Author: Adam Isacson

June 28, 2020

Colombian authorities arrest Ramón Rodríguez Guerrero, a Venezuelan citizen living in Bogotá. While Rodríguez appears to be organizing Venezuelan opponents of the Maduro regime in Bogotá, Colombia alleges that he is a regime spy who has infiltrated the Venezuelan opposition inside Colombia, in order to collect intelligence on them.

Tags: Venezuela, Venezuela Crisis

June 28, 2020

June 27, 2020

Community members in the village of Filoguamo, in Teorama municipality in Norte de Santander’s Catatumbo region, allege that Army soldiers killed social leader Salvador Jaimes Durán. The military’s Vulcano Task Force, which operates in Catatumbo, releases a photo of guerrillas insinuating that Durán was a member of the ELN. The ELN denies it and the guerrillas release a recording of the individual who appeared in the photo.

Tags: Attacks on social leaders, Catatumbo, ELN, Human Rights, Military and Human Rights

June 27, 2020

June 26, 2020

The joint body for verification of the 2016 peace accord’s implementation (Commission for the Follow-up, Promotion and Verification of the Implementation of the Final Agreement, CSIVI) meets for the first time since May 14. On that date, the FARC delegation boycotted the CSIVI meeting, as did the ambassador from Cuba, after High Commissioner for Peace Miguel Ceballos applauded the United States’ addition of Cuba to its list of states not cooperating against terrorism. A subsequent effort to convene the CSIVI, on June 11, fell through.

High Counselor for Stabilization Emilio Archila says that the Colombian government “has never placed in doubt or questioned Cuba’s role as a guarantor country” for the peace talks, and “hopes it will keep exercising that function.” Cuban ambassador José Luis Ponce is a “formal invitee” to the June 26 meeting, at which, the government reports, the CSIVI “defined a calendar of meetings to speed up the work of overseeing implementation.”

Tags: Cuba, ELN Peace Talks, Verification

June 26, 2020

June 26, 2020

Assassins kill indigenous leader Luz Miriam Vargas Castaño at the Avirama reserve in Paez, Cauca. She is the third social leader killed in a 48-hour period in Colombia. Gunmen kidnapped and killed the indigenous governor of Agua Clara, Bajo Baudó, Chocó, and kill social leader Yoanny Yeffer Vanegas Cardona in San José del Guaviare, Guaviare.

Tags: Attacks on social leaders, Cauca, Chocó, Guaviare

June 26, 2020

Podcast: Demining sacred space in Colombia’s Amazon basin

This is the June 24, 2020 edition of WOLA’s podcast.

Tom Laffay is an American filmmaker based in Bogotá, and is a recipient of the inaugural 2020 Andrew Berends Fellowship. In 2018, his short film, Nos están matando (They’re killing us), which exposed the plight of Colombian social leaders, reached the halls of the U.S. Congress and the United Nations in Geneva.

This film was commissioned by The New Yorker and supported by The Pulitzer Center.

In this edition of WOLA’s podcast, Laffay discusses his new short film, Siona: Amazon’s Defenders Under Threat. The New Yorker featured it on its website on June 25, 2020. Laffay follows Siona Indigenous leader Adiela Mera Paz in Putumayo, Colombia, as she works to demine her ancestral territory to make it possible for her people displaced by the armed conflict to return. Though the armed conflict with the FARC may have officially ended, the Siona people not only face post-conflict risks, they also face threats from extractive companies. In the episode, Laffay describes the history of the Siona people and their territory, their relationship with yagé, and the courageous work undertaken by leaders like Adiela Mera Paz.

Listen to WOLA’s Latin America Today podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or wherever you subscribe to podcasts. The main feed is here.

Tags: Audio, Demining, Indigenous Communities, Podcast, Putumayo, Video

June 25, 2020