IPS-English COLOMBIA: Displaced Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 14:52:30 -0700 ROMAIPS LA HD IP PR MI CV BO COLOMBIA: Displaced People Find Relative Calm in Bogotá Constanza Vieira BOGOTÁ, Jul 20 (IPS) - What do Colombian children displaced by the war like most about this city? The tall buildings, the avenues, the museums and the cars. They love the parks, the sports fields and the rides in the amusement parks, according to a report by the Catholic Church and the main non-governmental source on displaced people. The 160-page document, ”Drop by Drop: Forced Displacement in Bogotá and Soacha,” by the Consultancy on Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES) and the Archdiocese of Bogota's Migrants' Foundation (FAMIG), focuses on displaced people in the capital and a neighbouring municipality, Soacha, within the metropolitan area. ”Drop by Drop” reports that from 2001 to 2006, an average of 23 displaced families a day have been coming to Bogotá. That is 93 people a day, on average. Fifty-one percent of them are under 18. While Bogotá residents grasp at any opportunity to flee from the stressful hustle and bustle of the capital city, the displaced teenagers particularly appreciate the ”peace and tranquillity” they feel there, in contrast to ”their memories of the armed conflict and the danger it posed to their families,” the document says. ”They feel protected and removed from the place where violence threatened them,” in spite of the fact that they live in undesirable areas of the capital, it says. What they do not like is ”the pollution, the smell of rubbish and the rats, the unpaved streets, the insecurity, and violence against children,” and most continue to miss the rural homes they were forced to leave behind. There are more than 3.8 million displaced Colombians, according to CODHES, although the government acknowledges only two to three million, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports three million. They are the most serious and costly ”collateral damage” of a civil war which the present government does not recognise, and which is in its fifth decade, with leftwing guerrillas in armed conflict with the armed forces and their ultra-rightwing paramilitary allies. ”All the parties involved in the internal armed conflict share some responsibility for the forced displacement of persons who arrived in Bogotá and Soacha between 2001 and 2005,” says the report, released on Wednesday. It contains a survey of perceptions of the nature of displacement during that period. According to the survey, the majority (53 percent) of people who contacted FAMIG for help were driven from their homes by the left-wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and 34 percent by the paramilitaries. Formerly, more people fled from the paramilitaries than from the FARC, so there has been a change in the armed group causing most displacement, CODHES director Jorge Rojas told IPS. ”But many of those who come to Bogotá do not dare to say who was responsible for their departure,” he said. In addition, the government ”doesn't accept that anyone is displaced by paramilitaries, because (officially) they no longer exist.” Paramilitary militias, most controlled by drug traffickers, reached a controversial agreement with the authorities to demobilise in 2003. The process was ostensibly completed in 2006, but many groups are reportedly re-arming. Neither does the government recognise as displaced those people who have left their fields and farmhouses after devastating aerial spraying with herbicides by the authorities, intended to eradicate illegal coca plantations. Farms growing coca are confiscated and their owners prosecuted, which is a good reason not to divulge why they left. According to the survey, the main reason people leave their homes is threats directed against themselves or their neighbours. Another important motive is recruitment by the armed groups of teenage children, either by force or because the young people begin to flirt with the idea of war as an adventure. According to testimonies quoted in the report, ”you put up with it, you give them what they want, your animals, your crops, your money... but not your children. When the payment they demand is your children, that's when you say no, that's enough, no more of this.” At that point, it becomes preferable to follow the uncertain life of the displaced. That is what happened to Gildardo*, who has seven children. In 2005, he uprooted his family for the second time -- the first was in 1999 -- to prevent his eldest daughter, then 13, from joining the FARC, he said in a press conference on Wednesday. When the families reach the decrepit neighbourhoods in the south of Bogotá, teenagers have an immense need to be recognised, to adapt and to help support their relatives. Then they are beseiged by criminal gangs, urban guerrillas, paramilitary militias or prostitution networks who court them or force them to join them, in an environment where they have as much chance of winning the lottery as of getting a regular job. Young people who refuse to be recruited are risking their lives. According to the Foundation for Education, Human Rights and Development, ”between 2000 and 2003, 400 young people were killed in selective murders, specifically for this reason” in south Bogotá and Soacha. Surviving in the urban jungle is a major challenge for displaced people. Thirty-six percent do not manage to find stable employment within the first five years, according to the survey. Lack of food security and limited healthcare affect 70 percent, CODHES says. Most of them sell fruits, vegetables and other foods on street corners, or pick through garbage for materials to recycle. Others are taken on as temporary construction workers or domestics. The average daily income of displaced people in Bogotá is 1.66 dollars, and a family of five has a monthly income of 125 dollars, Rojas said. Many people spend hours standing in line in front of government offices ”negotiating the bureaucratic procedures necessary to obtain funds for a productive project or housing, or hoping for an extension of state aid for the displaced.” This consists of non-perishable foods, cleaning products and cooking implements, which are generally handed out for a maximum of six months, although the Constitutional Court decided in April that they should be provided until displaced people attain a stable situation, either by returning home or becoming established in their new location. Fifty-seven percent of households are headed by women who have been widowed or separated from their spouses by the war. Forty-eight percent of displaced people have attended primary school for some years, and 25 percent have completed part or all of their secondary education. According to the 2005 census, 16.4 percent of Colombia's 42 million people live in Bogotá. But displaced people are grossly under-registered by the city government, which is only aware of 20 percent of the total number, the report says. According to CODHES, between 1985 and 2006 some 666,600 displaced people came to Bogotá and Soacha, representing 17 percent of the country's total number of displaced people. Of these, 35.6 percent had fled their homes since 2001, reflecting ”conditions of collective insecurity.” Displacement could have a key effect on the second phase of Plan Colombia, a vast anti-drugs and counterinsurgency operation financed by the United States, the budget for which is set in the U.S. Congress, said Marco Romero, the president of CODHES. On Jul. 11, the U.S. House of Representatives approved resolution 426, recognising internal displacement in Colombia and requesting that Bogotá and the international donor community prioritise discussion of humanistarian assistance and internal displacement. The non-binding resolution urges the U.S. government to ”increase the resources it makes available to provide emergency humanitarian assistance and protection through international and civilian government agencies, and assist Colombia's internally displaced people in rebuilding their lives in a dignified, safe and sustainable manner.” Romero stated that the resolution was based on data provided by the Catholic Church and CODHES. It was sponsored by 43 representatives of both the Democratic and Republican Parties. The resolution also recognises 2007 as the Year of the Rights of Displaced People in Colombia. *Full name omitted in order to protect the source. ***** + RIGHTS-COLOMBIA: Don't Cross that Invisible Line (http://ipsnews.net/note_award.asp?idnews=38008) + COSTA RICA: Sanctuary for Colombian Refugees (http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38234) + COLOMBIA: Using Communication to Build Peace (http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38517) (END/IPS/LA/HD IP PR CV MI BO/TRASP-VD-KS/CV/07) = 07201956 ORP009 NNNN