Timeline for entries tagged “Security Deterioration”

A chronology of events related to peace, security, and human rights in Colombia.

August 11, 2020

Five Afro-Colombian teenagers are found brutally tortured and murdered in Cali. According to press reports, they had left their homes that morning to go fly kites. The massacre occurred in Llano Verde, a neighborhood in eastern Cali where the majority of families were forcibly displaced by the armed conflict.

The Llano Verde massacre is one of seven multiple killings in a two-week period across the country, spurring alarm about a return to violence recalling the armed conflict’s most intense years.

An August 17 statement from the UN Mission and UN Country Team in Colombia reports that, so far in 2020, the UN has documented 33 massacres, is following up on reports of 97 killings of human rights defenders, and has verified 41 killings of demobilized ex-combatants.

Tags: Afro-Descendant Communities, massacres, Security Deterioration, Valle del Cauca

July 18, 2020

The Rastrojos, a remnant of what had been a larger post-AUC paramilitary group, massacres seven people in rural Tibú, Norte de Santander. The attack displaces 400 people. Meanwhile an armed group’s explosive on the roadside between Cúcuta and Tibú kills two soldiers and wounds eight more. The violence highlights a worsening conflict between the Rastrojos and the ELN for control of border crossings between Colombia (Tibú, Puerto Santander, and Cúcuta municipalities) and Venezuela.

Tags: Catatumbo, Colombia-Venezuela border, ELN, Norte de Santander, Paramilitarism, Security Deterioration

July 15, 2020

For security reasons, Colombia’s government helps to relocate an entire settlement of demobilized FARC guerrillas from the Román Ruiz post-conflict demobilization site (ETCR) in Ituango, Antioquia, to the neighboring municipality of Mutatá, several hours’ drive away, where the government has rented new land. Twelve members of the ETCR had been killed in the site’s vicinity since the FARC demobilized. The Gulf Clan and Caparros paramilitary groups are active in Ituango, as are dissident members of the FARC’s old 18th Front.

Tags: Antioquia, Demobilization Disarmament and Reintegration, Protection of Excombatants, Security Deterioration

June 14, 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.

Tags: Narino, Security Deterioration

May 6, 2020

Interior Minister Alicia Arango voices consternation at the security situation in Cauca department. “We don’t know what we’re doing wrong, why this isn’t working,” she says, proposing further military deployments and a system of rewards for informants.

Tags: Cauca, Security Deterioration

April 30, 2020

The Human Rights Ombudsman’s office (Defensoría) issues an “early warning” alert about armed groups’ activities during the COVID-19 emergency. Between March 23 and April 27, the agency documents 72 threats or other violent acts that groups have justified by claiming enforcement of public health measures. It documents ten cases in which armed groups killed people for violating the quarantine rules that they had put in place. Of 41 violent acts, the Defensoría finds FARC dissidents responsible for 14, the ELN for 11, neo-paramilitary groups 6, the EPL 2, and the rest other organized crime groups or unknown armed actors.

Photo source: Defensoría del Pueblo.

Tags: Human Rights, Public Health, Security Deterioration

March 8, 2020

  • The bodies of 13 people are found in Palmarito, outside the city of Cúcuta, and across the border in Venezuela. The massacre is believed to be the result of fighting between the ELN and the Rastrojos—the remnant of a once much stronger post-paramilitary group—for control of cross-border smuggling routes. “The most conservative estimates,” Semana reports, “say that this war has left 37 dead in recent months.”

Tags: Borders, ELN, Organized Crime, Security Deterioration, Venezuela Crisis

February 24, 2020

  • Fighting between the Gulf Clan and dissidents from the FARC’s 18th Front displaces 863 people in the rural zone of Ituango, Antioquia, which lies on a strategic trafficking route. Some say they were given ten minutes to leave their homes on pain of death.
  • Intelligence sources tell El Colombiano that the displacement is a tactic that armed groups use when they are in a position of weakness. “The people in the 18th Front residual group are surrounded by Gulf Clan personnel. So they pressure the communities to displace the that automatically obligates the Army to mobilize its troops, avoiding the other group’s advance.
  • Earlier in the month, the entire remaining population of the Santa Lucía FARC demobilization site (ETCR) in Ituango—62 former fighters and 45 relatives—decided to abandon the site within 60 days due to threats. Twelve former FARC members have been killed in Ituango, more than any other municipality. Departmental and national government agencies are discussing options with the ETCR’s residents.
  • The Army’s 7th Division reports on January 30 that it had learned of a plot by FARC dissident groups to assassinate ex-guerrillas living at the Santa Lucía facility.

Tags: Antioquia, Displacement, Dissident Groups, Gulf Clan, Protection of Excombatants, Security Deterioration

February 23, 2020

  • Alarm grows over environmental damage wrought by armed groups. FARC dissidents are believed responsible for a fire in La Macarena National Park, near the popular Caño Cristales tourist destination.
  • FARC dissidents, some from the “Carolina Ramírez Front,” threaten park rangers in Chiribiquete National Park in Caquetá, ordering them to leave. Similar threats occur in as many as nine other parks. More than 9 million hectares of parks in Colombia’s Amazon basin region lack official presence.
  • Security forces believe the dissidents intend to expand coca cultivation in the parks. They contend that the groups’ actions are a response to “Operation Artemis,” a military operation that aims to curtail deforestation.
Photo Source: Tweet from Defensoría delPueblo @DefensoriaCol

Tags: Caqueta, Dissident Groups, Environment, Meta, Security Deterioration

February 10, 2020

  • Chocó-based ELN commander “Uriel” announces on social media that the guerrilla group has declared a new nationwide “armed strike,” prohibiting vehicle travel between February 14 and 17.
  • Most of the country is unaffected by the armed strike, but travel grinds to a halt in areas where the guerrillas have strong influence, like Arauca and Catatumbo. According to InsightCrime, “Colombia saw at least 27 operations by the ELN around the country, including attacks on electrical infrastructure, clashes with the Colombian Army, closures of national highways due to bomb threats, explosive devices left in cities, one sniper attack, as well as numerous graffitis and flags hailing the group.”
  • While visiting Montelíbano, Córdoba on February 13, President Duque responds, “Colombia is united to confront this criminal group, this terrorist group, these recruiters of minors, these eco-killers.”
Photo source: César Carrión, Colombian Presidency
  • The Defendamos la Paz civil-society coalition issues a statement rejecting the ELN’s announcement, contending that “the time for war has passed.”
  • In Medellín, where the ELN was believed responsible for the recent downing of an electrical pylon on the city’s outskirts, authorities reactivated an 80-man Army Special Urban Forces Battalion.
  • Afterward, the ELN issues a communiqué justifying its actions but apologizing for “discomforts caused.”
  • “What we saw last weekend wasn’t a strike, but a threat to the tranquility of some regions of the country,” High Commissioner for Peace Miguel Ceballos says on February 18.

Tags: ELN, Security Deterioration

January 15, 2020

  • High Commissioner for Peace Miguel Ceballos says that Colombia will ask for a delay of its commitment to the Ottawa Landmine Treaty, extending the original goal of demining the country by 2021. This is in part due to an increase in use of landmines by armed groups, with more victims in 2019 than 2018.

Tags: Landmines, Security Deterioration