Carlos Lehder, a top leader of the Medellín cartel in the 1980s who pioneered aerial cocaine transshipment to the United States, completes a lengthy sentence in U.S. prison. A dual citizen of Germany, the 70-year-old Lehder departs for Berlin.
June 16, 2020
The FARC party reports that Mario Téllez Restrepo, shot to death on June 14 in Tibú, Norte de Santander, is the 200th former guerrilla to be killed since the peace accord went into effect in December 2016.
June 15, 2020
Armed men massacre four people and wound two others in Samaniego, Nariño, a zone of longtime ELN influence. The National Police reportedly hypothesize that the massacre was a dispute over narcotrafficking. One of those wounded was arrested in April 2019 and charged by the Prosecutor-General’s Office (Fiscalía) of ELN affiliation; the charges were later dropped.
June 14, 2020
The daily El Espectador reveals the existence of “Code Black,” a corruption network within the U.S.-funded Antinarcotics Directorate of Colombia’s National Police. Starting in 2017, police whistleblowers began denouncing embezzlement and a scheme to use wiretaps to shake down narcotraffickers for money. The Prosecutor-General’s Office’s (Fiscalía’s) investigation has since moved very slowly.
June 14, 2020
The ELN releases four civilian hostages to a commission from the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Human Rights Ombudsman (Defensoría), and the Catholic Church in rural Norte de Santander. The release comes two days after the guerrillas turn over two oil workers in Arauca. Colombia’s government claims that the ELN continues to hold 10 other hostages. Among them is Nubia Alejandra López Correa, an Army corporal abducted in Arauca on June 7.
June 14, 2020
Publicado por Rodeemos el Diálogo el 13 de junio de 2020.
A discussion of the contributions to peace of Jaime Garzón, a popular Colombian humorist who was murdered in 1999.
June 13, 2020
Colombia’s Free Press Federation (FLIP) learns that 14 more journalists were among the 130 civilians for whom military intelligence had been maintaining detailed profiles, part of a scandal known as the “Secret Folders” that broke in early May. That pushes to 52 the known number of profiled civilians who work as journalists.
June 12, 2020
Publicado por la Unidad de Búsqueda de Personas Desaparecidas el 12 de junio de 2020.
A discussion of the work of the Unit for the Search for Disappeared Persons.
June 12, 2020
Defense Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo reports that, between January 1 and June 7, homicides declined by 17 percent compared to the same period in 2019. Police data show 15 types of crime dropping by 80 percent or more during this period. The country’s COVID-19 lockdown is the principal cause.
June 12, 2020
The Bogotá-based think tank CERAC, which maintains a database of conflict events, finds no significant increase in offensive armed actions committed by the ELN since the end of the group’s April unilateral ceasefire. “Since March there is no registry of the death of civilians or security force members in violent events attributed to the ELN,” CERAC reports. However, the guerrilla group commits several kidnappings during this period.
June 11, 2020
Publicado por CINEP el 11 de junio de 2020.
A conversation including UN and Inter-American Human Rights Commission officials and other experts about the crisis of Venezuelan migration.
June 11, 2020
Published by One Earth Future on June 11, 2020.
In Valle del Cauca, Sandra and Dora, members of CORTUCAN, tell how they are making ecotourism a sustainable livelihood for their families.
June 11, 2020
Colombia’s Senate holds a debate over the presence in the country of a 53-person U.S. training brigade (Security Force Assistance Brigade, or SFAB). The debate is called by opposition senators, who allege that the deployment violates Colombia’s constitution, which requires Senate approval for the transit of troops through national territory. Defense Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo, in an hourlong statement, insists that the U.S. personnel are not “transiting through” on their four-month deployment, but are collaborating to fight narcotrafficking. Ruling-party Senator and former president Álvaro Uribe leads the bloc of senators defending the U.S. troop deployment. Opposition legislators voice strong concern that the U.S. deployment could be a step toward Colombian involvement in a conflict with Venezuela.
June 10, 2020
Publicado por Semana el 10 de junio de 2020.
A discussion with experts about the activities of Mexican criminal organizations in Colombia.
June 10, 2020
Publicado por la Fundación Paz y Reconciliación el 10 de junio de 2020.
Examines how Mexican drug trafficking organizations have financed and linked up with Colombian counterparts during the post-accord period.
June 10, 2020
Publicado por La Silla Vacía el 10 de junio de 2020.
An analysis of the debate over prior consultation with communities that has delayed re-starting of a U.S.-backed aerial herbicide fumigation in coca-growing areas.
June 10, 2020
The Prosecutor-General’s Office (Fiscalía) arrests social leader Yolanda González García in Arauca, accusing her of working with FARC dissidents. Soldiers wounded González, and killed her government-funded bodyguard, at a vehicle checkpoint on September 19, 2019, in an incident that remains under investigation. In a statement, Colombia’s national human rights platforms call González’s arrest a “setup” and an effort “to destroy her physically and morally.”
The Peace and Reconciliation Foundation denounces seven arrests of social leaders or demobilized combatants in Arauca in recent days, “for which they have been charged with a series of crimes without corroborating the facts.”
June 9, 2020
Publicado por INDEPAZ el 9 de junio de 2020.
The director of INDEPAZ offers a critical update on the government’s efforts to comply with Constitutional Court requirements necessary to restart aerial coca fumigation.
June 9, 2020
Publicado por 360-grados.co via Verdad Abierta el 9 de junio de 2020.
Sounds the alarm about the growing presence of the Gulf Clan and Pachencas neo-paramilitary groups in three Caribbean coast departments.
June 9, 2020
Publicado por la Coordinación Colombia-Europa-Estados Unidos el 9 de junio de 2020.
An indictment of some of the Colombian government’s policy choices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
June 9, 2020
Local leaders in Monterredondo, Miranda, Cauca, advise FARC ex-combatants at the local reincorporation site that they should displace because of threats received from an unidentified armed group. On June 10, threats force the displacement of 20 ex-combatants from El Diamante, La Uribe, Meta.
June 9, 2020
Publicado por la Comisión Colombiana de Juristas el 8 de junio de 2020.
A family recounts the struggle for justice 30 years after a notorious massacre in Campamento, Antioquia.
June 8, 2020
Publicado por Semana el 8 de junio de 2020.
Reporting on a wave of ELN kidnappings in Arauca and Catatumbo.
June 8, 2020
Publicado por El Espectador Colombia 2020 el 8 de junio de 2020.
Survivors of a notorious paramilitary attack in Chocó create a peace community, and now, a peace university.
June 8, 2020
Publicado por Verdad Abierta el 8 de junio de 2020.
Concerns about the Duque government’s plan to focus security and stabilization efforts in five conflictive territories.
June 8, 2020
