidated government database that only launched in 2007. Indeed, as we have checked it over the last few months, the disappearances in this database have increased by an average of more than 1,000 old and new cases per month. And many cases are never registered at all. Today, the problem is far from solved. More than 1130 new cases of forced disappearance have been registered by the National Search Commission in the last three years, but from what we hear from Colombian human rights groups in areas like Antioquia and Buenaventura, the total is likely to be higher. All armed actors, including the Colombian armed forces, right-wing paramilitaries and left-wing guerrillas, are responsible for forced disappearances, but the paramilitary role in this crime is especially pronounced. Paramilitaries often destroyed the bodies of their victims, burning them or cutting them with chain saws, sometimes alive, burying the bodies in unmarked graves on ranches, riverbanks or cemeteries, or throwing them into rivers. The highest number of forced disappearances in Colombia occurred from 2000 to 2003, the first four years of U.S.-funded Plan Colombia, according to Colombian government's National Registry of the Disappeared. Many of those were committed by paramilitaries, but the U.S.-trained and -funded military aided and abetted these abuses. Another gruesome kind of forced disappearance, falsos positivos, escalated from 2005 through 2008. All over Colombia, army soldiers detained people, then killed them and dressed them in guerrilla uniforms and claimed them as killed in combat. Cases involving more than 3,000 people disappeared and killed allegedly by soldiers are now winding their way slowly through the civilian justice system. While Colombia has an advanced legal framework for addressing forced disappearances, this framework is rarely effectively applied. In 2000, after a protracted campaign by associations of families of the disappeared, a law was passed prohibiting forced disappearance and allowing for criminal prosecution. Law 589 sets up a National Search Commission, a consolidated National Registry of Disappeared People, and an urgent search mechanism to locate missing people. Some remaining concerns unaddressed by Law 589 may be improved with the August 2010 passage of Law 1408, which seeks to "pay tribute to the victims of the crime of forced disappearance and establish mechanisms for their location and identification." The demobilization agreement between the government and paramilitary forces set in motion dramatic changes that affected the treatment of forced disappearances. Paramilitaries seeking to reduce sentences under the Justice and Peace law were required to identify their crimes, including the location of their victims' bodies. Thousands of cases of disappearances came to light. However, sentences were limited to 5 to 8 years even for the most heinous crimes, and only two paramilitaries have so far been convicted under this transitional justice framework. 
The relatives of the disappeared face many obstacles, as the report, also available in Spanish, details. Few cases of disappearances have been successfully brought to trial, with the exception of some of the falsos positivos cases, and the Palace of Justice case. The right of family members to participate fully in the search for their loved ones and for justice is acknowledged in the abstract but not fulfilled in reality. Family members and associations of the families of the disappeared are deeply stigmatized in Colombia, and are often threatened and forcibly displaced. Breaking the Silence calls on the Colombian government to strengthen some of the steps it has begun taking to address disappearances. It should strengthen the National Search Commission and vigorously implement the National Search Plan to locate the disappeared, including some 10,000 unidentified bodies in Colombia's cemeteries. All agencies should enter the backlog of disappearance cases into the consolidated database. The Colombian government should also change the way it presents information on disappeared, so as to reveal trends in disappearances, including where these crimes are taking place and who is committing them, thus leading to the public policies and prevention campaigns that could help to end disappearances. And it should vigorously bring to justice those who commit these crimes. Finally, the Colombian government should involve the families of victims in all stages from the search for the disappeared to the search for justice. The U.S. government can also do its part. It can use human rights conditions on military aid to urge the Colombian government to prosecute cases of disappearances in which security forces are involved, and to suspend assistance to units of the armed forces credibly alleged to be involved in extrajudicial executions and disappearances. The U.S. should expand funding for legal and humanitarian assistance to victims as well as technical support to both independent and government forensic work. The U.S. government should also use its funding to encourage collaborative efforts between nongovernmental groups, government agencies and academia to elevate societal awareness about and develop improved public policy regarding forced disappearances. And the report is a call to scholars, activists and human rights groups in Colombia and around the world to support truth and justice for Colombia's disappeared. For far too long, the relatives of the disappeared and the human rights groups that accompany them have labored at great personal risk and without adequate acknowledgment, protection and support. It is long past time to help them break the silence.