Causes of Increased Landmine Use
The increase in recorded landmine casualties in Colombia is probably due to a variety of factors. In part, it may be explained by the fact that the government has improved its capacity to record the casualties. However, most landmine experts we interviewed in Colombia agreed that the FARC’s use of antipersonnel landmines has in fact increased substantially since 2000.
In many cases it is difficult to pinpoint with certainty which armed party laid any given landmine. However, all the nongovernmental organizations we interviewed that were working on landmine issues in Colombia stated that based on their experience the FARC guerrillas were the biggest users of landmines in the country and were responsible for the recorded increase in landmine casualties, while the ELN guerrillas also use landmines regularly. These statements were consistent with assertions we heard from numerous civilian survivors, who said that the appearance of the landmines on their land coincided with the guerrillas’ arrival or passage through the area. Nonetheless, paramilitary groups have also been known to stockpile large numbers of landmines.32
The Colombian government has banned the use of antipersonnel landmines and is a party to the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Antipersonnel Mines and on their Destruction (more commonly known as the “Mine Ban Treaty”).33 There have been no confirmed reports of government use of landmines in recent years, although occasional allegations of such use have been made.34
The Colombian government claims that the guerrillas use the landmines as a way to deter the military from entering territory under guerrilla control, as well as to protect drug crops.35 Colombian military officers told us that fear of the landmines demoralizes the troops.36 Also, landmine explosions usually put not only the injured soldier out of circulation, but also others who have to care for or transport the casualty.37 In response to the military’s increasing use of mine detectors, they claimed, the FARC is increasingly hanging landmines on trees to make them more difficult to detect.38
The landmines are a cheap weapon to use, as they are mostly manufactured by the FARC and ELN themselves out of inexpensive materials. In the past, the FARC has stated that “the FARC-EP do not set antipersonnel landmines that affect the civilian population, and do not have minefields.”39 However, it has invoked the low cost of manufacturing landmines as a justification for their use, stating that “antipersonnel mines are also known as ‘the weapon of the poor.’”40
Human Rights Watch interviewed Francisco Galán, a spokesperson for the ELN in that group’s preliminary peace negotiations with the Colombian government, at the “Casa de Paz,”41 and asked him about his group’s landmine use. However, Galan refused to answer our questions about landmines, asserting that the reports by international human rights groups “do not contribute to the transformation of reality.”42
More broadly, Galán claimed that the ELN did not believe that international humanitarian law applied to them, and that instead, they thought a “creole” version of international humanitarian law should apply in Colombia.43 Therefore, he claimed, the ELN was willing to “reach agreements with communities on demining processes.”44
ELN guerrilla spokesman Francisco Galán, whose group uses antipersonnel landmines, says that the ELN does not believe that international humanitarian law applies to them, and that instead a “creole” version of international humanitarian law should apply in Colombia. © 2006 Pauline Bartolone/Human Rights Watch.
In fact, the ELN recently accepted a proposal by the community of Samaniego, state of Nariño, to do “humanitarian demining” in that community “so that the community affected by the conflict can have some of its critical situation alleviated.”45 Nonetheless, the ELN has so far failed to commit itself to ceasing antipersonnel landmine use. On the contrary, it has reportedly re-mined areas that it had previously claimed to have cleared.46
32 International Campaign to Ban Landmines, Landmine Monitor Report 2006, Colombia chapter.
33 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Antipersonnel Mines and on their Destruction, adopted 18 September 1997, entered into force March 1, 1999. Colombia signed the Convention on December 3, 1997, ratified it on September 6, 2000, and it entered into force on March 1, 2001.
34 International Campaign to Ban Landmines, Landmine Monitor Report 2006, Colombia chapter.
35 Human Rights Watch interview with Luz Piedad Herrera, September 27, 2006. The Colombian government also claims to have found a correlation between landmine incidents and the location of drug crops. Ibid. The military describes having found landmines in the roots of coca plants, apparently designed to deter manual eradication of the crops. Human Rights Watch interview with Col. Jaime Esguerra and Col. Guillermo Ramírez, September 26, 2006.
36 Ibid.
37 Ibid.
38 Ibid.
39 Communiqué by the FARC-EP, July 7, 2001, describing a meeting between Queen Noor of Jordan and FARC Commander-in-Chief Manuel Marulanda during failed peace negotiations between the FARC and the Colombian government.
40 “The FARC assess the outcome of the Patriot Plan fourteen months into its execution,” FARC-EP press release, January 26, 2005, http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=10707 (accessed June 20, 2007).
41 The Casa de Paz is the house in Medellín where the Colombian government was allowing Galán—who at the time of the interview was serving a criminal sentence—to remain and meet with members of civil society during peace negotiations. See http://www.casadpaz.org/doc/QUIENES%20SOMOS01.htm (accessed June 20, 2007).
42 Human Rights Watch interview with Francisco Galán, spokesperson for the ELN, October 6, 2006.
43 Ibid. Previously, the ELN Central Command made a slightly different statement, claiming that while it was not a party to the Mine Ban Treaty, “the ELN applies the norms established by IHL for its status, and in that sense it does not use mines in an indiscriminate manner, it limits them to specific defense areas, and in critical situations it marks the mined area.” Statement by the ELN Central Command, International Forum: Antipersonnel Landmines and Humanitarian Accords (June 4, 2004), http://www.genevacall.org/SPAGNOLO/resources/testi-reference-materials/testi-nsa-states/eln-04jun04.pdf (accessed March 22, 2007). In April 2006 ELN representative Antonio García reportedly said that the ELN “complies with international norms against
44 Human Rights Watch interview with Francisco Galán, spokesperson for the ELN, October 6, 2006.
45 Letter from Antonio García, Juan Carlos Cuéllar, Francisco Galán, the ELN delegation in the Peace Process, to the Comission Urging Humanitarian Demining of Samaniego and facilitators, October 29, 2006. On an earlier occasion, the ELN also agreed to demine part of a road in the community of Micoahumado, in the state of Bolivar. See letter from Francisco Galán, representative from the ELN Central Command, to Elizabeth Reusse Decrey and Mehmet Balci of Geneva Call, and Álvaro Jiménez Millán of the Colombian Campaign to Ban Landmines, January 4, 2005. However, that demining operation was never verifiably completed. The Colombian government refused to support the demining operation because, according to the Colombian Vice-Presidency’s Antipersonnel Landmine Observatory, “the ELN was at the same time planting landmines elsewhere.” Human Rights Watch interview with Luz Piedad Herrera, September 27, 2006. As a result, no international groups with expertise in demining were able to assist or verify it. Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Álvaro Jiménez Millán, director of Colombian Campaign to Ban Landmines, April 9, 2007.
46 In May 2007 we received reports that the ELN had re-mined the road in Micoahumado. Communiqué by the Popular Constituent Assembly, La Plaza, Micoahumado, May 31, 2007. Human Rights Watch email exchange with Álvaro Jiménez Millán, June 4-5, 2007. The ELN later reportedly told villagers that it had cleared the mines again. “ICBL condemns recent mine use by the National Liberation Army (ELN) in Colombia,” International Campaign to Ban Landmines press release, June 15, 2007, http://www.icbl.org/news/micoahumado_remined (accessed June 29, 2007).