When should public officials resign? When shouldn’t? When should they keep temporarily away?

The recent scandal of Bogota’s Ombudsman Francisco Rojas Birry reveals the need for a public debate about the question of when public officials should resign or keep temporarily away of their positions if they or their relatives are found doing something illegal or dubious. On one hand it’s exaggerated to ask for a resignation when most of public officials are reported at least once to Colombian justice, which is an example of a country where anything besides political debate is worth to win elections. On the other hand, why should citizens wait until trials against officials end while they need somebody to properly practice the public duties? Moreover, why should they wait for trials that most of the time take many years?

The case of Rojas Birry, who met with chief executives of DMG and who is alleged to receive money from that company, is one among many other cases of Colombian politicians or public officials who are suspected of being linked with illegal activity or whose any relative is alleged of the same. Ernesto Samper during his presidential mandate was alleged of consenting to receive money from Cali’s Cartel for his campaign, besides the fact that finally the illegal influence was proven. Minister of Social Protection Diego Palacios is currently prosecuted by the Attorney-General for allegedly bribing to change some votes in the Congress in order to promote presidential reelection reform. Minister of Interior Fabio Valencia was asked to keep temporarily away while his brother is prosecuted for facilitating the action of paramilitary groups in Medellin. The president Alvaro Uribe has been criticized because of allegedly getting the support of paramilitary groups during 2002 and 2006 elections. All these cases are examples of public officials under the pressure to decide rather to resign, not to resign or to keep temporarily away of their positions.

It’s important to have this public discussion in the Colombian society mainly because of two reasons. Firstly because we need to be clear on when a public official should resign or keep temporarily away besides his political party or preference. Otherwise we are prone to defend the ones close to our ideology and criticize the ones opposed to it, no matter if cases are very similar. Secondly, as it is a debate of what to do while justice prosecutes public officials who are alleged, we need to develop some public ethic judgment to determine what should alleged officials do if are in positions of moral guard such as Ombudsman, what they should do if besides their innocence or culpability the illegal influence in a public election is proven, or what to do when their relatives are prosecuted.

Here there are some ideas to start the debate on what to do in that kind of situations. The first thing citizens should ask public officials is to tell anything but the true. Besides their criminal responsibility, politicians and generally speaking public officials are always in a position of public scrutiny which means that there is always a political responsibility for them. No matter if what they did isn’t illegal at all, the fact that any official doesn’t tell the true about what really happened is only acceptable under extreme circumstances such as being threatened.

Secondly if it is the case of officials in positions of moral guard such as ombudsman, citizens expect that person to be apart of any scandal. I’m not saying that they should resign because of any report against, but if the evidence and the scandal are so serious, as it is the case of Rojas Birry, one should expect him to keep temporarily away at least until justice rules in favor or against. Otherwise, if he keeps in his position any official he starts a prosecution against could argue that the Ombudsman has no moral authority to do so.

Thirdly, besides the responsibility of public officials, in cases which it’s proven the high influence of criminal activity over their election, citizens at least expect it to be repeated. It’s the case of Ernesto Samper’s election influenced by Cali’s cartel and Alvaro Uribe’s influenced by paramilitary groups. The reason for this is that one expects elections to be generally transparent and the winner candidate to be elected by people’s political preference and not by criminal influence.

Fourth, if there is a prosecution against any official and he has to do much effort to defend himself, as it’s the case of Minister of Social Protection, citizens expect that person to keep temporarily away, just because he can’t be very focused on his duties as before the prosecution started.

Finally, when public officials’ relatives are prosecuted and the position such as the one Minister of Interior -because of its functions- could work in favor, it’s better to expect that person to keep temporarily away. Justice needs to work well without the influence of an official in a high position.

MEANS Vs. ENDS IN THE DEMOCRATIC SECURITY POLICY ¿WHAT LEVEL OF DICTATORSHIP DOES THIS DEMOCRACY HAVE?

Let’s assume that there is democracy in Colombia. But all these means -actions- taken, regardless of the effectiveness of the ends –defeating FARC and ELN-, make us think that perhaps Colombia is a Democracy with such a level of dictatorship

Uribe Velez came into power in 2002 and was reelected in 2006, specially because of his commitment to defeat guerrillas and to give an end to rebels’ violence via military strengthening.

Uribe’s Democratic Security Policy since its beginning has succeeded in diminishing the power of FARC and ELN along the Colombian territory. The state has recovered control over infrastructure which is very important for the economy and people’s safety; rebels’ attacks over cities have reduced and guerrillas’ fronts have had a lot of difficulty trying to mobilize and get their basic resources. The media propaganda showing the success of Democratic Security Policy as well as the rewards’ policy have had a high impact on encouraging rebels to demobilize.

