‘Rebel’ Roundups Stir Controversy in Colombia

Edwin Montes was hooking up telephone lines in this hilly cattle town when police officers swept through the poor neighborhood where he was working.

They rousted every young man in the barrio and demanded identification. But Montes, 23, had lost his identity card years ago and didn’t want to pay the $15 replacement fee.

That’s how Montes and two dozen other men wound up in a temporary pen in a parking lot outside the police station one hot morning last month.

“My wife and my child depend on my work for food,” he said as he lolled against the metal barricade. “What am I going to do? The government isn’t going to do anything for them.”

Montes was caught in the middle of Colombia’s newest effort against leftist rebels who have waged war against the government for nearly four decades.

In September, President Alvaro Uribe declared two regions of Colombia “rehabilitation zones,” giving the police and military sweeping powers of arrest and detention in those areas.

One zone covers the northern half of Arauca province, where Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum Corp. operates a key oil pipeline that is a target for the rebels. The second covers parts of Sucre and Bolivar, two provinces in northern Colombia surrounding this regional capital.

Police and military officials can now stop and detain for up to 24 hours anyone not carrying state-issued identification. They can conduct searches and seizures without judicial warrants. And they have the right to restrict the entry of foreigners, including journalists.

Other parts of the country may be designated as rehabilitation zones in the future, after the government determines whether the new powers are effective in shutting down guerrilla operations. The government has implemented areas of increased military control before, but the zones mark the first time that such powers have been declared since peace talks with the guerrillas collapsed in February.

Human rights groups are concerned that the new controls will be abused, especially by the military. In the past, the Colombian army has been linked to human rights violations, including cooperation with right-wing paramilitary groups that commit massacres, although in recent years complaints have dropped dramatically.

“I’m in favor of the zone, but my worry is this: In the rush to show results, the military or police may commit excesses,” said Rodrigo Torres, citizen ombudsman for Carmen de Bolivar, a dusty crossroads in Bolivar province recently shaken by a series of guerrilla bombings.

The sweeping powers also have concerned journalists, who worry that the government will be able to control coverage. The Los Angeles Times and other media groups filed a letter of protest over the restrictions. The office of the president responded by imposing further restrictions on the press, demanding that even Colombian-born workers for foreign media request special permission to travel to the zones.

Colombian military officials, however, say that protecting human rights and the rule of law is a top priority. They have vowed to use their special privileges only in extreme cases. So far, all arrests and searches performed since the zones took effect Sept. 21 have had judicial approval.

The most hard-hitting measure to date came late last month when the military prohibited all traffic on regional roads between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. Rural roads are closed after 7 p.m.

“The idea is to make it harder for the criminal elements here to operate,” said navy Capt. Alejandro Parra, the top military commander for the zone for Sucre and Bolivar. “For ordinary citizens, we want to maintain a normal life without disrupting economic or individual liberties.”

A tour through the rehabilitation zone established in this hilly, hot country in north-central Colombia revealed both the dangers and benefits of the new policy, which by and large has been welcomed by residents. The Times had to obtain government permission for the tour.

About 24 counties with a total of about half a million people make up the rehabilitation zone in Sucre and Bolivar, mostly poor, forgotten places where residents cling to a precarious existence as small farmers or cattle ranchers.

Running through the middle of the counties are the hills and valleys of the Maria Mountains that have long sheltered rebels. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and the smaller National Liberation Army, or ELN, operate here, as does a third leftist army that is smaller still.

Despite that, the region is far from being the center of Colombia’s bloody internal conflict. Nearly three years ago, paramilitary fighters from the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, an illegal right-wing army dedicated to defeating the guerrillas, began a vicious campaign against the rebels here.

The fighters committed massacre after massacre in the hills, killing as many as 36 people at a time, sometimes with rocks.

In at least two cases, the military unit that now controls the region -- the navy’s 1st Brigade Marine Corps -- was investigated for allegedly helping the paramilitaries. The former commander, Adm. Rodrigo Quinonez, is still under investigation by government prosecutors for allegedly having ignored warnings of an impending massacre in the town of Chengue.

