One day, when my brother was on his way to class at university in Bogota, a group of soldiers stopped him and asked for his libreta militar,
a military ID that certifies that he has paid his dues to the Colombian
Armed Forces. This scene, which should be familiar to most Colombian
men, is a consequence of the fact that military conscription for males
is mandated by law in Colombia. It happened that my brother did not have his libreta militar on
him, for he had turned 18 recently, and my parents were still in the
process of obtaining it. However, it also happened that the soldiers
before my brother did not want to believe his story, and they thought
it would be a good idea to detain him immediately and send him to serve
in uniform. The law gives them the right to do just that. Fortunately,
my brother got out of it by showing them his university ID, which
allows him to avoid military service, and could move on with his life. But another friend of his was not as lucky, and he ended up in a military base trying to reach his mother to tell her that the Army was taking him away.
I
understand that military conscription is, perhaps, a necessity for the
Armed Forces given the significant security threats there exist in
Colombia. Of course, many also see the draft as a patriotic duty that all citizens ought to fulfill. After all, article 216 of the Colombian Constitution
says that “all Colombians are obligated to take up arms when public
necessity demands it in order to defend the national independence and
the public institutions”. Paraphrasing JFK, it should be all about what you can do for your country.
Yet, the libertarian within me thinks that the draft is an unacceptable form of state interference in the life of the individual, and completely incompatible with the values of a free society. I dare anyone who favors conscription to prove that it is not essentially akin to forced labor. And although I also believe that there is such thing as patriotic duty, and that those soldiers
who die protecting our liberties and our democracy are heroes, I do not
think that conscription goes in the interests of the Colombian state
and its citizenry. In other words, the draft à la colombienne makes for bad policy.
To all students of the subject, it is well known that all systems of military conscription work as a hidden tax. Those who are drafted by force are paying a tax that equals the
amount of money they would earn in the civilian sector if they had not
been drafted in the first place. Moreover, those who are drafted, but
wanted to follow a career in the military in any case, pay a tax
equivalent to the money they would be getting if recruitment in the
armed forces responded to the real supply and demand of recruits. The overall economy is also hindered by having so many arms taken away unwillingly from the labor force. This
was one of the main arguments put forth by Milton Friedman and the
other members of the Gates Commission, which, at Richard Nixon’s
request, proposed the end of military conscription in the United
States.
But not only is the draft yet another tax on all Colombian young males –it is also an incredibly unjust one that favors the wealthy, and leaves the poor and the uneducated
at its mercy. As most systems of compulsory military service, the
Colombian kind has a long list of deferments that allow many to avoid
joining the ranks. As
my brother knew quite well, being a student at university is one of
those various deferments, the rationale behind it being that the
military should not take away the relatively few who are getting a higher education. The only caveat is that those who are not recruited need to pay a tax equivalent to roughly 1% of the wealth of their families. The
result, however, is that those who serve in the military come
disproportionately from poorer families who cannot afford college for
their sons. Furthermore, it is in rural Colombia, where there are fewer
universities, that the military taps more heavily for involuntary
soldiers. Also, it is a known fact that knowing the right people (a
Congressman, other important public officials, an Army General would be
ideal) can get you out of military recruitment. As Seguridad y Democracia, a think tank, put it on a report, “in Colombia the rich put the money and the poor put the dead and the wounded”.
Even
worse, these inequalities replicate themselves within the military
itself. Those recruited soldiers who graduated from high school serve for 12 months and are not sent to combat, rather being assigned to administrative tasks or the Presidential Guard.
In contrast, those who did not finish school serve for longer terms of
18 to 24 months and are sent to the battlefront. It is easy to see the
injustice implicit in this system, although Colombia’s Constitutional
Court recently directed that no drafted soldier could be sent to
combat.
Finally,
those who say that a draft is absolutely necessary for a country
involved in a military conflict are wrong. The United States and several more NATO countries do not have mandatory recruitment,
and yet, they fight (and win) wars all the time. The successful US-led
mission in the Gulf War in 1991 was a real test for America’s
All-Volunteer Force, which they passed with flying colors, and even if
today’s war in Iraq was not as successful, no one can deny that the
Coalition of the Willing was extremely effective in defeating Saddam
Hussein’s forces –it was the peace building part that posed a problem.
Peru, Argentina and Uruguay also eliminated compulsory military
recruitment. The real secret for having a strong military is not quite
to draft as many citizens as possible, but rather to have an adequately
large defense budget that gives the troops the materiel, the
intelligence and the training they require, and more importantly, the
salaries they deserve.
So,
it is time to gradually end military conscription in Colombia. Truth be
told, this process has already started, as the Colombian Armed Forces
are becoming increasingly professionalized. For the morale of the
troops and the necessary defense of the country, it is better to count only with soldiers whose true calling in life is to fight for the nation. A
force composed of unwilling men who are pushed to give their lives in
the battlefield cannot bode well for the performance of the troops and
the protection of the country. And although Colombia’s military has
served the country well, the injustice and the arbitrariness embedded
in its recruitment system must be eliminated. One of the many
presidential hopefuls should put this issue on the table.