Demobilized combatants participate in volunteer food distribution during the coronavirus lockdown in Cali.
April 18, 2020
April 18, 2020
Month: April 2020
Chocó, entre la pobreza y el coronavirus
Publicado por Semana el 18 de abril de 2020.
Alarms are sounding in Colombia’s poorest department about the arrival of coronavirus.
April 18, 2020
Letter dated 16 April 2020 from the President of the Security Council addressed to the Secretary-General and the Permanent Representatives of the members of the Security Council
Published by the UN Security Council on April 17, 2020.
Record of the Security Council’s meeting to review the March 26, 2020 report of the UN Verification Mission in Colombia. (Link at undocs.org)
April 17, 2020
¿El COVID-19 pone en riesgo los cuerpos que están desaparecidos en cementerios?
Publicado por El Espectador el 17 de abril de 2020.
Concerns that burials of coronavirus victims may affect the identification and preservation of remains of people disappeared during the conflict.
April 17, 2020
SOS en cárceles por la pandemia en Colombia Villavicencio en alerta
Publicado por Semana el 17 de abril de 2020.
Growing concerns about the spread of coronavirus in Colombia’s prison system.
April 17, 2020
Pablo Beltrán, comandante del ELN, habla sobre posible diálogo con el Gobierno
Publicado por El Espectador el 16 de abril de 2020.
Interview with ELN commander Pablo Beltrán, who was the group’s chief negotiator in Havana, Cuba, about possibilities for renewed peace talks.
April 16, 2020
April 16, 2020
Defense Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo says that the government is forging ahead in the fulfillment of Constitutional Court-mandated requirements for the re-starting of aerial herbicide fumigation in coca-growing zones.
April 16, 2020
April 16, 2020
From Cuba, ELN leader Pablo Beltrán insists that the guerrillas remain willing to re-start negotiations, and have enough “internal cohesion” to sustain talks. Beltrán had led the ELN’s negotiating team until talks collapsed in January 2019.
April 16, 2020
Las nuevas rutas del narcotráfico
Publicado por Semana el 16 de abril de 2020.
A look at the U.S. military deployment to international waters near Colombia to interdict drugs, the current state of the drug trade, and U.S. pressure on the Venezuelan regime.
April 16, 2020
Comisión de la Verdad avanza en el procesamiento de más de 15 mil testimonios en la cuarentena
Publicado por El Espectador el 16 de abril de 2020.
An interview with Truth Commission member Alejandra Miller about how the Commission is working during the coronavirus lockdown.
April 16, 2020
Podcast: Democracy, Displacement, and “Political Cleansing” in Colombia’s Armed Conflict
Abbey Steele of the University of Amsterdam’s Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences is a scholar of violence and politics who has done most of her work in Colombia. She is the author of Democracy and Displacement in Colombia’s Civil War (2017, Cornell University Press).
In this episode, she discusses her work in Apartadó, in Colombia’s Urabá region, which saw forced displacement by paramilitary groups intensify after Colombia began direct local elections and leftist parties performed well. She calls what happened “political cleansing” or “collective targeting”: the paramilitaries targeted entire communities for displacement based on election results.
Steele explains this and other findings, particularly how communities have organized to resist the onslaught. She has a sharp analysis of the challenges that continue for the displaced—and for communities and social leaders at risk of political cleansing—today, in post-peace-accord Colombia.
Listen above, or download the .mp3 file.
April 16, 2020
April 15, 2020
The Prosecutor-General’s Office (Fiscalía) and Ministry of Justice submit an extradition request to the United States for Salvatore Mancuso, the former maximum leader of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) paramilitary group. The government of Álvaro Uribe extradited Mancuso and 13 other paramilitary leaders to the United States to face drug-trafficking charges in 2008; Mancuso is about to complete his U.S. sentence.
April 15, 2020
April 15, 2020
Eight members of the “Carlos Patiño Front” FARC dissident group are reported dead in Argelia, Cauca, following combat with the Army.
April 15, 2020
April 15, 2020
Citing the COVID-19 pandemic, Justice Minister Margarita Cabello announces that about 4,000 prisoners will be released from the nation’s prisons in order to practice social distancing under house arrest.
