VIOLENCE IN COLOMBIA
As you know the violence has been one of the biggest problems in Colombia.
Today I want to talk about two main types of violence
a) violence by public security forces
b) violence against community activist
a) Violations
by Public Security Forces
From
2002 through 2008, army
brigades across Colombia routinely executed civilians in what are known as
«false positive» killings.
September 2019, the
Attorney General’s Office had opened over 2,000
investigations on alleged unlawful killings by army personnel from 2002 through
2008, and
had achieved over 900 convictions in cases against more than 1,600 mid-
and low-level soldiers, including
convictions against the same individual in various cases. In
September 2019, cases
against 29 army generals under investigation for false-positive killings had
seen scant progress. Nicacio
de Jesús Martínez Espinel as head of the army, despite
credible evidence linking him to false positives.
The army apologized for the April 29 killing by
one of its soldiers of Dimar Torres, a
former FARC fighter, in
Catatumbo, in
northeast Colombia. In
2019, the
New York Times, Semana
magazine,
and Human Rights Watch published documents showing that in 2019 the army
reinstated military policies resembling those that led to the «false positives. » The
bulk of the new policies remained in force at time of writing.
b) Violence Against Community Activists
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights documented the killings of 41 human rights defenders between January and
late July 2019. In
March, a
group of young men broke into the home of Argemiro López, a
community activist who promoted the substitution of coca for food crops in La
Guayacana, in
the southwestern municipality of Tumaco. Most
killings have been committed in areas where illegal economic activities prevail, such
as drug production and trafficking, that are pretty common. The
office said it had obtained convictions against 62 perpetrators.
Authorities have made much less progress in prosecuting
people who ordered murders against community leaders. Such
measures are provided in response to threats, but
many community leaders killed had not reported threats or requested protection. In
April 2018, the
government signed a decree creating collective protection programs for
communities and rights groups at risk. An action plan introduced in November
2018 to protect community leaders has not led to any evident results.
By Nathalie
Salas, Step 9
