Colombia, 1/14/2024

January 14, 2024

Dear Sirs:

We are writing with deep sadness to learn of the assassination of  Juan David Chávez Yoino. The 23-year-old member of the Nasa Indigenous reservation Juan Tama del Pueblo Nasa was shot four times by armed men in the early morning hours of November 12, 2023 in the rural community of Antonio Nariño, municipality of La Plata, Huila Department.

Juan David Chávez Yoino was a member of the Indigenous Guard of the Resguardo Nasa Juan Tama del Pueblo Nasa. According to INDEPAZ (Institute for the Studies of Development and Peace), Juan David Chávez Yoino became the 141th social leader assassinated in 2023, numbering among the 1,555 leaders assassinated since the signing of the Peace Accords in November 2016.

As of December 11, 2023, the number had risen to 157 social leaders killed. On that day, the Constitutional Court declared that the current state of affairs is unconstitutional due to the violation of the rights of the population. It therefore ordered the national government to guarantee the security of social leaders. Specifically, the Constitutional Court ordered the National Planning Office, the Attorney General's Office and the Prosecutor's Office to design a comprehensive plan to prevent and confront violence against social leaders. The court also ordered that the national government must have the institutional capacity and budget for protection mechanisms.

We urge that you

• publish the results of the investigation of the assassination of Juan David Chávez Yoino and bring those responsible to justice
• work with the Nasa Indigenous communities of Huila to provide protection measures, in accordance with their wishes
• move forward in designing (and funding) a new comprehensive plan for the protection of social leaders,  as ordered by the Constitutional Court, and involve social leaders in the process

Sincerely,

Brian J. Stefan Szittai               Christine Stonebraker-Martínez

Co-Coordinators

copies:           

Margarita Leonel Cabello Blanco, Procuradora General / Prosecutor General ~ via email

Augusto Rodríguez Ballesteros, Director de la Unidad Nacional de Protección (UNP) ~ via email

Luis Gilberto Murillo, Ambassador of Colombia to the US ~ via email, US mail

José Luis Caballero Ochoa, Rapporteur for Colombia ,  Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) ~ via email, US mail

Arif Bulkan, Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) ~ via email, US mail

UN: Juliette De Rivero, Representative in Colombia of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights ~ via email

US Embassy: Francisco Palmieri (Chargé d’Affaires, ad interim); Sandra Lee (human rights) ~ via email

US State Department: Christine Russell, Desk Officer for Colombia ~ via email

US Senators from Ohio: Brown & Vance ~ via email

US Representatives from Ohio: Beatty, Brown, Jordan, Joyce, Kaptur, Latta, Miller, Sykes ~ via email