Colombia

You’re invited to the webinar series “The right to conscientious objection to military service in times of war”. The series will include a number of webinars each focusing on a particular conflict zone with the participation of conscientious objectors and campaigners on conscientious objection to military service. This first webinar will take place on 9th February at 4pm CET with the participation of activists from Ukraine, Colombia and Eritrea.

In July, the Constitutional Court in Colombia received a lawsuit to extend the exception to perform compulsory military service to all ethnic communities in Colombia, an exception that currently applies to indigenous communities only. This claim also asks for these communities to be exonerated of the military compensation fee.

When in some countries conscientious objection has been recognised and in others, conscientious objectors continue to be imprisoned, some governments are considering introducing compulsory military service for women covering it up with gender equality and anti-discrimination discourses. This has been the case for countries like México, Colombia, the United States and more recently in South Korea and Switzerland.

International Conscientious Objection Day (CO Day), 15th May, was celebrated with actions and events by activists from around the world in solidarity with those who have and those who continue to resist war. This year we had a particular focus on Turkey.

The antimilitarist movement in Colombia describes the situation that has been experienced in Colombia since April 28, 2021, the reasons why demonstrations have been held since that date and the militarized response of the government. This is an urgent call for solidarity to challenge he discourses of war and fear that today find an absolutely opposite correlate to the cultural resistance, the bets for change and the possibility of building horizons more in line with the reality of the Colombian people and their proposals to materialize peace from the territories, in diversity and dignified life.

Social movements across Colombia are facing severe repression and violence from the police and military. The demonstrations began on 28th April 2021 as a general strike was called in response to an unpopular tax reform and the mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Collective Action of Conscientious Objectors (Spanish: la Acción Colectiva de Objetores y Objetoras de Conciencia, or ACOOC) is a social organization which, based around the concepts of nonviolence and conscientious objection, supports alternatives to Colombian militarism, militarization, and the patriarchy, via legal, public campaigning, and educational strategies. Since 2006, ACOOC has worked alongside young people and their communities with to cultivate a peaceful culture.

The first webinar of our series, Campaigning for Conscientious Objection to Military Service, co-organised with QUNO and IFOR, is taking place on Wednesday, 3rd Feb. In our first event, we will have campaigners from Geneva (Switzerland), Seoul (S.Korea) and Bogotá (Colombia), explaining the role of litigation in their campaigns supporting conscientious objectors.

State projects and state actions centred on the commercialization and extractive industries of the territories have been historically consolidated as the preferred scenario for the militarization of these industries. In the face of this, community struggle over access to land and the guarantee of human rights is legitimate.

Return to Conscientious Objection: A Practical Companion for Movements

Alba Milena Romero Sanabria is a political scientist at the National University of Colombia. She has worked for the recognition of the right to conscientious objection to military service for ten years, alongside participating in nonviolence training processes. She is a member of Asociación Acción Colectiva de Objetores y Objetoras de Conciencia (ACOOC, Conscientious Objectors' Collective Action) and Conscience and Peace Tax International. Her co-author Andreas Speck is originally from Germany, were he refused military and substitute service in the 1980s. He has been involved in the environmental, anti-nuclear and antimilitarist movements ever since. From 2001 until 2012 he worked for War Resisters' International (WRI) and today lives in Spain. Together, they use the example of Colombia to illustrate how international human rights mechanisms can be put to use in local cases, and in combination with other tactics, when campaigning for the right to conscientious objection.

On the international level, the right to Conscientious Objection (CO) has been on the political agenda of the UN General Assembly, the Commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, the Human Rights Commission, and other UN institutions.1 In addition, the right is addressed by other international institutions, especially the inter-American and European systems.2 At the same time, different movements have implemented strategies to try to prioritise within states' agendas the recognition of the right to conscientious objection.

Up to now, Colombia’s response to the pandemic - the Common Enemy - has been one of a familiar nationalist and militarist rhetoric, a staunchly-upheld, militarized response that is unfolding in Colombia’s towns and cities.