Tactics and tools for the protection
of Human Rights Defenders

30 June 2011

In Colombia defending human rights and land rights is still a highly dangerous job

The EU says human rights are improving in Colombia, yet killings and threats are on the rise

• Extreme right wing paramilitary groups, guerrilla fighters and the Colombian army threaten, persecute and assassinate activists.
• The Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE) and the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission (Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz) have received email death threats for their work representing victims of the war.
• Killings of indigenous leaders and community organisers continue. Indigenous organisations from different parts of the country are calling upon the state to protect their peoples.
• This week paramilitaries threatened 18 members of 10 women´s organisations in Bogotá; giving them 20 days to leave the city or “die”.
• Oidhaco asks the EU to use all the means at its disposal to urge that the Colombian government protects human rights activists.

Brussels, June 30, 2011. In Colombia defending human rights is a highly dangerous job. It is dangerous to represent victims of crimes committed by the State and its institutions. It is dangerous to defend communities against the right-wing paramilitaries, who often work in collusion with the State. It is also dangerous to defend communities from the abuses and crimes of the left-wing guerrilla. Oidhaco disagrees with the European Union´s assessment that Colombia is making progress in human rights, when on the ground human rights defenders and their organisations continue to be killed, threatened, persecuted, and charged with crimes based on dubious evidence. In Colombia defenders and community leaders live in a permanent state of fear because defending victims can cost them their lives.

 This week 10 women´s organisations with offices in Bogotá received a death threat against 18 of their members; they have been given 20 days to leave the city or “die”. The threatened NGOs work with the internally displaced population and victims of the armed conflict, and include the Women´s Route for Peace (Ruta Pacífica de Mujeres). Ana Fabricia Córdoba, a leader working for land restitution and member of this organisation, was recently assassinated on 7 June in the city of Medellín.

 The Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission (Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz) has been accompanying black communities since 1996 in the Jiguamiandó and Curbaradó river basins in the North of Colombia in their claims for the restitution of lands which were violently taken from them. The organisation recently had computer information stolen from its offices, related to the legal case against former army General Rito Alejo del Río, under investigation for working in collusion with paramilitary groups, and files related to a lawsuit against former President Álvaro Uribe. Members of the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission have recently reported being followed, the illegal tapping of their phones, and local and international campaigns to disqualify their work. In a local newspaper the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission and the Centre for Grassroots Education and Research (Centro de Investigación y Educación Popular – CINEP), another internationally respected organisation, were reported as working to support “the political and military objectives of the FARC”. In Colombia this kind of unfounded smear campaign is like issuing a death sentence against human rights activists.

 The Sucre regional section of the National Movement of Victims of State Crimes (Movimiento Nacional de Víctimas de Crímenes de Estado – Movice), in the North of Colombia, have received five spine-chilling death threats in the course of two weeks. These threats specifically name seven people who are targeted to be killed over the following days, some of whom are beneficiaries of protection measures issued by the Inter American Commission of Human Rights. In just one year, two members of this organisation in the Sucre region have been killed; all for accompanying victims returning to the La Europa farmlands, which had been illegally occupied by a company.

 Indigenous peoples, who live in lands where the conflict rages between drug traffickers, right wing paramilitaries, guerrilla fighters and the Colombian army, as well as in areas of mining exploitation, are routinely murdered, displaced, threatened, and insulted. The Indigenous Organisation of Antioquia (Organización Indígena de Antioquia –OIA) reported the killing of five community members last week. Two weeks ago soldiers assassinated another indigenous person in Arauquita in the north east of the country, reporting that they had killed a guerrilla fighter in combat. Days afterwards the army itself recognised the crime as a “mistake”. An 18 month-old indigenous baby girl was killed during a bombardment in an indigenous territory in the North of Colombia, because “it looked like a guerrilla encampment”. So far this year in the region of Nariño, Valle and Cauca, in the south west of Colombia, at least 20 indigenous people have been killed, including the leader Hugo Ulcué, a crime which was condemned by the Organisation of American States (OAS). In the same region, indigenous communities have received a number of pamphlets from paramilitary groups warning them “we are going to start killing you without mercy”.

What we describe above is only a small selection of the serious crimes carried out systematically against human rights defenders and community leaders in Colombia. Faced with this horrific panorama, Oidhaco is asking the EU to “use all the means at its disposal to urge that the Colombian government fulfills its obligation to take immediate and effective measures to protect victims, their representatives, and human rights defenders”. Oidhaco is insisting once again that the EU must “listen to Colombian victims, publicly support them, and demand that there is a real improvement in the human rights situation in Colombia, before discussing the ratification of a Free Trade Agreement with this country”. 

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