E/CN.4/2004/18/Add.3 page 13 Roma. The Government indicated that it would establish the necessary mechanisms to reaffirm and protect the cultural rights of the Roma and promote programmes to improve their living conditions. III. ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION OF THE SITUATION WITH REGARD TO RACISM, RACIAL DISCRIMINATION AND XENOPHOBIA A. General evaluation of the impact of the armed conflict on the protection of human rights 40. For over 40 years, Colombia has been confronted with a large-scale domestic armed conflict which, on the one hand, opposes government forces against several well structured and heavily armed guerrilla movements - the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) - and, on the other, paramilitary groups, particularly the United Self-Defence Groups of Colombia (AUC), against the guerrilla movements. The 1991 Constitution, which recognizes ethnic and cultural diversity, guarantees human rights and establishes the foundations of democracy, gave rise to great hopes for the restoration of peace and the establishment of a society based on the rule of law. However, the emergence of such a society is constantly jeopardized by persistent, and even increasing, violence. 41. In this context, human rights violations are, at best, considered as “collateral damage” and, at worst, as a political weapon that seeks to deprive the adversary of all legal or judicial protection. In 2002, at least 7,000 people were murdered for political reasons, and many politicians receive death threats from rebel and paramilitary forces that the legal forces often cannot control. The civilian population, especially the civilian population in the rural areas where the conflict is taking place, is particularly vulnerable to acts that violate fundamental human rights, such as the right to physical integrity and to life. 42. The Colombian drama is the result of two factors: on the one hand, the political impasse and its corollary, the military solution as the only strategy for all parties, and, on the other hand, the hostage-taking of the population, which is forced to take sides or pay a terrible price in human suffering and economic and social destitution. The Government’s “democratic security”7 strategy is determined more by security considerations than by a concern for democracy. 43. This strategy is reflected by two political trends that have a particularly negative effect on respect for human rights and the strengthening of democracy. Thus, democratic legitimacy is invoked by the democratically elected Government to require public statements, at all levels of power, that the population supports its security option and is actively participating of its own free will in the Government’s military operations and its strategic choices against the guerrilla movements. The neutrality, even when passive, of the population is in this context considered by the armed forces in the field as, at best, hostility towards the Government and, at worst, as connivance with or support for the guerrilla movements. As a result, the priority of the security forces is no longer to protect the population from violence perpetrated by the various armed groups but to use the population for its own strategic ends and to repress it. 44. Moreover, the Government’s policy towards human rights organizations seems to be based on the same logic. Such organizations are considered as obstacles to the “democratic