Death-squads contemplating queers as citizens: what Colombian paramilitaries are saying

Abstract

Colombian right-wing paramilitary forces aligned with the state and leftist guerrilla groups are associated with homophobic and transphobic attacks. However, the most extreme accounts of violence are attributed to the former group. Sexual and gender minorities are victimized in the ongoing internal conflict in which armed actors use attacks as a form of communicative violence meant to discipline the civilian population. At the same time, Colombian lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities are making significant advances in gaining recognition of their human rights. This article explores the space where the advance of LGBT rights confounds reactionary homophobic beliefs of illegal right-wing armed groups. I consider how concepts such as ‘nation’ and ‘citizen’ shape the discourse of paramilitary forces in their account of their group's homophobic violence. Special attention is paid to the logic provided by two informants, former paramilitary members themselves, regarding the conditions under which right-wing paramilitary groups would be obliged to recognize the rights of sexual and gender minorities as citizens. The article concludes with a discussion of how the development of a sexual citizenship discourse, in place, may serve to disrupt extreme violence against sexual and gender minorities in the context of militarization and armed conflict.

Escuadrones de la muerte contemplando a los queers como ciudadanos: ¿qué dicen los paramilitares colombianos?

En Colombia, las fuerzas paramilitares de derecha alineadas con el estado, así como los grupos guerrilleros de izquierda, están asociados con ataques homofóbicos y transfóbicos. Sin embargo, los relatos más extremos de violencia son atribuidos al primer grupo. Las minorías sexuales y de género son victimizadas en el conflicto interno actual en el cual los actores armados utilizan los ataques como una forma de violencia comunicativa cuyo propósito es el de disciplinar a la población civil. Al mismo tiempo, las comunidades LGBT colombianas están haciendo avances significativos en lograr el reconocimiento de sus derechos humanos. Este artículo explora el espacio donde el avance de los derechos LGBT desorienta a las creencias homofóbicas reaccionarias de grupos armados ilegales de derecha. Considero cómo conceptos tales como “nación” y “ciudadano/a” dan forma al discurso de las fuerzas paramilitares en su relato de la violencia homofóbica de su grupo. Se presta especial atención a la lógica provista por dos informantes, ex miembros paramilitares, con respecto a las condiciones bajo las cuales los grupos paramilitares de derecha estarían obligados a reconocer los derechos de las minorías sexuales y de género como ciudadanos/as. El artículo concluye con una discusión de cómo el desarrollo de un discurso de ciudadanía sexual, instalado, puede servir para entorpecer el avance de la extrema violencia contra las minorías sexuales y de género en el contexto de la militarización y el conflicto armado.

敢死队将酷儿视为公民：哥伦比亚的准军事组织怎麽说？

与国家结盟的哥伦比亚右翼准军事武装力量，以及左翼游击队团体，皆与恐同及跨性别恐惧症的攻击相关。但最极端的暴力，则归咎于右翼准军事武装力量。性与性别少数，在持续的内部冲突中不断被牺牲，在这些冲突之中，武装行动者运用攻击，作为规训公民群体的沟通式暴力形式。于此同时，哥伦比亚的LGBT社群，在争取认可其人权方面有着长足的进展。本文探讨LGBT权益的增进，与非法的右翼武装团体的反动式恐同信仰相互冲突的空间。我考量诸如“国族”与“公民”等概念，如何在准军事武装力量的恐同暴力说法中，形塑该团体的论述。本文将特别关注两位前准军事武装份子提供有关右翼准军事团体在何种条件之下，必须承认性与性别少数作为公民的权益之逻辑。本文于结论中，提出当前的性公民权论述之发展，如何可能在军事化与武装冲突的脉络中，阻止针对性及性别少数的暴力之讨论。

Keywords:

• sexual citizenship
• paramilitary
• homophobic violence
• Colombia
• LGBT
• queer

Palabras claves::

• ciudadanía sexual
• paramilitares
• violencia homofóbica
• Colombia
• LGTB
• queer

关键词::

• 性公民权
• 准军事团体
• 恐同暴力
• 哥伦比亚
• LGBT
• 酷儿

Acknowledgements

This is a revised version of a paper that was presented at the 2012 Association of American Geographers (AAG) Annual Meeting and was awarded first prize in the 2012 Sexuality and Space Student Paper Competition held by the AAG Sexuality and Space Specialty Group. I am especially grateful to the tireless Colombian LGBT activists who provided me with key support during this research project, including Virgilio Barco Isakson, Germán Rincón Perfetti, Marcela Sánchez, José Fernando Serrano Amaya and the late Álvaro Miguel Rivera. I am also indebted to Colombian academic Carolina Montoya for providing invaluable assistance in setting up and conducting several key interviews with former members of armed groups. I gratefully acknowledge financial support provided by the Rotary Foundation that made this research possible.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

^1. Rivera Linares was killed three and a half years after I interviewed him. Since his death I have decided to use his own name rather than a pseudonym, in order to honour his life and his work.

^2. These interviews were conducted in 2005 and 2006 in Colombia. Right-wing paramilitary groups and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) were associated with acts of extreme homophobic violence; another guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), was not. Shortly before this article went to press, media reports mentioned that for the first time, representatives of the Colombian LGBT community directly participated in meetings between the Colombian government and the FARC in Havana, Cuba, as part of the ongoing peace process.

^3. This section is based on a July 2005 interview conducted by the author with prominent human rights lawyer and LGBT activist Germán Rincón Perfetti.

^4. The historical emergence of paramilitarism in Colombia is well documented (see Aranguren Molina 2001; Gray 2008; Hristov 2009; Kirk 2004; Leech 2002, 2009; Livingstone 2004; Richani 2002).

^5. A 2012 report by Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board concerning these groups now referred to as bacrim (criminal gangs) links them to attacks against human rights defenders as well as to social cleansing operations including ‘the killing of people whose behaviour they do not approve of’.

^6. In most cases, the pseudonyms I use were chosen by the research subjects.

^7. The original phrase was ‘somos conscientes que somos poderes de derecho’.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

William J. Payne

William Payne is a PhD candidate in Critical Human Geography at York University, Toronto. A Rotary Peace Fellow, he holds a Master's Degree in International Relations from Universidad del Salvador, Buenos Aires. Payne has extensive experience working as an international human rights advocate in Mexico, Colombia, Canada and Palestine, and has taught human rights at George Brown College, Toronto. He held a scholarship (2012–2014) with Canada's Social Sciences and Humanities Research (SSHRC), and was a 2012–2013 Graduate Fellow with the Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime and Security. Payne is also a Research Associate with the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean, and a member of the Mexico Project Committee and the Emergency Response Committee of Peace Brigades International (PBI). Present research considers human rights violations of sexual and gender minorities in contexts marked by armed conflict, violence and impunity.