Effects of Colombia's 'hidden war' said to be second only to Sudan's

Published: 2007-05-09

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Gov. Eduardo Zuniga Eraso lamented the displacement of nearly 60,000 inhabitants in his province of Narino in the southwestern corner of Colombia, the result of ongoing struggles among guerrillas, paramilitaries and growers of coca. Nearly 4 million people are believed to have been forced from their homes in Colombia over four decades of internal conflicts, half of them since a U.S-backed program to battle the drug economy began in 2000, according to Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. He hosted a May 7 congressional briefing on what participants described as a humanitarian crisis second only to that of Sudan, which has an estimated 5 million people who are internally displaced. "The fact is, Colombia is at war," said Father Maurizio Pontin, coordinator of the Colombian Catholic bishops' office for internally displaced people and refugees. "The official version calls it terrorism. But it is a hidden internal war that people don't want to see." Speakers including Zuniga, Father Pontin and Marco Alberto Romero, president of a Colombian human rights organization known by its Spanish acronym COHDES, recommended diverting some of the millions of dollars being spent on military support and cocaine eradication.

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