Colombia, essentially the most harmful nation on the planet for human rights defenders | EUROtoday

The names of the human rights defenders murdered in Colombia occupy a lot of the pages of the annual report of Front Line Defenders wherein this NGO, which works to guard leaders in danger worldwide, relates the identities of not less than 300 victims in 28 international locations, in 2023. With 146 crimes – virtually half of the overall – Colombia tops the listing globally, adopted by Mexico with 30 murders, Brazil with 24 and Honduras with 19. Nine Latin American international locations account for 79% of the circumstances.

The international determine is the bottom since 2017 and, though Colombia's is decrease than that of 2022, when 186 murders had been reported, it represents the very best share of the overall since 2020, when it was above 53%, whereas In 2023 it stood at 48%. It is, in essence, a brand new bell on the already evident escalation of the inner armed battle as a result of dispute over territories the place illicit economies, reminiscent of drug trafficking and unlawful mining, are concentrated, and its impression on the lifetime of the communities, particularly within the rural zones.

In its evaluation, the report warns that the context wherein human rights defenders work in Colombia stays extraordinarily harmful, “as they continue to be trapped in power struggles with violent non-state actors that exercise social, economic, political and territorial control.” , searching for to destroy or supplant Afro-descendant and indigenous management.”

In the final week alone, a number of municipalities within the departments of Cauca and Valle del Cauca, within the southwest of the nation, acquired a string of violent assaults that precipitated the demise of a 12-year-old minor, two cops and two prisoners. The assaults had been attributed to buildings affiliated with the so-called Central General Staff (EMC), a bunch of dissidents of the previous FARC with which the Government of President Gustavo Petro is finishing up negotiations as a part of its goal, more and more unsure, of reaching the so-called complete peace. The disaster is such that it has fractured the EMC as a result of dialogue concerning the path to observe in that search.

In addition to resisting confinement, displacement, compelled recruitment of minors and land dispossession, human rights defenders are victims of stigmatization. Those who dare to denounce one aspect or the opposite, or to disclose alliances between authorities and unlawful teams, run the chance of being murdered. “The common practice of labeling human rights defenders as military targets by armed actors such as the Gaitanista Self-Defense of Colombia (AGC), the National Liberation Army (ELN) and dissidents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) completely undermined their protection,” the Front Line Defenders report states.

Astrid Torres, coordinator of the Somos Defensores Program, a Colombian group allied to that NGO, says that the report exhibits a structural failure. “It is evidence that the Colombian State has failed in its constitutional duty to protect the life and integrity of leaders and defenders who have been murdered for seeking profound transformations in an unequal country, such as defending the land,” she maintains. .

Of the murders recorded in Colombia final yr, not less than 64 indigenous folks, peasants and Afro-descendants, a mirror of the world state of affairs the place 31% of the victims had been defenders of the rights of indigenous peoples. The complete variety of documented murders of human rights defenders within the final decade rose to nearly 3,000 globally, the report warns.

This situation hinders the development of the protection of the rights of the communities and needs to be a trigger for concern on the regional stage, emphasizes Óscar Daza, secretary normal of the National Organization of the Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon (OPIAC). “There are many interests towards the territories and one of the barriers has always been the indigenous peoples who seek to stop actions, for example, in the Amazon, for the illegal extraction of gold. We are defenders of the earth by nature. The consequences are murder, threats or displacement. We indigenous peoples are the ones in the middle of the war,” says the chief.

The causes which are most in danger, within the eyes of defenders in international locations of the Americas, are, exactly, the rights of indigenous peoples, land use, environmental safety and ladies's rights. “In this time, thousands of defenders have paid with their lives and many more face continued attacks and intimidation for their peaceful work. Urgent action is needed to change this,” stated Front Line Defenders government director Alan Glasgow.

To cease the murders of human rights defenders in Colombia, it won’t be sufficient to supply protecting vests and armored vehicles, believes the deputy director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch, Juan Pappier. “It is necessary to have a solid security policy, aimed at protecting the civilian population and seeking the judicial dismantling of the armed groups that operate in the country. It is also urgent to reform the protection mechanisms to ensure that they are more efficient and transparent and are better anchored in the reality experienced in the territories,” he suggests.

In the seek for options to remain protected, some defenders abandon their territories, affecting the protection of the communities. Daza, the chief of OPIAC, provides that it’s tough to anticipate ensures from State actors. “We don't even trust the government itself. One of the mechanisms that we have proposed is to strengthen the indigenous guard to feel more protected internally, under our own government systems,” he factors out.

For her half, Astrid Torres, the coordinator of Somos Defensores, additionally calls for responses from the justice system to forestall 80% of circumstances of assaults in opposition to human rights defenders from persevering with to go unpunished. “The Attorney General's Office must move quickly to clarify the homicides and attacks suffered by defenders because the high level of impunity shows that, if there is no justice, the events are repeated,” she claims.

The lack of safety ensures for defenders of social causes additionally impacts the implementation of the peace agreements between the Colombian Government and the previous FARC in 2016, and the participation of civil society in negotiations such because the one that’s advancing with the ELN, the final guerrilla in arms within the nation.

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