Illegal armed groups thought that Democratic Security Policy had ended in 2006, but the constitutional reform that allowed president to be reelected and govern for other four-year term made that the effective persecution against them continued. Some recent happenings such as the defeat of Raul Reyes -one of FARC’s chief commanders- and Operation Check that freed Ingrid Betancourt, three American citizens and some army and policemen -after being kidnapped for many years- have shown how Colombian government have cornered the insurgent forces.

However, we have to ask if all of this success would have been possible without any damage to Colombian democracy and civil liberties. Would Democratic Security Policy have been successful without some individuals being arrested for a very prolonged period and after released because of no finding any proof of links with the guerrillas? The number of people arrested could show rebels that the government has succeeded catching their members, but does it matter if at the end they were just innocent civilians? In addition, would it have been successful without False Positives? Perhaps some farmers disguised as guerrilla members, after being killed by the army, could also show some effectiveness of the Democratic Security Policy during confrontations. But does anyone care for their lives?

Would it have been successful without illegal wiretapping? The high scale of what can be revealed by monitoring people’s conversations helps the effectiveness of detecting irregular activity. But regardless of how many are caught doing something illegal –much less than the innocent ones-, violating people’s intimacy -without being lawful interceptions- is against internationally-recognized civil liberties.

Would it have been successful without legal reforms that limit civil liberties? Generally speaking, as long as there are fewer restrictions to develop military activity there will be more effectiveness on the policy intended. When Uribe just started as president he declared the state of emergency that allowed the government to take measures to restrict some civil liberties in order to fight against terrorism. It’s just an example of actions taken by the government to reform the legal framework in order to reduce the limits and then to guarantee the effectiveness of military actions.

Would it have been successful without changing the constitution to allow Uribe to stay in power? We don’t really know if another strongly-supporter politician of the Democratic Security Policy would have succeeded the same, but there is always the risk that the change of president could also be a change in policy. The only true is that while constitution is reformed to allow Uribe to continue his policy, the system of checks and balances in Colombia’s democracy is collapsing.

Would it have been successful without the help of paramilitary groups? Firstly, all paramilitary forces that have control over some regions could have helped public force persecuting rebels just because military and policemen can’t perpetrate some actions themselves, such as torture to make suspects tell relevant information. Public Force has to respect law, whereas paramilitary groups don’t observe any legal framework. Secondly, all the Colombian politicians who were influenced by paramilitary groups -more than 30% of the congressmen- helped to promote laws and reforms to guarantee legal means necessary to keep Democratic Security Policy. Also, illegally-influenced politicians promoted the development of right-wing illegal armed groups by being very careless and in some way letting them take regional public budgets.

Would it have been successful without condemning the political opposition? In the way political detractors are accused of being contributive to illegal armed groups’ activity, all what they say against the government is delegitimized. Some statements made by the political opposition and human rights NGOs condemning public force violations have been classified as being helpful to guerrillas’ interests. Also high magistrates of Colombian justice have been blamed of being selective when they investigate government officials or politicians from the government coalition.

Would it have been successful without violating international law? Treaties and other kind of international mechanisms are always obstacles to government policies that are intended to defeat illegal armed groups. Trying to explain some actions taken under Democratic Security Policy, one could ask: Would it have been possible to rescue all the hostages in Operation Check without using Red Cross emblem? Would it have been possible for the Colombian army to kill Raul Reyes without entering to Ecuadorian territory?

Let’s assume that there is democracy in Colombia. But all these means -actions- taken, regardless of the effectiveness of the ends –defeating FARC and ELN-, make us think that perhaps Colombia is a Democracy with such a level of dictatorship in which government restricts and violates civil liberties, threatens democracy’s checks and balances and condemns political opposition.

President Uribe has always stated that things such as illegal wiretapping, links of some officials with paramilitary groups or False Positives are not a policy directed from the State, because there hasn’t been any guideline taken by the government intended to do so, as it was the case of Germany during Hitler or other historic dictatorship regimes. Also president Uribe has stated that all these scandals have come out because it has been possible to do so during his mandate. Except for the Nazi regime and some others before 1948’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it’s very difficult to find dictatorship regimes that promote public guidelines restricting or violating civil liberties or threatening democracy, just because they don’t want to be so obvious that United Nations and other international instances could persecute them. Instead, the strategy of dictators consists of taking undercover guidelines or encouraging a broad interpretation of law such as taking political opposition as terrorism. Finally, if it were true that the scandals have come out thanks to the government commitment, we would have also to thank Hitler because he made possible that during his mandate the world discovered the crimes against the Jewish population and to thank Robert Mugabe because he made possible that the world knew about people’s repression in Zimbabwe.