“That whole area has been horrible for a long time,” said Robin Kirk, New York-based Human Rights Watch’s Colombia specialist. Politicians and the military were always “overlooking things.”

The repeated attacks had the effect, however, of depriving the guerrillas of support in small towns as villagers rushed to urban centers to flee the violence. And combat among the rebels, paramilitaries and army over the last several years has significantly weakened the guerrillas.

Military and government officials believe that the tougher laws will allow them to better attack the rebels -- perhaps even clear them from the region.

Such an accomplishment would be a public relations coup just as Washington is demanding more results from Colombia’s armed forces before providing more military aid. Over the last decade, the rebels have relentlessly expanded their reach to every province, save an island off the nation’s Caribbean coast.

“We want to get rid of all the outlaw groups, the guerrillas, the paramilitaries, whoever,” said Aida Luz Gonzalez, interior secretary for Sucre province, who is the chief point of contact between the civilian and military forces in the region.

Military and police officials have stopped and reviewed the identification cards of 10% of the population since the zone was declared, Parra told reporters last month, resulting in 83 arrests -- 45 for allegedly belonging to rebel groups and the rest on standard criminal charges.

Civilian officials, meanwhile, are hoping to step up social spending. Uribe’s government has told provincial leaders that the new zones will have priority over other provinces when it comes to projects such as paving roads and building new schools.

“These are poor people, 100% of them dirt farmers,” said Alvaro Martinez, mayor of Chalan, a small town near the site of a massacre in 2001. “Along with the military aid, there also must be social investment.”

Local human rights officials have received complaints of police abuse. In one case, police arrested a man for having too much food in his house, accusing him of acting as a quartermaster for the guerrillas.

The family, which had been displaced after fleeing paramilitary violence, protested, saying the Red Cross had visited recently to supply them with staples for a month. The man has yet to be released.

In another case, police detained a man suspected of working with the guerrillas. They released him, but rearrested him three days later after an explosion blew out the windows of a city councilman’s home.

Police said they found dynamite in the man’s home during a warrantless search. The man’s wife said police had planted the dynamite, and one municipal official who has reviewed files in the case said he is inclined to believe her. The man remains in detention. Human rights officials are investigating the complaints.

“They had just arrested this guy three days earlier. What is the chance he would go back home and store dynamite in his house?” the municipal official said.

Still, nearly all residents interviewed in the region over several days last month welcomed the new security measures.

Police stopped a bus on a roadblock outside Carmen de Bolivar one recent weekday afternoon. All the passengers were forced off and searched before continuing on their way. None complained. “This is the price we pay for security,” said Javier Lombana, 30, a teacher. “We need this kind of security.”

Even some of those held in the temporary pen outside the police station with Montes said they didn’t mind being dragged in off the street.

“It was a good thing in my case,” said Eder Contreras, 42, caught up in the sweep and detained after police learned that he had an outstanding child-support warrant. “I deserved it.”

It was unclear what happened to Montes and Contreras afterward.

Despite the welcome from locals, challenges abound. The 1st Brigade Marine Corps lacks equipment and manpower. The brigade has only a single aging Huey helicopter, which has an improvised machine-gun mount welded to the side. Local troops are transported across terrible roads in unarmored trucks. Intelligence and communications are limited. And the same privations apply to the local police. A police intelligence official in Sincelejo could not track down a squad of his men breaking into a home to conduct a search last month because he could not establish radio contact.

But even with the renewed military determination, it is clear that the guerrillas will not go quietly into the Colombian night. One FARC front declared all foreigners in the zone military targets the day that two foreign journalists visited recently.

Early last month, militia groups linked to FARC set off four bombs at homes around Carmen de Bolivar, the first attacks the rebels have launched since the zones were declared.

One of the targets, Erlando del Valle, 48, a city councilman, marveled that he escaped harm from the blast that blew out the windows in his house as he slept.

“If this is a zone of rehabilitation,” he asked, “why do we have so little protection?”

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Miller was recently on assignment in Sincelejo.