The FARC formally requests protective measures from the OAS Inter-American Human Rights Commission, citing attacks on former guerrillas around the country, with a death toll approaching 200. “We want to avoid a genocide,” says FARC representative Diego Martínez.
May 22, 2020
A Defense Ministry resolution fires another nine Army officers. Though no motive is named, press coverage notes that the firings come after revelations of intelligence abuse and corruption earlier in the month.
May 22, 2020
A statement from the Gulf Clan neo-paramilitary group rejects the government’s decree offering favorable terms for those who demobilize, denying that any commander has been in contact with the government.
May 22, 2020
Publicado por Semana el 22 de mayo de 2020.
Senators Iván Cepeda, Gustavo Bolívar, and Antonio Sanguino, who were targeted in the Army’s most recent espionage scandal, say they will present evidence to the U.S. Congress and NATO.
May 22, 2020
“An anti-personnel mine that placed at risk 15 people in Alto Londres hamlet in the municipality of Puerto Rico, Caquetá, was destroyed by Army engineers of the 1st Humanitarian Demining Battalion.”
May 21, 2020
Colombia’s Prosecutor-General’s Office (Fiscalía) issues arrest warrants for 10 mayors, alleging corruption in COVID-19-related contracting. The Comptroller’s office announces that it has detected US$110 million in likely contracting cost overruns, mainly for medical equipment, food, and related coronavirus services.
May 21, 2020
Published by One Earth Future on May 21, 2020.
Socorro attends the Rural Alternative School (ERA) of San José del Guaviare.
May 21, 2020
Publicado por el Instituto Colombo-Alemán para la Paz el 21 de mayo de 2020.
An overview of attempts to negotiate peace with the ELN guerrillas during the Santos government, and during the transition to the Duque government.
May 21, 2020
“In Catatumbo, we have a program together with the Howard Buffett Foundation, integrating crop substitution together with productive projects, along with the improvement of tertiary roads.”
May 21, 2020
Aerial photo of an unidentified former Territorial Space for Training and Reincorporation (ETCR), where many former FARC combatants continue to reside.
May 21, 2020
“Ricardo Palomino is an ex-combatant who has turned to agriculture together with his companions in the former La Variante ETCR in Tumaco. There are many campesinos like them who continue to work so that those sheltering at home may have food on their tables.”
May 21, 2020
Ariolfo Sánchez Ruiz, a campesino opposing an Army-led eradication operation in Anorí, Antioquia, is detained and killed by soldiers, according to local campesino organizations.
May 20, 2020
Citing information from the Prosecutor-General’s Office (Fiscalía), Interior Minister Alicia Arango claims that between Januay 1 and May 15, 2020, only 25 social leaders had been killed in Colombia, a drop from 41 during the same period of 2018 and 46 during the same period of 2019. The 25 is the number of “verified” cases; Arango does not state how many 2020 homicides remain to be verified.
May 20, 2020
Publicado por la Comisión de la Verdad el 20 de mayo de 2020.
A discussion of the security and human rights situation in Cauca.
May 20, 2020
Publicado por La Comisión de la Verdad el 20 de mayo de 2020.
A discussion of factors driving the difficult security situation in Cauca department.
May 20, 2020
Following an online meeting with Cauca indigenous leaders, Interior Ministry officials unintentionally leave their microphones on. “How about those motherf******s, I don’t give an a** about them at this moment,” one can be heard saying. “They’re never going to change and they’re going to be miserable and stupid their whole lives. …I hate those sons of b*****s.”
May 20, 2020
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Massachusetts), the co-chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in the U.S. Congress, is a longtime advocate of human rights, worldwide and in Latin America.
McGovern joins WOLA in this episode for a conversation about Colombia, a country to which he has traveled several times, and where he was one of the House of Representatives’ leading advocates for the negotiations that ended with a peace accord in 2016.
We’re talking weeks after new revelations that U.S.-aided Colombian military intelligence units had been spying on human rights defenders, journalists, judges, politicians, and even fellow officers. The Congressman calls for a suspension of U.S. military assistance to Colombia while the U.S. government undertakes a top-to-bottom, “penny by penny” review of the aid program. “If there’s not a consequence, there’s no incentive to change,” he explains.
He calls for the Colombian government and the international community to do far more to protect the country’s beleaguered human rights defenders, to change course on an unsuccessful drug policy, and to fulfill the peace accords’ commitments. Human rights, Rep. McGovern concludes, should be at the center of the U.S.-Colombia bilateral relationship.
Listen to the podcast above, or download the .mp3 file.
Listen to WOLA’s Latin America Today podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or wherever you subscribe to podcasts. The main feed is here.
