Canadian Association for Refugee and Forced Migration Studies (CARFMS) Annual Conference, CARFMS12: Restructuring Refuge and Settlement

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JURIDICAL, POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS OF THE COLOMBIAN REFUGEES. JURIDICAL, POLITICAL AND SOCIAL STIGMATIZATION OF THE COLOMBIAN REFUGEES.

Juan Pablo Serrano Frattali

Last modified: 2012-02-28

Abstract


One of the most dramatic and complex cases of forced migration in the world is Colombia. All the problems associated with extreme poverty exist in this same place.  Colombia's half century-long armed conflict has produced more than 4 million displaced internally. The protracted internal armed conflict in Colombia in June 2008 displaced 2,649,139 people according to government figures. A reliable non-governmental source stated the figure is closer to 4,361,355. The guerrilla groups, paramilitaries, and state forces are responsible, to different degrees, for forced displacement and human rights violations. The sui generis aspect in Colombia is that conflict continues to displace people from their homes and drive them into poverty. It gives rise to poverty among people who have no direct involvement in the dispute. Poverty that increases with conflict has affected the food security of these displaced families Colombia became a world leader in the production and trafficking of illegal drugs. It exacerbates the serious issues of poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, corruption, dramatic malnutrition and the increasing gap between rich and poor. The people most seriously affected by the problem of forced displacement are often the most marginalized members of society. Farmers, minority groups, stateless people and indigenous populations suffer the most. The result of this triple dynamic of conflict and its diffusion within Colombian society is the degradation of the conflict and a profound humanitarian crisis, which is reflected in numerous human rights and International Humanitarian Law violations. Furthermore, the capacity of the different armed actors to operate in enemy territory and the instability of territorial control produce total uncertainty amongst the civilian population. In these areas the state functions as just another actor, interacting in a diffuse manner with the developing powers. The population is left without a fixed system of institutional references and is constantly exposed to reprisals by one armed group or another, none of whom can guarantee permanent control and protection and who therefore resort to the use of terror in order to ensure the loyalty of the civilian population and to deny the adversary's support. This situation is exacerbated in a conflict described as a "war through third parties", where opponents do not confront each other directly but instead attack the real or supposed social base of the enemy. For this reason the Colombian conflict has been characterized as a war against the civilian population. At the same time, the penetration of drug-trafficking in Colombian society has contributed to widespread corruption and the delegitimization of the political class. The presentation begins with a survey of Colombian historiography and politics and notes the gap in the literature and how this dissertation provides the gap in that literature. Chapter 1. provides the historical context of the Colombian conflicts and the victims, that context is the history of the geographical/spatial displacement of the internally displaced persons and refugees of their homeland as a result of Colombian conflict and exploration of the return migrations of the Colombian refugees to the homeland. Chapter 2. Analyzes the treatment they receive in the host societies. Chapter 3. Analyzes the diverse policies of asylum and the grade and development of the exclusionary politics of asylum and the criminalisation of asylum seeking and analyzes recent policy developments in relation to their wider historical, political, juridical and American and European contexts. Chapter 4. Analyzes the sui generis conditions of the Colombian conflict and the Colombian victims and concludes with an analysis of juridical, political and social aspects of the Colombian Refugees and if these aspects are in accordance with the true responsibility of the International Community in the treatment of Colombian Refugees.