Asociación de Familiares de Detenidos y Desaparecidos (ASFADDES)

This ongoing initiative is dedicated to struggling for justice for disappeared people and their families by providing counselling, legal support, and assistance with human rights emergencies.

Description

ASFADDES (in English: the Association for Families of Prisoners and the Disappeared) was founded in 1982 after the detention and forced disappearance of 13 people, mainly students from the Nacional and Distrital universities. Its main aim was to search for the missing people, but it also sought answers from the authorities as to what happened, who took the disappeared, and why. ASFADDES has continued from this starting point and is still engaged in championing the disappeared.

The Association drew inspiration from the Mothers and Grandmothers of the Paza de Mayo in Argentina, who forged the way in the tireless struggle for the right to truth, justice, and reparation. Therefore ASFADDES is dedicated to standing up for the protection, promotion, and dissemination of human rights.

The organisation knows that silence is the accomplice of the culture of impunity and under no circumstances will they be silenced in their demands for truth, justice, and reparation.

Peace is a constant process so as long as a culture of impunity, inequality, and injustice persists, there will never be peace in Colombia. Since its foundation 24 years ago, ASFADDES has believed peace is built upon the recognition and respect of human rights, political freedom, and equality.

Aims / Objectives

Generally speaking, ASFADDES seeks to work with other organisations to find missing or arrested people and to demand guarantees from the Colombian state on the right to know the truth, the right to a fair application of justice, the right to reparation, and the right to remembrance.

They also seek the eradication of forced disappearances from Colombia (as it is a crime against humanity), to overcome the culture of impunity which exists in that country, and to create a respect for human rights in Colombia by strengthening education and the law. They also take a pycho-social approach to victims.

More specifically their aims fit into five categories:

Search:
To help the relatives search for the missing person and also to trace, identify, exhume, and restore dead victims’ bodies.

Support:
To provide physical and moral support for the relatives in the search and in the prosecution of cases against the authorities, and to establish the circumstances around the disappearance.

Justice:
To see legal mechanisms put in place which make clear the boundaries of responsibility in abductions and which provide for reparation for relatives from the state.

Engagement:
To assist the relatives' associations by providing room for reflection, dialogue, and in which to share experiences so we can understand the process of forced disappearances and gain direction in how to search for missing people. We try to foster the principles of solidarity, joint help, and individual growth in the midst of a culture of impunity.

Emergency Attention:
Find solutions to emergencies faced by the families, threats, forced displacements, murders, and further disappearances.

How it is Articulated

ASFADDES guides and advises the relatives of missing people and also offers counselling and guidance in the formal procedures to go through prior to contacting the authorities.

Relatives are offered individual teaching which increases their awareness of what they are going through and helps them understand what forced disappearance is, why it happens, who plans it, and why it is so outrageous.

The Association also searches for the missing or arrested people, publicly condemns the terrible act of state kidnapping, and both investigates and follows up every case.

Finally, ASFADDES campaigns for changes to laws which impede the struggle to help missing people and lobbies the government for more help.

Achievements / Learning Points

Achievements

ASFADDES’ greatest achievement is leading the way in raising awareness of the problem of forced disappearances. During the 1980s there was a growth in the use of forced disappearances in Colombia as a repressive mechanism but society was insensitive to the problem and the state blankly denied it. The voice of ASFADDES on the streets, however, made Colombian society aware of the problem.

ASFADDES is a learning process, in a way it is a school, for the relatives. The relatives of the missing find after coming to ASFADDES that their situation is easier because of our support. Every relative who comes to us brings a lesson, and every lesson is shared with others.

We have also received a number of awards:

National awards:

• Acta de Entrega del icono "Mother of the Missing Persons” (July 2001); and
• ASFADDES - Seccional Huila (March 2003).

International awards:

• Relatives of missing – arrested persons for political reasons (Argentina, September 1996);
• Grupo de Ayuda Mutuo - GAM (Guatemala, June 1999);
• Group Tortura Nunca Mais-RJ (Brazil, November 2005);
• Obra "El Reposo" del Artista Oswaldo Guayasamín; and
• Colcha - Amnistía Internacional (Canada)

Learning Points

ASFADDES is a complex organisation that has made mistakes in its 24 year history, it has always acknowledged this. One of the most frequent mistakes is the failure to find new leaders and train them, the Association has also found itself stagnated by bureaucracy at times. Nevertheless these mistakes form part of the learning process.

One particular problem the Association has faced is allowing itself to be used by others. Because the organisation is mainly made up of women it has been seen as weak. "Victims" is now a fashionable word, but ASFADDES was one of the first organisations which talked about victims and their rights.

Unfortunately many organisations today have benefited from this and take advantage of victims’ rights to gain prestige for themselves. Everyone talks about victims’ rights, but few do anything to change the situation; thus threatening to make “victims’ rights” a cliché, or a passing trend. ASFADDES was also one of the first organisations to go out on the streets with pictures of the missing, shouting their names out loud and demanding justice.

The Association has been underestimated because it has no professionals: but we believe it is absolutely right that we have no professionals. There are no professionals because no one is prepared to make a living from a tragedy like this. The majority of relatives of the missing or arrested are in ASFADDES because of their love for the missing, their desire to see them again, and their own will.

Our experience has shown us that an organisation is more widely recognised and better acknowledged if it employs professionals. We feel this is bias and the current perception is wrong.

We in ASFADDES need to be more appreciative and prepared to recognise the value of what we have achieved and what we are capable of. The fact that civil servants, presidents, the government, and Colombian society are now talking about the terrible acts that happened, who committed them, and why – whether they’re doing so hypocritically or not – is an achievement that deserves to be acknowledged.

Geographical Area of Operation

Across Colombia:

Five headquarters in Bucaramanga, Medellín, Neiva, Barrancabermeja, and Cundinamarca. The head office is in Bogotá D.C.

ASFADDES hopes to reopen some headquarters that were closed because of security problems and a lack of economic resources in Cali, Popayán, and near Río Sucio Caldas. They also want to strengthen their work on the Atlantic Coast.

Funding Resources

In the beginning the economic resources came from the solidarity of labour unions, social movements, and the relatives of the missing persons.

Right now ASFADDES does not have a specific funding resource.

Organisations Involved

ASFADDES has links with Fighting Against Forced Disappearances in Latin America (FEDEFAM), through which they have been able to contact the relatives of those who have been forcibly disappeared in Asia and Africa.

They are also part of the Coalition Against Torture at a national level.

They coordinate activities with human rights organisations through the Colombian Jurist Commission. They participate in the National Commission of the Search for Disappeared Persons and with other NGOs, especially human rights NGOs, with whom they share the same concerns (such as the fight against a culture of impunity, the demand for victims rights, and the support of affected families and communities).

Stories

“When relatives of missing persons arrive at ASFADDES there is less inhibition, they talk more freely about their feelings, pain and anguish, but also about their happiness. Sometimes we turn painful stories into humor as part of our therapeutic work. No psychologist has said this to us, but this is how we feel it through our experience”.
(Gloria Gómez, National Coordinator).