By Eric Green
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- A United Nations expert on human rights is visiting Colombia March 8-17, at the invitation of the Colombian government, in order to examine the plight of indigenous displaced people in the Andean county.

The U.N. said in a statement that the visit by human rights officer Rodolfo Stavenhager will focus on the situation of indigenous displaced people resulting from the armed violence in Colombia, and will examine how the Colombian government and international organizations can improve their lives. The U.S. State Department says Colombia's indigenous population continues to be victimized by the nation's 40-year civil war.

Stavenhager, the U.N. special rapporteur for human rights and fundamental freedoms for indigenous people, is scheduled to visit several communities in the Colombian departments of Cesar, Putumayo, and Cauca, as well as Colombia's capital city of Bogota. Stavenhager was scheduled to participate in a roundtable discussion on International Women's Day, March 8, on the situation of Colombia's indigenous women and the promotion and protection of their human rights.

The State Department said in its "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2003," released February 25, 2004, that Colombia's constitution gives special recognition to the fundamental rights of indigenous persons, who make up about two percent of the population.

However, the report said, "members of indigenous communities continued to be victims of all sides" in Colombia's internal conflict. The report found that 164 indigenous people were killed in 2003 by illegal armed groups in Colombia -- 75 killed by right-wing paramilitary organizations, 18 by the left-wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and eight by another left-wing group, the National Liberation Army (ELN).

The State Department quoted the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, who strongly criticized "threats and violence against indigenous communities and characterized government investigations of human rights violations against indigenous groups as inadequate."

The Department said many incidents were reported in 2003 in which illegal armed groups forcibly recruited indigenous persons, restricted indigenous persons' freedom of movement, blockaded indigenous communities, or accused indigenous persons of sympathizing with the groups' adversaries.

An official with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) said in congressional testimony in 2003 that Colombia has one of the largest populations of internally displaced people in the world -- about 2.5 million people. The agency has provided relief to more than one million of these people, said Adolfo Franco, USAID's assistant administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean.

The U.S. government holds regular consultation sessions with representatives from tribal governments and nations in the Western Hemisphere in connection with negotiations on the Inter-American Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples, which was endorsed in the Summit of the Americas process. Through the drafting of this declaration, the Summit process has launched what the United States says is a "unique international consultative process with indigenous civil society groups, tribes, and nations."