Rapid Response Network

We wrote to officials in Colombia because of our concern for the safety of church leaders who are speaking out against armed violence. We are especially concerned that Bishop Ruben Dario Jaramillo, the bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Buenaventura, Valle del Cauca Department, is receiving death threats. The bishop told a radio journalist on March 3 that he received a death threat via WhatsApp and was warned he could become the victim of a bomb attack. We are concerned that paramilitary organizations are succeeding in seizing control over several districts of Buenaventura because the local security forces are complicit in allowing them to do so. The paramilitary groups are trying to impose their control in the city through fear, various extortionist tactics, and advertising what they call a “social cleansing” in the city. In the process, they are forcibly recruiting youth. The ongoing violence in Buenaventura is a clear example of how impunity for paramilitary actors threatens the true possibility of peace.

We urge protection for Wounan Phobur indigenous leader Ricardo Gonzáles Chirimia, a director of the Association of Communities Building Peace in Colombia (CONPAZCOL); he is being threatened in Buenaventura, Colombia. In 2003 paramilitaries forcibly displaced Ricardo Gonzáles Chirimia and his community from Bajo Calima village. In order to preserve their cultural identity, he and many of his indigenous community members temporarily settled in a small area designated by the Community Council del Bajo Calima. Since then they have been waiting for the national government’s Territory Renewal Agency (ART) to designate another site for definitive relocation. We are urging that (1) authorities investigate the threat received by Ricardo Gonzáles Chirimia, publish the results, and bring those responsible to justice; (2) the National Protection Unit activate preventative protection measures, in consultation with Ricardo Gonzáles Chirimia, and according to his wishes; and (3) the Territory Renewal Agency (ART) guarantee the definitive relocation of the Wounan Phobur indigenous community as soon as possible.

The Department of Antioquia was hardest hit by a wave of violence in February, due mostly to the predominance of the paramilitary group Clan del Golfo (Gulf Clan) in the region. Our letter to the president and attorney general of Colombia includes these incidents of horrific violence: a massacre of five farm workers, assassinations, threats to school teachers, and a 13-year old indigenous boy who lost his leg when he stepped on a landmine. We are urging that authorities in Colombia: (1) take all necessary steps to fully implement the 2016 Peace Accords, (2) immediately finalize the National Commission on Security Guarantees’ public policy for dismantling armed groups and their networks, and (3) strengthen the Special Investigation Unit to identify and prosecute both the material assailants and intellectual authors of attacks on human rights defenders and former combatants.

ADISPA is doing critical work to protect the Amazonian Pearl Peasant Reserve Zone (ZRCPA) of Putumayo by promoting reforestation initiatives and denouncing the socio-environmental effects of oil extraction operations. For that reason, powerful groups want them out of the way. The InterChurch Commission of Justice and Peace (CIJP) recently verified a plan by the the armed group Comando de la Frontera (Border Command) to kill or displace members of the Association for the Integral and Sustainable Development of the Amazonian Pearl (ADISPA). During the first weeks of 2021, the Comando de la Frontera visited some of the 700 families who live in the ZRCPA to tell them that ADISPA should disappear, and that no social organization that wants to work in the territory could do so if it disobeys their rules. Because of these ongoing threats, we are urging that authorities in Colombia grant members of ADISPA protection measures, in consultation and in agreement with them.

Twenty-six year-old nursing student Keyla Martínez died in police custody on February 7. Arrested the night before for an alleged violation of a COVID-restriction curfew, an autopsy found that she had died from “mechanical asphyxiation” in her jail cell. While police initially reported her death as a suicide, the former director of forensic medicine reports that she suffered torture, strangulation, and possible sexual abuse at the hands of police in jail. The Center for Women’s Rights in Honduras stated, “The femicide of Keyla Martínez is added to the history of abuse of power and disproportionate use of force, that with or without the curfew, are exercised by public functionaries, above all police and military, against the population.” Honduras consistently ranks among the top five nations in the world in femicide. Equally alarming is the high rate of impunity for those who commit these murders. We demand justice for Keyla Martínez. #JusticiaParaKeyla

Death threats to María Eugenia Mosquera Riascos are part of a larger context of illegal armed groups intimidating members of the human rights community in Buenaventura, Valle del Cauca Department. These armed groups, responsible for forced recruitment of youth, are trying to impose their control in the city through fear, various extortionist tactics, and advertising what they call a “social cleansing” in the city. Maria Eugenia Mosquera Riascos is the legal representative of CONPAZCOL (Association of Communities Building Peace in Colombia) and member of the Roundtable for Access to Justice, Victims, Protection and Memory), which participates in the Buenaventura Civic Strike Committee. On January 7, again on January 29 and 30, she received a series of threatening messages on her mobile phone. One threat read: “you have three guys watching you,” and “we are the ones who kill informant toads of those other people.”

