Colombia: News & Updates

Gustavo Petro, a former left-wing guerrilla and the front-runner in Colombia's presidential election next month, is promising to shake up Colombian society. Disillusioned with the war, Petro took part in peace talks that paved the way for the M-19 to disarm and form a left-wing political party in 1990. Petro talks of raising taxes on the rich — and printing money — to pay for anti-poverty programs. To move toward a greener economy, he promises to stop all new oil exploration and to cut back on coal production, even though these are Colombia's two top exports. Petro has outlined a 12-year transition period and says the country could replace the lost income from fossil fuels with a major boost to tourism, and improvements in agriculture and industry. "I am proposing a path that is much better for Colombia," Petro told NPR.

Colombia’s anti-fracking activists are facing increased threats and violence as two investigative pilot projects to extract oil and gas from unconventional fields move forward, five campaigners said, with some forced to flee in fear for their lives. Threats against activists are common in Colombia, which was the deadliest country for environmental and land defenders in 2019 and 2020, according to campaign group Global Witness. “Environmentalists have repeatedly reported that the authorities dismiss their complaints of threats and do not give them adequate protection,” said Juan Pappier, advocacy group Human Rights Watch’s senior investigator for the Americas.

Eleven Colombian ex-soldiers are giving details about extrajudicial killings carried out by the army during Colombia's armed conflict, as they are taking part in a public hearing of the special court examining crimes committed during the conflict. Néstor Gutiérrez was among six former members of the military who gave evidence on the first day of the hearing on Tuesday. Five more are due to appear on Wednesday. The six took responsibility for killing at least 120 civilians between 2007 and 2008 and passing them off as combat fatalities in the Catatumbo region, in eastern Colombia.

Please see a summary of the letters we sent to heads of state and other high-level officials in Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, urging their swift action in response to human rights abuses occurring in their countries.  We join with civil society groups in Latin America to (1) protect people living under threat, (2) demand investigations into human rights crimes, and (3) bring human rights criminals to justice…..IRTF’s Rapid Response Network (RRN) volunteers write six letters in response to urgent human rights cases each month. We send copies of these letters to US ambassadors, embassy human rights officers, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, regional representatives of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and desk officers at the US State Department. To read the letters, see https://www.irtfcleveland.org/content/rrn , or ask us to mail you hard copies.

On Monday night, the Institute of Studies for Development and Peace (INDEPAZ) denounced the murder of John Jairo Esquivel. This fact brings to 55 the number of human rights defenders killed so far this year. Esquivel, who was a member of the Peasant Guard and a member of the National Peasant Association (ASONALCA), lived in the municipality of Fortul, in the department of Arauca. Illegal armed organizations and the Second Division of the Colombian Army are present in this area. The Association also highlighted that the persecution, stigmatization, prosecution, and murder of social activists aggravates the humanitarian crisis. This happens amid the reconfiguration of the armed conflict carried out by paramilitary structures, which are continuing the genocide against Colombians.

Ex-guerrilla Gustavo Petro, who leads in opinion polls ahead of Colombian elections next month, signed an oath Tuesday not to expropriate property if he becomes the country's first-ever leftist president. "My proposal of transformation for this country is not grounded in, and does not include, any kind of expropriation," the 61-year-old senator told reporters.

Colombia’s opposition and anti-corruption advocates have sued President Ivan Duque for allegedly trying to influence the May 29 presidential election. Senator Ivan Cepeda said last week that he would sue the president and seven mayors for abusing their position for electoral purposes. The Anticorruption Institute, a non-government organization, said Monday that it sued before the Cundinamarca Administrative Tribunal for his allegedly illegal participation in electoral politics.

Almost 1.5 million votes that were cast in Colombia’s congressional elections were omitted from the announced results, according to election observers. Vega has blamed the discrepancy on a design flaw in the senate vote form and irregularities committed by jurors. Alejandro Barrios, the director of the Electoral Observation Mission (MOE), disputed Vega’s explanations. "That does not explain why we are talking about a difference of around 6% or 7% between what was announced and actually counted, because in other electoral processes we talk about a 0.5% difference".