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| Members of right-wing paramilitary terrorist group in Colombia. |
Source: TeleSur.
"It is better not to say anything,
it is better not to talk, not to speak, it is better to be silent to
stay alive," a local priest said.
The murder of a social activist has
become an almost weekly news event in Colombia as more than 100
community leaders have been killed over the past year by right-wing
paramilitaries, Empire Files Abby Martin reports.
Just a year after the signing of what
was thought to be the monumental movement towards peace with the
country’s largest guerrilla group and Colombian government calling
a truce, the violence targeting union and social leaders has
rocketed.
In the last year, 170 leaders and
social activists known for their various missions in defense of
indigenous rights, coca rights substitution, Afro-Colombian rights,
labor rights, and LGBTQ. The statistics show a sharp contrast from
prior years where 2016 saw 117 and 63 in 2015.
The majority of violence has erupted in
sectors left vacant by the guerrilla groups which have since been
invaded by paramilitary groups. Of all of these, trade unions have
risen to the top in the number of the nation's homicides and victims
of violence and death threats, making Colombia the most dangerous
nation for union members in the world.
Over the last 20 years, about 3,000
unionists have been murdered with an outrageous rate of impunity for
the homicides measuring at 87 percent with thousands of death threats
never being investigated.
“It is difficult to unionize in
Colombia. Here, whoever complains is killed... And unfortunately, if
we look at the statistics today, here in the municipality of Tumaco,
we have roughly almost 60 unionists threatened or killed. We have 17
unionists dead, who are no longer with us just because they claimed
the right to a dignified life, to land rights,” Carlos Diaz,
Afro-Colombian leader and president of the teachers union, Seupac,
told TeleSur.
Diaz related the case of a colleague
who was an active representative of the Black communities and a
member of the teacher’s union who was arrested and violently beaten
within an inch of his life by police authorities after threatening to
sue in the defense of educator labor rights.
“Today
he is a quadriplegic who cannot speak, he stutters, he loses
consciousness, his head was struck, he has multiple injuries all over
his body and today, he’s running away...This partner, just because
he made a complaint, they tried to silence him. They labeled him an
enemy, as a government enemy,” he said, adding that simply sharing
his perspective with TeleSur put him in the line of danger.
“In our community the effect is that
you cannot talk about anything, you cannot share anything. It is
better not to say anything, it is better not to talk, not to speak,
it is better to be silent to stay alive,” said a local pastor and
spiritual leader of Luz Yeni Montano, a 48-year-old Tumacan activist
who was gunned down in her home in November.
Diaz explained that extreme delays in
the Colombian judicial process from one department to the next only
aided the high rate of impunity to continue. Those who are subject to
death threats are left to face their aggressors alone. Police will
not react until the body of a unionist turns up on the side of the
road, Diaz said. He added investigations will go on for years without
ever reaching a conviction.
In an effort to maintain the situation,
government officials have increased police forces by 9,000 units,
however, many community members are wary of the teams of law
enforcement infiltrating the country’s rural agricultural sectors.
“We
do not trust them, because of so many things that have happened over
the years. We have nothing against the police or against the army. We
simply say that this is not the way. It increases the levels of
violence instead of lowering them,” the Tumacan priest said.
According to a recent report published
by the Institute of Studies for Peace Development, Indepaz, a
Colombian non-governmental organization, the murders are highly
localized to four regional departments: Nariño (28), Antioquia (23),
Valle (14) and Choco (12). There were 32 assassinations alone in the
community of San Jose de Apartado Cauca located in Antioquia.
* * *
PARAMILITARIES FLOOD ZONES VACATED BY THE FARC-EP.
25 July 2017.
Right-wing
paramilitary forces continue to operate throughout the country
inflicting terror on social and political movements, as well as on
the civilian population.
While
the peace process in Colombia has been welcomed by broad sections of
Colombian society, the demobilization of the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia has brought with it the swarming of paramilitary
groups to rural regions the rebels left behind.
According
to Leon Valencia, director of the Foundation for Peace and
Reconciliation, there are whole families who are currently at risk
due to the expansion of right-wing military groups who had once been
deterred by the presence of the left-wing guerrilla group.
A
month ago, the FARC handed in the last of its weapons to United
Nations officials effectively ending 53 years of military war with
the state. Many expected the demobilization of the country’s
largest and most influential rebel group to mark the end of the
devastating violence that has ravaged the country for decades.
However,
the reality is that right-wing criminal bands continue to operate
throughout the country inflicting terror on social and political
movements, as well as on the civilian population in general.
According
to Periodistas en Español, for example, paramilitary groups have
only recently re-entered San Jose de Apartado, a village that 10
years ago was the victim of one of Colombia’s worst modern day
massacres at the hands of armed right-wing groups. Their presence in
the area has been attributed to the FARC’s demobilization.
What’s
even more concerning is that local military forces have been seen
acting in cooperation with the paramilitaries with local residents
reporting “commonplace meetings” between the two forces.
At
a press conference Monday, FARC leader Ivan Marquez warned that the
government’s lack of commitment to security protocols established
in the peace accord was giving way to a resurgence of a “dirty war”
by the ultra-right.
Since
the demobilization process began, six demobilized rebels have been
assassinated by paramilitary forces raising the concern of a
repetition of the violence inflicted on the Patriotic Union party in
the 1980s and 90s.
Juan
Manuel Santos' government, which has previously denied the existence
of paramilitary groups in the country, could eventually seriously
dent or even lose the hard won peace agreement due to its failure to
act to stop these increasingly destructive terrorist elements.