April 15, 2020
Implementación del Acuerdo de Paz en tiempos de pandemia
Publicado por CINEP el 15 de abril de 2020.
A conversation about how to implement peace accord commitments amid the COVID-19 crisis, with Emilio Archila (Presidential Advisor for Stabilization and Consolidation); Ricardo Téllez / Rodrigo Granda (FARC), and Consuelo Corredor (CINEP).
April 15, 2020
Monitor del cese el fuego unilateral del ELN
Publicado por CERAC el 15 de abril de 2020.
The Bogotá think tank, which maintains a database of conflict events, finds that the ELN did not violate its declared ceasefire during the first 15 days of April.
April 15, 2020
Pandemia del coronavirus: así funciona la JEP en medio de emergencia
Publicado por El Espectador el 15 de abril de 2020.
An interview with Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) Magistrate Camilo Suárez about how the JEP is functioning during the coronavirus lockdown.
April 15, 2020
Broken Ties, Frozen Borders: Colombia and Venezuela Face COVID-19
Published by the International Crisis Group on April 15, 2020.
A survey of conditions along the Colombia-Venezuela border as it braces for the impact of coronavirus.
April 15, 2020
New Explainer: The ELN
We’ve added a fourth article to this site’s page of “Explainer” documents: an overview of the National Liberation Army, ELN, Colombia’s largest existing guerrilla group. The Explainer moves rapidly through the ELN’s difficult history, its command structure and way of operating, its geography, its revenue streams, its poor human rights record, and Colombia’s experience engaging it in peace talks. All in a concise 5,400 words—but with numerous photos and maps.
April 15, 2020
Las tres fases de los “falsos positivos” del Batallón La Popa
Publicado por El Espectador el 14 de abril de 2020.
Summary of two non-governmental organizations’ findings, based on 32 former soldiers’ testimonies to the JEP, revealing the surprisingly systematic nature of “false positives” killings during the 2000s.
April 14, 2020
April 13, 2020
Maximum ELN leader Nicolas Rodriguez alias “Gabino” sends a message calling on the armed forces to join in a bilateral ceasefire. The group had declared a unilateral ceasefire for the month of April, citing the COVID-19 pandemic.
April 13, 2020
GIFMM Colombia: Situational Report – February 2020
Published by the Inter-Agency Mixed Migration Flows Group in Colombia on April 13, 2020.
A monthly update about the situation of Venezuelan migrants in Colombia, from the Inter-Agency Mixed Migration Flows Group in Colombia. (Link at unhcr.org)
April 13, 2020
April 12, 2020
Prosecutor-General Carlos Barbosa says that the COVID-19-related prison protests of March 21, which led to guards killing 23 prisoners that night, were instigated by the ELN and by FARC dissident leader Henry Castellanos alias “Romaña,” who is part of the “Nueva Marquetalia” group led by former chief negotiator Iván Márquez. “Romaña” was known during the conflict as a hardliner who pioneered the practice of ransom kidnappings along roads on Bogotá’s outskirts.
April 12, 2020
Así confeccionan tapabocas los excombatientes de las Farc en Icononzo
Publicado por El Espectador el 11 de abril de 2020.
A conversation with demobilized FARC guerrillas in Tolima who are manufacturing face masks during the COVID-19 crisis.
April 11, 2020
Podcast: COVID-19, Communities, and Human Rights in Colombia
As of early April 2020, Colombia has documented a relatively low number of coronavirus cases, and in cities at least, the country has taken on strict social distancing measures.
This has not meant that Colombia’s embattled social leaders and human rights defenders are any safer. WOLA’s latest urgent action memo, released on April 10, finds that “killings and attacks on social leaders and armed confrontations continue and have become more targeted. We are particularly concerned about how the pandemic will affect already marginalized Afro-Colombian and indigenous minorities in rural and urban settings.”
In this edition of the WOLA Podcast, that memo’s author, Director for the Andes Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli, explains the danger to social leaders, the shifting security situation, the ceasefire declared by the ELN guerrillas, the persistence of U.S.-backed coca eradication operations, and how communities are organizing to respond to all of this.
Listen above, or download the .mp3 file here.
April 11, 2020