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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.

   

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RRN Case Update
RRN Case Update: Colombia - 12/31/2018
March 7, 2019
Colombia - case summaries 2018
More than one-third of the urgent action letters that IRTF's Rapid Response team wrote in 2018 were sent to officials in Colombia because of the disturbing increase in human rights abuses there (namely assassinations) targeting social leaders. Here is a summary of the 27 human rights cases. For more information on any of these cases, please contact irtf@irtfcleveland.org .
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RRN Letter
RRN Letter: Colombia, 2/26/2019
February 26, 2019
Please find attached the letter (Feb 26 2019) we sent to officials in Colombia regarding the assassination of José Fernel Manrique Valencia, age 34, an executive board member of the Union of Construction Material Industry Workers (SUTIMAC) in Bucaramanga in Santander Department. At 9:30pm two assassins on a motorbike shot him twice, killing him outside his home in the Café Madrid neighborhood. José Manrique Valencia worked for Cemex Colombia, a national construction company, for more than a decade. Since SUTIMAC was formed in 1972, at least 40 of its members have been murdered, but only one person has been convicted.
PDF icon 2019_02_26_jfctelesur_colombia_letter.pdf
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RRN Letter
RRN Letter: Colombia, 2/25/2019
February 25, 2019
We wrote to officials in Colombia regarding an attack on Dibeth Quintana, a leader of the Oil Workers’ Union (USO) in Aguachica, Cesar Department. After leaving a judicial proceeding in the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Aguachica on February 13, strangers abducted her, beat her, tied her hands and feet, and abandoned her on the outskirts of the municipality. She was treated in a local medical center for physical and emotional trauma.
PDF icon 2019_02_25_jfc_colombia_letter.pdf
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News Article
Colombian President Ivan Duque woos investors while in US
February 15, 2019
Companies represented in Duque’s audience included Occidental Petroleum, Twitter, Hilton, Monsanto, Southwest Airlines, Drummond, and Aecom...Duque praised the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement...and delivered the now-traditional Colombian praise and thanks for the nearly 20 years of US participation in Plan Colombia [initiated by President Clinton], which has delivered about nine billion dollars in military aid to his country.
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RRN Letter
RRN Letter: Colombia, 2/1/2019
February 1, 2019
We urge an investigation into the killing of the third FENSUAGRO member in Cauca in just two months: Dilio Corpus Guetio, age 44, died after being shot repeatedly while riding his bike to work on the morning of January 29.
PDF icon 2019_02_01_jfctelesur_colombia_letter.pdf
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RRN Letter
RRN Letter: Colombia 1/26/2019
January 26, 2019
the increasing number of assassinations of social leaders that have occurred in the past month. In addition to the six assassinated social leaders about whom we wrote in our letter of January 12, we write you once again—saddened and outraged—about six more who have been killed, two as recently as today.
PDF icon 2019_01_26_jfc_colombia_letter.pdf
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RRN Letter
RRN Letter: Colombia 1/24/19
January 24, 2019
Armed attack on human rights defender Alfamir Castillo Bermúdez near Pradera Municipality in Valle del Cauca Department.
PDF icon 2019_01_24_frontlinedefenders_colombia_letter.pdf
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News Article
Colombia by far the world’s most dangerous country for human rights defenders: study
January 15, 2019
According to Front Line Defenders: The world's most dangerous countries for human rights defenders (in order): Colombia, Mexico, Philippines, Guatemala, Brazil, India, Honduras, Venezuela, Iraq, Syria.
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News Article
Colombia’s state admits to assassinating 348 social leaders between 1985 and 2016
January 13, 2019
In a press conference that was given shortly after the release of the report, Prosecutor General Nestor Humberto Martínez and Interior Minister Nancy Patricia Gutierrez stressed that the state is no longer involved in the killing of social activists, contradicting multiple think tanks and a 2018 Interior Ministry report indicating that state officials continue to be involved in the violent persecution of social leaders...In the first 10 days of 2019, at least eight social leaders were assassinated.
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RRN Letter
RRN Letter: Colombia 1/12/2019
January 12, 2019
Assassinations of six social leaders that have occurred during the first week of 2019.
PDF icon 2019_01_12_elespectador_colombia_letter.pdf
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