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Colombia: News & Updates
Colombia has the world's second largest population of internally displaced persons (five million) due to the half-century internal armed conflict—the longest-running war in the Western Hemisphere (since 1964). Control for territory and popular support among the three main groups (left-wing rebel forces FARC & ELN, right-wing paramilitaries, Colombian police/military) has left 220,000 killed, 75% of them non-combatants. Since 2000, the US has exacerbated the violence by sending more than $9 billion in mostly military assistance. Colombia, which has both Pacific and Atlantic coastlines, holds strategic interest for the US for global trade and military posturing.
Learn more here.
RRN Letter
August 2, 2019
paramilitary violence being waged in the port city of Buenaventura, Valle del Cauca Department. We are concerned that local security forces are complicit in allowing paramilitaries to take control over several districts of Buenaventura. The ongoing violence in Buenaventura is a clear example of how impunity for paramilitary actors threatens the true possibility of peace.
News Article
July 30, 2019
The ACLU said that more than 900 parents and children, including babies, have been separated by U.S. border authorities since U.S. District Judge Dana M. Sabraw, a George W. Bush appointee in San Diego, ordered the government to reunite more than 2,700 children with their parents more than a year ago. "It is shocking that the Trump administration continues to take babies from their parents," said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project. "The administration must not be allowed to circumvent the court order over infractions like minor traffic violations."
News Article
July 16, 2019
News Article
July 8, 2019
One of Colombia’s leading anti-corruption advocates is on her way to become the first gay mayor of the capital Bogota, according to multiple public opinion polls.
News Article
July 5, 2019
Ombudsman Carlos Negret said Wednesday that 983 social leaders have received personal threats and said it is “necessary to believe what the pamphlets say, they may not be ignored.” Ombudsman Carlos Negret said Wednesday that 983 social leaders have received personal threats and said it is “necessary to believe what the pamphlets say, they may not be ignored.” Since last year’s congressional elections in March, 481 human rights defenders were the victim of some kind of aggression, the vast majority through death threats. Twenty of them were assassinated and 13 survived assassination attempts.
News Article
July 4, 2019
Social leader Tatiana Paola Posso Espitia, 35, was shot twice in the head Wednesday morning in front of her house in El Copey located in the Department of Cesar when two men on motorcycles fired at the activist and fled the scene.
The assassination occurred just as Espitia's taxi driver, Wilson Ortega Palomino, arrived at her home to take the social leader to work, according to local media reports. The bad timing resulted in Ortega also being shot four times by the hitmen. He is in critical condition at a nearby hospital.
RRN Letter
July 2, 2019
another death threat against a prominent human rights leader, Yirley Velasco, in El Salado Village, Carmen de Bolívar municipality, in Bolívar Department.
RRN Letter
July 1, 2019
continued killings occurring at an increasing rate in Colombia. Recently, four former members of FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) were murdered in one week. They are: Rafael Polindara, Anderson Pérez Osorio,Daniel Esterilla, and Servio Delio Cuasaluzan Guanga. Also murdered was Manuel Gregorio González Segura, a beneficiary of the National Comprehensive Plan to Replace Crops for illicit use (PNIS), the government’s program to replace coca plantations with legal crops.
RRN Letter
June 25, 2019
colombian peoples’ outcry of national outrage and sorrow at the assassination of María del Pilar Hurtado, age 34, in Tierralta, Córdoba Department.
RRN Letter
June 24, 2019
recent killings by paramilitary groups—as well as government security forces—of four persons in Colombia. They are: Jader Pertuz, age 24, Jader Polo, age 24, Jeferson Trochez Escue, age 16, and Luis Fernándo Velásquez.