May 20, 2020
The Interior Ministry names 30-year-old Jorge Tovar, son of top ex-paramilitary leader “Jorge 40,” to coordinate its Internal Coordination Group for Armed Conflict Victims Policy. Though Tovar is not accused of any of his father’s crimes and has participated in reconciliation efforts, the nomination is highly controversial. In past tweets, Tovar has called his father—currently imprisoned in the United States on drug charges—a “political prisoner” and a “hero,” and has attacked leftist politicians. The Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE) strongly opposes the nomination, as do Colombia’s national platforms of human rights groups.
On May 20, maximum FARC party leader Rodrigo Londoño angers many within his party by defending the Interior Ministry’s hiring of Tovar. Londoño calls Tovar “a person who seems committed to supporting peace and reconciliation processes.”
May 19, 2020
Published by WOLA on May 19, 2020.
A discussion of new revelations that Colombian Army intelligence has been spying on journalists, judges, opposition politicians, human rights defenders, and other officers, with several victims of the spying and some U.S.-based analysts.
May 19, 2020
Publicado por El Espectador Colombia 2020 el 19 de mayo de 2020.
A discussion of the challenges of implementing the peace accord during the COVID-19 emergency, with Emilio Archila, presidential advisor for Stabilization and Consolidation; Niels Annen, vice-minister of foreign relations of Germany; Francisco de Roux, president of the Truth Commission; Stefan Peters, director of the Instituto Colombo-Alemán para la Paz; and Laura Barrios of the Universidad del Rosario.
May 19, 2020
Publicado por CINEP el 19 de mayo de 2020.
Colleagues remember Mario Calderón and Elsa Alvarado, two human rights defenders at CINEP who were murdered by paramilitaries, in their Bogotá home, on May 19, 1997.
May 19, 2020
Published by WOLA on May 19, 2020.
WOLA’s latest monthly urgent update on the situation of human rights defenders and social leaders in Colombia.
May 19, 2020
The Inspector-General’s Office (Procuraduría) initiates disciplinary proceedings against 13 Army officers, including 3 retired generals, for their role in misuse of intelligence against civilians.
May 19, 2020
The U.S. embassy’s International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL) section announces a donation of 288 bulletproof vests and other riot control and security equipment to Colombia’s prison system. INL officer director Brian Harris says the donation is a response to the wave of prison riots that occurred on March 21, as coronavirus fears began to spread.
May 19, 2020
Since our last urgent action Colombia’s weekly magazine Semana revealed that between February and December 2019, Colombian army intelligence units carried out illicit surveillance of more than 130 individuals, including human rights defenders, national and international journalists, politicians, labor leaders, and other members of the military. We at WOLA find this to be completely unacceptable . On Tuesday, May 19 from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, WOLA is hosting, alongside other human rights organizations, a webinar with several of the persons targeted by this illegal espionage. We encourage you to join us to hear their perspectives and recommendations on what should be done to redress this. In this document, you will find summarized statements made by several civil society groups about this scandal. You can join the webinar by registering here.
Additionally, WOLA produced a short video about the violence faced by social leaders in Colombia. The video asks U.S. authorities to call on the Iván Duque administration to protect social leaders, prioritize investigations of the assassinations, and prioritize full implementation of the peace accords.
We also take this opportunity to update you on developments on the April 25 request to President Duque by Black, Afro-Colombian, Palenquero and Raizal persons asking for the creation of an Afro-Colombian Emergency Fund. The Ministry of Health announced that it will designate a person to manage the COVID-19 emergency in the Colombian Pacific. However, details of who this will be or how this person/office will function are not clear. CONPA and others are asking for that to be determined as soon as possible. It should be done in full consultation with Afro-Colombian authorities. Secondly, a special education plan is required for Afrodescendants living in areas with limited internet capacity. Virtual learning is not reaching most children in shantytowns and rural areas because they do not have computers and/or the technical capacity to access school in this manner. Lastly, CONPA insists that the government advance humanitarian accords with the ELN that provide protection to civilians and communities caught up in conflict. We were disappointed by last week’s developments that run counter to peace in Colombia. Please see our May 14 statement Inaccurate Trump Administration Charges Against Cuba Damage Prospects for Peace Talks in Colombia and Elsewhere.
The following are summaries of the human rights situations and cases we received that require action. We have divided them into three parts: military intelligence scandal, COVID-19 related concerns, and human rights abuses.
Military Intelligence Espionage
Illegal Military Surveillance Targeting Social Leaders
On May 10, the Inter-Ecclesial Commission for Justice and Peace (Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz, CIJP) condemned the illicit surveillance carried out by the Colombian army’s intelligence units on social leaders Luz Marina Cuchumbe and Jani Rita Silva and CIJP staff Father Alberto Franco and Danilo Rueda. They make clear that strong measures must be taken to protect the whistleblowers in this case.
May 19, 2020
