Challenging the U.S.-Led War on Drugs: Argentina in Comparative Perspective by Sebastian Antonino Cutrona

Author:Sebastian Antonino Cutrona [Cutrona, Sebastian Antonino]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Caribbean & Latin American, General, Criminology, Social Science, Political Science, World, Law Enforcement, Security (National & International)
ISBN: 9781351814928
Google: qTslDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 34645605
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-03-16T00:00:00+00:00

The Human Rights Movement

Unlike the Argentine experience, where the human rights community was totally consolidated by the late 1980s, its counterpart in Colombia gained strength only by the mid-1990s. By litigating specific cases of human right violations and socializing their campaigns internationally, the human rights community in Colombia began to participate actively in politics (Ramírez Lemus et al., 2005). Some of the most popular organizations working in the Andean country were the Colombian Commission of Jurists, the Free Country Foundation, Colectivo de Abogados José Alvear Restrepo, the Committee in Solidarity with Political Prisoners, Minga, the Association of Family Members of Disappeared Prisoners of Colombia (ASFADDES), Somos Defensores, and the Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES).

Yet the human rights movement in Colombia was not homogeneous, their actions did not reach a truly national coverage, and they were often accused of being too passive in the face of violations of international humanitarian law (Romero, 2001). Their limited permanence in time, in particular, led some scholars to call them “social protesters” rather than “social movements” (Archila, 2001). Under these circumstances, Romero (2001) claims that human rights organizations in the Andean country faced two major obstacles: budgetary constraints and risks to the lives of activists. Certainly, the multiplication of assassinations of human rights defenders and peace activists ultimately inhibited their mobilization during the armed conflict that shocked Colombia during the 1990s. Since 1996, for instance, on average more than one human rights activist per month was killed in the Andean country (Gallón-Guiraldo, 2001).

Despite these difficulties, however, Colombia’s human rights organizations achieved some limited objectives, including the 1993 Supreme Court decision to strike down military jurisdiction over civilians (particularly with regard to human rights violations and crimes against humanity), the participation in international human right networks, and the enforcement of limitations on security forces.20 Most important, human rights organizations played a vital role in the development of the 1991 Constitution. The recognition of a full range of human rights, the development of a strong constitutional court or other spaces to ensure the protection of human rights, the establishment of the ombudsman, and the creation of la tutela21 were mechanisms shaped by the involvement of different human rights organizations (Ramírez Lemus et al., 2005, p. 127)

Still, Colombia’s emerging human rights community never had the political capacity to influence the national government’s approach to drug trafficking as happened in Argentina, particularly during the 1980s. While in the latter country the human rights agenda brought the Alfonsín administration closer to a softer stance on illicit drugs, in Colombia the mobilization of human rights groups did not evolve within the framework of a broader democratization process. The absence of a military dictatorship involved in massive human rights violations, of course, increased the national government’s available alternatives to deal with Colombia’s drug problem, thereby favoring the adoption of harsher policies such as the U.S.-sponsored SSM.

Moreover, in Argentina new organizations involved in the defense of human rights entered the scene over the years, further strengthening the country’s civil society-based politics. This was the case, for example, of Intercambios.

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