August 17, 2025
Dear President Petro and Attorney General Camargo:
We are deeply distressed by the massacre of eight Protestant church leaders, in the municipality of Calamar, Guaviare Department: Maryuri Hernández, Jesús Valero, James Caicedo, Óscar García, Nixón Peñaloza, Maribel Silva, Isaid Gómez, and Carlos Valero. Belonging to the Quandrangular and Alliance councils of Colombia, these men and women were renowned as religious and social leaders in their rural community. The shocking discovery of their bodies in a mass grave following their disappearances on April 4 and 5 have had reverberating effects in religious communities throughout the nation.
Upon receiving personal summons from an illegally armed group (understood to be a dissident faction of the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC), the eight appeared for their respective meetings over a two-day period (April 4-5), from which they never returned. Following their disappearances, family members solicited the armed group for information regarding their relatives; the dissident FARC group, however, denied ever having issued any summons to the church leaders. Furthermore, they warned that the relatives end all search efforts and “consider the case closed.” Unrelenting, international organizations and members of the public security forces discovered the location of the mass grave in a rural area of the same municipality; this was later confirmed by the Office of the Attorney General Office on July 1.
Armed groups, such as the FARC, have held strong spheres of influence in Guaviare during decades of armed conflict in Colombia. Under their power, they have imposed harsh restrictions on freedom of religion, murdering and displacing pastors and leaders that defy these constraints. Although a peace agreement was reached between the Colombian government and the FARC in November 2016, two dissident factions, the Central General Staff (EMC) and the General Staff of Blocks and Fronts (EMBF), remain active in the area. These groups pose fierce threats to life, religious freedoms, and the integral role Christian leaders have in ensuring the well-being of communities through pastoral and social work. Attacks on the freedoms of religious belief and the free exercise of religion warrant the diligent attention of government entities and society as a whole.
It is the utmost duty of the state to guarantee the safety and security of religious groups to ensure these crimes do not repeat or go unpunished. Therefore, we urge the Colombian government to take the following actions:
(1) conduct a thorough and transparent investigation into the killing of these eight church leaders, publish the results, and bring to justice those materially and intellectually responsible
(2) consult with religious leaders who conduct pastoral work in regions occupied by illegally armed groups to devise protection mechanisms, in strict accordance with their wishes
(3) accelerate efforts to bring justice and closure to the fate of so many others who have been disappeared or lost their lives at the hands of illegally armed groups
Sincerely,
Brian J. Stefan Szittai Christine L. Stonebraker-Martínez
Co-Coordinators
copies:
Daniel García-Peña Jaramillo, 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
UN: Scott Campbell, Representative in Colombia of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights ~ via email
US Embassy: John McNamara (Chargé d’Affaires); Adam Levy (human rights) ~ via email
US State Department: Desk Officer for Colombia ~ via email
US Senators from Ohio: Husted and Moreno ~ via email
US Representatives from Ohio: Beatty, Brown, Jordan, Joyce, Kaptur, Latta, Miller, Rulli, Sykes ~ via email
03 JUL 2025_Infobae_Colombia