Police used force to displace 44 campesino (peasant) families from two communities in Francisco Morazan. On the morning of February 5, police dressed in black came to their rural communities and—without presenting a legal eviction order—began a forced eviction that ended in the destruction of all the collective work the families had built for more than 12 years. Homes and community buildings were bulldozed. When Luvy Canales, the families’ legal representative, requested to see a legal eviction order, police detained her. The lands that these families inhabited have been designated as communal (ejido). They are used for subsistence purposes only (growing food, raising animals) by families who do not own their own land. The National Association of Rural Workers (CNTC) has initiated an investigation process into this forced eviction. We are urging that officials in Honduras: 1) instruct INA (Instituto Nacional Agrario) to investigate the legal titles of these disputed lands to establish true ownership/possession and make accommodations for the 44 families; 2) safeguard the life and security of all citizens of Honduras through the execution of a comprehensive and inclusive agrarian policy that protects the most vulnerable.

Hate speech incites violence. Deadly attacks on FMLN party members are occurring in a hostile atmosphere being fostered by President Nayib Bukele. On January 31, FMLN activists María Gloria Rogel de López and Juan de Dios Tejada were killed when gunmen opened fire on their pickup truck in San Salvador as they were returning from a campaign rally supporting the candidacy of Rogelio Canales for mayor of the capital. Three days later, armed gunmen entered the home of former FMLN Councilman José Berríos and shot him dead. President Bukele has been making unsubstantiated accusations that officials from the Supreme Electoral Tribunal are conspiring to commit fraud against him and his Nuevas Ideas political party, which will be running candidates for the first time on February 28.

Unknown men arrived at the home Julio David González Arango and shot him. Why? Julio González is a member of a movement called the Peaceful Resistance which for the past decade has been actively organizing opposition to the environmental harms caused by the Escobal silver mine, owned by the Canada-based multinational Pan American Silver. Fortunately, Julio González survived. But the very next day, two other members of the environmental resistance movement received death threats by text message: "you will be next." IRTF wrote to authorities in Guatemala, urging that they 1) conduct a complete, independent, and impartial investigation into the assassination attempt and death threats, publish the results, and bring those responsible to justice; 2) ensure that Pan American Silver respects a 2018 order of the Constitutional Court to halt mining operations and puts a stop to all its public relations work that is increasing tension in the region and is contributing to the insecurity of the residents. IRTF is also among 195 organizations from across the Americas that signed a letter directed at the leadership of Pan American Silver.

The police and military in Guatemala are using excessive force to expel caravans of migrants who entered Guatemala, most hoping to cross the country and arrive at the Mexico border to seek political asylum in Mexico or the United States. Of the estimated 7-8,000 migrants who crossed into Guatemala (largely Hondurans) since the week of January 11, about 2,000 migrants were slowed down by security forces who blockaded a highway near the village of Vado Hondo in southeastern Guatemala on January 16. The following day, hundreds of police and military pushed migrants south by launching teargas and surging with plastic shields and batons. Unknown numbers of migrants were beaten; many sought medical attention for their injuries. We are aware that the sheer number of migrants was overwhelming. We realize that Guatemala needs to protect its own citizens against the corona virus. Nevertheless, this show of force was excessive. Migrants have an internationally-recognized right to seek political asylum. We are urging that authorities in Guatemala: 1) assess the police and military response to the migrant caravan and bring to justice any security personnel who used force that caused serious bodily injury to migrants; 2) work with neighboring countries to allow for the safe passage of migrants who journey through Guatemala to pursue their internationally-recognized right to apply for political asylum in Mexico or the United States