Colombia

The Republic of Colombia is located in South America. The President is Álvaro Uribe, elected for a second term in 2006.

Colombia has been plagues with violence since the 1960s. Paramilitary groups wish to control the trafficking of cocaine and other natural resources throughout the country and as a result the government and insurgent groups are constantly at war. The drug wars in Colombia have been the longers period of armed conflict in the continent, creating political instability with paramilitary groups engagins hundreds of thousands of civilians in their own conflicts, especially amongst the indigenous populations and farmers.

All the parties involved - security forces, paramilitary, guerrilla groups) - are responsible for flagrant and systematic violations of human rights and of international humanitarian law. Human rights defenders, journalists, community leaders, trade unionists, leaders of the indigenous minorities, Afro-descendants, are generally the main targets of threats and violence from guerrilla groups.

The kidnappings and hostage situations and the killing of civilians has reduced in recent years. High profile hostages have been freed after years of detention by the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) and Ejército de Liberacion Nacional (ELN). However evictions of landowners by guerrilla groups have increased. In fact more than three million people have been displaces, because they live in areas of strategic and economic interest to the fighting parties. While there have been significant decreases in kidnappings and murder, violence in Colombia is still occurring on a daily basis.

There has been progress in the prosecution of cases regarding human rights violations, but impunity remains a difficult issue.

While President Uribe is attempting to amend the Constitution for the second time, in order to allow him a third term, his administration is collapsing, due to scandals on the illegal surveillance of human rights defenders, journalists and judges of the Supreme Court. This creates a rather uneasy and difficult atmosphere to effectively combat human rights violations.