April 22, 2021
“Narcos” shot and injured an indigenous governor and at least 21 others who were removing coca from their reserve in southwest Colombia on Thursday, according to local authorities.
In response to the attack, native Colombians from indigenous reserve La Laguna in Caldono, Cauca, detained five alleged members of an illegal armed group, Senator Feliciano Valencia tweeted.
Within an hour, indigenous authorities from the region said that 31 people were injured and that 10 alleged members of the illegal armed group were detained by indigenous guards.
“They shot the governor”
The alleged narcos attacked the native Colombians from the Laguna reserve while the locals were eradicating the coca that was planted without their consent.
Members of the Comunidad de Paz de San Jose de Apartado march in memory of victims of the continuing violence in Colombia. Photo by the Comunidad de Paz de San Jose de Apartado, which is about 50 kilometers from the Panamanian border.
Reporting human rights abuses is not a crime
by the Defend the Sacred Alliance, Kumi Naidoo, Nnimmo Bassey and Noam Chomsky
Twenty-four years ago, the search for a way out of the unending violent conflict in Colombia saw a significant moment of hope. On 23 March 1997, 1,350 displaced farmers gathered in the remote village of San Jose de Apartado in the north-western province of Antioquia to join together and form a peace community. After paramilitaries had roamed the region pillaging and massacring, the local community declared itself neutral in the war, rejecting weapons, drugs, alcohol and cooperation with any armed group. With their community, the people of San Jose have shown other communities in the country how to break the victim-perpetrator cy
April 20, 2021
The chiefs of Colombia’s transitional justice system said Monday that the ongoing assassinations of former FARC fighters and community leaders is threatening their work.
In a joint statement, the presidents of war crimes tribunal JEP, the Truth Commission and the Special Unit for Missing Persons urged the Ombudsman to take action.
According to JEP President Eduardo Cifuentes, the assassinations of former guerrillas do not just end their cooperation with justice but “discourage the contributions to the truth” about the FARC’s war crimes.
Also in the case of human rights defenders and community leaders, the terror caused by the assassinations threatens to silence communities’ participation to the transitional justice system.
April 14, 2021 last updated 16:59 ET Then-Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, left, and then-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden at the presidential palace in Bogota, Colombia, June 18, 2014 (AP photo by Javier Galeano).
Colombia’s Shaky Peace Deal Needs Biden’s Support
BOGOTA, Colombia In his last visit to Colombia as U.S. vice president in December 2016, Joe Biden praised then-President Juan Manuel Santos for the historic peace accord reached that year with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia the country’s largest guerrilla group, better known as the FARC which ended the longest-running armed conflict in the Western Hemisphere.
More than four years later, the Andean nation is at risk of losing most of the security gains from the hard-won peace agreement, with violence escalating to levels last seen before the peace talks. Now that Biden is back in office as president, he must pay attention to the factors derailing Colombia’s progress