Why are you killing social leaders in Colombia?

The full list consists of 162 names, which is the number of social leaders and human rights defenders. killed Colombia this year so far. Last on the list are Francisco Sarco and Carlitos Urágama, members of the Indigenous Guard of the Emberá Playa Bonita community, and the Victims Association from the Department, in the registry run by the Institute for Studies for Development and Peace (Indepaz). Chocolate. On 11 November, gunmen raided their home. and their families were killed in front of their eyes. The news that a social leader is brutally murdered at a death rate every two days is part of Colombia’s daily life and one of its greatest embarrassments: around 1,400 people have died since the peace was signed Between the Government and the FARC guerrilla in 2016

a structural problem

Why are they killing them? Because they claim something. Let them be driven from their land. Give them their land back. Do not plant coca on their land. Drug trafficking does not pass through their territory. “In Colombia, for whatever reason, economic, agricultural or drug trafficking, the background to the land dispute has always been the extermination of those who defended a particular claim,” he explains. Jorge Ernesto Roa is Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Externado de Colombia. In a country so rich in illegal initiatives, while so many armed actors try to impose their own laws, this actually has a variety of applications. Roa, for example, explains today that the large number of murders committed by the FARC in his time would count as murders of social leaders – then killed in conflict or as victims of conflict – and recalls: “first out drug trafficking encounter any obstacle It is the removal of that barrier.” “Drug trafficking refers to the occupation of the lands most fertile for the cultivation of coca base and more suitable for routes, and in these areas attacks any opposition same way”.

“They are very powerful mafias. taking advantage of the absence of FARC in regions It was cleared after the peace agreements,” says Piedad Bonnett, author and columnist for the newspaper ‘El Espectador’. Bonnett points out that: Environmentalists are among the leaders killed. Miners who defend traditional mining, whose sin is to defend ecosystems left unprotected by the guerrilla retreat. against the establishment of large multinational companies. “The corruption of local powers,” he warns, increases the vulnerability of those threatened.

At a death rate of one every two days, anyone can dream of big spectacles. To demand the necessary protection of leaders from the state, but this is not the case, because these leaders have always been the target of accusations: they have been stigmatized. “Traditionally,” says Roa. The state cares little about valuing it To the function of what they call social mediators in Spain: trade unions, NGOs, community associations … These have always remained around the State and when they entered the spectrum of the state they were in a negative way, accused of being guerrilla ally, conspirator or accomplice Crime phenomena A significant part of society understands the fact that 1,300 people died because they were devoted to the preservation of their land or because they wanted the rights of the peasants to be protected. speaks very badly of us as a society, but it does not constitute the level of rejection that these perpetrators produce in a society where they are valued as social agents speaking for everyone”.

Another list: ancient warriors

List of social leaders not the only one who has increased significantly in recent years: also that of the assassinated ex-combatants of the FARC. Isn’t it a coincidence that he’s in all this? Years marked by his government ivan the duke, President returning from peace agreements. Well, as Roa puts it, “the existence of an official discourse against the agreements and the actors in the agreements is undoubtedly a message for society that creates a breeding ground for impunity.” “Of course,” adds Bonnett, “this is A lot has happened with Duque not really enforcing the deals. or that it applies them very poorly. It was a kind of brake that was put in the treaties that left most of the ex-combatants unprotected.”

Duque Manager repeatedly Questioned on this subject by the High Commissioner By the UN Commission on Human Rights and Inter-American Human Rights, but the lack of guarantees on behalf of the Government, judicial cases entered the scene. So last January Constitutional Court declares State of Affairs to be unconstitutional regarding the preservation of the lives of ex-combatants and is currently exploring the possibility of extending it to social leaders within the framework of another process. you should help fix structural deficiencies These are at the root of their fragility.

Name: Deisy Sotelo, community leader. Day: 29 January. Location: Algeria, province of Cauca. Name: Efrén Ramos, community leader. Day: 2 February. Location: Puerto Leguizamo, Putumayo district. Name: Gustavo Torres, peasant leader. Day: February 26. Location: Tibu, Norte de Santander region. Name: María José Arciniegas, indigenous leader. Day: April 30. Location: Puerto Leguizamo. I was 27 years old. According to ‘Diario Putumayo’, he was “forced out of the area by armed men who took him to an unknown location. His body was found outside of town. with bullet wounds.”