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VI. The Role of the OAS Mission

In February of 2004 the Organization of American States (OAS) established a Mission to Support the Peace Process in Colombia (“OAS Mission”).  The purpose of the OAS Mission is to “enable the OAS to provide technical support to the verification of the ceasefire and cessation of hostilities, demobilization, disarmament, and reintegration initiatives” in Colombia.¹⁰⁵ 

In its authorizing resolution, the OAS Permanent Council emphasized “the importance of the principles of truth, justice, accountability, and reparation to victims in laying the foundations for lasting peace in Colombia.”¹⁰⁶  It also specifically resolved “to ensure that the role of the OAS is fully consistent with the obligations of its member states with respect to the effective exercise of human rights and international humanitarian law, and to invite the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to provide advice to the Mission.”¹⁰⁷ 

In practice, however, the OAS Mission has played a highly questionable role, serving primarily as a rubber stamp for the actions taken by the Colombian government.  Throughout, the OAS Mission has been silent about the problems with the process, and as a result, has helped to give the process a veneer of international legitimacy.  

According to mission officials, the OAS Mission is not allowed to publicly give its opinion about the problems with the process because it has no reporting function.  In the words of one official, “I envy Fruhling [the head of the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia] because he has a reporting function.”¹⁰⁸  Also, mission officials claim that they are not responsible for determining whether the legal framework they are working with is consistent with international standards.  Instead, “that is what the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is for.”¹⁰⁹

This explanation is puzzling because the OAS Mission has actually made a number of statements in favor of the government’s handling of demobilizations, even dismissing international concerns.¹¹⁰  And it continued to do so despite the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights’ strong criticism of the process.¹¹¹ 

In recent days, the Inter-American Commission has publicly criticized the demobilization law approved by the Colombian Congress for its failure to include adequate mechanisms to protect victims’ rights to truth, justice and reparation.¹¹²  It remains unclear what action the Permanent Council will take with respect to the OAS Mission in light of the Inter-American Commission’s analysis.

But even putting aside the OAS Mission’s failure to publicly uphold these international standards on victims’ rights, there is no indication that the OAS Mission is playing a useful role in the verification of the demobilization process.  

In its reports to the OAS, the OAS Mission states that it verifies the lists of demobilized combatants, as well as the weapons that are turned over by paramilitaries going through the process.¹¹³  But neither the government nor the OAS Mission has independent information about who all the members of each group are, or what weapons they own.  So their “verification” appears limited to making a list of the weapons that the groups choose to turn over, and making sure that the persons who say they are going to demobilize are the same ones who in fact go through the ceremony.  Beyond that, representatives of the OAS Mission are present during the destruction of explosives, and frequently assist the Office of the High Commissioner for Peace in carrying out tasks (for example, transporting those who have signed up to demobilize to the place where the demobilization ceremony will take place). 

The OAS Mission has representatives stationed at the various reference centers for demobilized persons to verify the reintegration process.  It also supposedly does work with communities affected by violence, although in its own words, “the work of the Mission was basically to develop awareness activities regarding the mandate and the process of a return to civilian life and assisting the Office of the High Commissioner in promoting the transition to institutionalism.”¹¹⁴ 

In all these tasks, the OAS Mission’s role is mainly to be present and accompany existing government institutions as they implement their own demobilization policies.  The OAS Mission does not behave like an independent observer, nor does it apply international standards to evaluate the government’s policies.  It simply accepts the policies and helps the government implement them.

The OAS Mission has not even played a useful and distinct role in the verification of the cease-fire declared by the paramilitary groups.  To the contrary, the OAS Mission has been practically invisible on this issue.  In interviews, officials from the OAS Mission acknowledged that the paramilitaries have not fully complied with the cease-fire and said that “from the first day, the OAS has made clear” that it is impossible to fully verify the cease-fire without a complete “concentration” or gathering of all paramilitary troops in a single region within Colombia.¹¹⁵  As a result, they view their mission as “trying to make them fulfill the cease-fire, with the understanding that it cannot be done without a concentration.”¹¹⁶ 

The OAS Mission receives reports of cease-fire violations through various sources.  Those sources have included, in recent months, the Public Advocate’s office and a Colombian NGO called the Security and Democracy Foundation.  In addition, OAS Mission representatives are members, alongside government officials and the AUC itself, of a Verification Committee that is supposed to receive complaints of cease-fire violations.  

However, it is far from clear what the OAS Mission does with reports of cease-fire violations.  Mission officials claim that they verify those violations by opening an “investigation,”¹¹⁷ interviewing the people who filed the complaints and others who might have relevant information.  But in meetings with Human Rights Watch, Mission officials could not describe the criteria and procedures they used to determine what constituted a cease-fire violation.¹¹⁸ 

Nor does the Mission, apparently, promptly verify all violations of which they receive reports.¹¹⁹  The Public Advocate’s office has been submitting reports to the Mission every month, but the Mission does not systematically follow up on the reports with the office.

According to the OAS Mission, the verification process “is intended not only to establish concrete cases of violations of the cessation of hostilities but also to discourage violations and thus improve on the commitment undertaken by the AUC.”¹²⁰  But even when the OAS Mission does verify a violation, it does not publicly denounce it, or even report it to the OAS Permanent Council.¹²¹  Rather, all the OAS Mission does with its information about cease-fire violations is to try “to dissuade” the paramilitaries from committing violations through the Verification Committee.¹²² 

OAS Mission officials claim that this dissuasion work has, in some cases, prevented mass displacement and other abuses.¹²³  However, it is impossible to determine the extent to which the dissuasion is effective or is even occurring, given that the OAS Mission has not publicly spoken about this work.  Aside from a few instances it described superficially in its Third Report, the OAS Mission has not reported on this work to the Permanent Council.¹²⁴