Anti-Militarism: News & Updates

Violent land conflicts have persisted in the Bajo Aguán Valley in the coastal department of Colón for the past 50 years. In the 1970s, many campesinos benefited from the government’s agrarian reform. But in their zeal to expand monoculture plantations for cash crops, large agro-industrial companies like Dinant have encroached on campesino farm land. When campesino organizations began “recuperating” (recovering) their rightful lands, the companies retaliated with violence, often with the assistance of state security forces and sometimes the backing of the courts (that issue illegal eviction notices).

In 2022, President Castro signed an agreement to establish a commission to investigate and resolve land conflicts in the Bajo Aguán. That has not been fully implemented. In the meantime, campesinos are shot and killed while driving to work or working their fields.

We call to mind the many campesinos killed this year, including:

JAN 2: Arnulfo Díaz (member of Cooperativa Brisas del Aguán), forced off the road and shot by armed actors at the Río San Pedro

FEB 2: José Luis Hernández Lobo and Suyapa Guillén (active members of the Empresa Campesina Gregorio Chávez), shot when their vehicle was intercepted by armed actors in Rigores

MAY 31: Josué Esaú Aguilar Cárcamo, 22-year-old son of Guadalupe Cárcamo (active member of Empresa Campesina Gregorio Chávez), shot in Rigores while riding his motorcycle home from school

JUL 17: Carlos Antonio Rivas Canales (member of Empresa Campesina Gregorio Chávez) and his father Ramón Rivas Baquedano (member of Empresa Asociativa Campesina de Producción La Aurora), ambushed by heavily armed men while on their way to work

JUL 26: Héctor Otoniel Hernández Castro (member of Empresa Campesina Gregorio Chávez and brother of Wendy Castro, the sub-coordinator of Plataforma Agraria), shot armed men while working in the fields in Cuyamel, Trujillo.

AUG 1: Abel Monroy (father-in-law of an active member of Cooperativa El Chile who had previously been threatened), shot while driving to work in Bonito Oriental

We urge the government to take immediate action to prevent further unnecessary deaths.

One of the significant outcomes of the Peace Accords in 2016 was the installation of the JEP (Special Jurisdiction for Peace), which is a justice component of the Comprehensive System of Truth, Justice, Reparation and Non-Repetition (SIVJRNR). The JEP functions to investigate, prosecute, and punish the most serious crimes related to the armed conflict that occurred before December 1, 2016, seeking to prioritize victims, clarify the truth, and repair the damage. One of the key partners in the work of the JEP is the civil society organization CSPP (Committee in Solidarity with Political Prisoners).

Active in the Atlántico Department chapter of CSPP is 27-year-old Nilson de Arco. Last month, as he was meeting in a public space with three other human rights defenders to make a recording, a man on a motorcycle approached them. He got down from his motorcycle and shot Nilson de Arco directly. Nilson was rushed to the hospital and given specialized medical attention.

The assassination attempt on Nilson de Arco must be considered in the context of the increasing number of threats, harassment, and violence perpetrated against human rights defenders in Colombia.  We urge the government to take the necessary measures to ensure that human rights defenders, community leaders, and civil society organizations can carry out their work without fear of reprisals.

Despite the historic peace agreement between the Colombia government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in November 2016, the armed conflict continues in various regions of the country. Since January 16 of this year, the National Liberation Army (ELN) has been carrying out a campaign to regain control of large parts of the trans-border Catatumbo River region (Colombia-Venezuela), a strategic location for drug production and trafficking in North Santander Department. They have killed, assaulted, kidnapped, and disappeared civilians whom they accuse of having ties with the 33rd Front, a dissident faction of the demobilized FARC. Fighting and abuses by both sides have reportedly forced over 56,000 people to flee their homes, one of the largest mass displacements in Colombia in decades.

Meanwhile, humanitarian organizations are facing threats. Catatumbo Mothers for Peace (MCP), for example, provides shelter and psychosocial support to displaced women. On June 25, MCP denounced  a series of defamatory content published on a digital platform, which included direct threats to Carmen García, president of the association.  Less than two weeks later, two individuals on motorcycles grabbed her son in front of the group’s women’s shelter in Cúcuta, beat him, and dragged him along the asphalt, causing severe physical and psychological injuries.

We are urging that authorities in Colombia coordinate a protection scheme for Carmen García and her family and implement a comprehensive plan to ensure that all human rights defenders in Catatumbo are able to operate without threats and abuse.

The people of Honduras continue to pursue justice for the militarized repression that occurred during and following the coup d’etát on June 28, 2009.

Thousands gathered to protest near the Toncontín airport in Tegucigalpa on July 5, 2009 and were met with militarized violence. Isy Obed Murillo, age 18, became the first martyr of the coup era when he was shot in the head by army snipers. Honduran soldiers also seriously injured another young man, Alex Zavala.

Finally on January 5, 2025, former military general Romeo Vásquez Velásquez (a graduate of the infamous School of the Americas) was arrested, along with two other former military officers: Venancio Cervantes (former Deputy Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) and Carlos Puerto (former commander of the Joint Operations Command).  Romeo Vásquez Velásquez has been a fugitive since March 19, after failing to appear at his court hearing. The other two voluntarily presented themselves and are currently being held in a federal penitentiary. Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, meanwhile, evades accountability and flaunts his fugitive status as he remains active on social media and even issues messages to government officials.

We join with human rights organizations in Honduras in calling for a comprehensive search for (and detention of) fugitive Romeo Vásquez Velásquez.

Indigenous communities continue to bear the brunt of the ongoing armed conflict in Colombia. Even if leaders are not blatantly political in their work, they are still targeted.

William Ferney Pazú Toconás, age 23, was a renowned Indigenous cultural leader from Vitoyó village in the Jambaló Reservation in the north of Cauca Department. A member of the musical group Los Tiraflechas, he was passionate about playing flute and drum music and was respected for his work teaching traditional Indigenous music and instruments to children and young adults.

The morning after a cultural celebration, his body was found on the banks of a river in the center of the reservation. He became the 21st social leader killed in Cauca Department this year, and the 85th overall in Colombia.

William Ferney Pazú Toconás, ¡presente!

The National Civil Police (PNC) and members of the Armed Forces are harassing and scaring those who publicly call for the release of jailed environmental defenders José Ángel Pérez and Alejandro Henríquez, who were arrested in May after participating in a vigil protesting the eviction of 300 families from the El Bosque agricultural cooperative.  Security forces visit people’s homes, follow them in vehicles, take photographs, and interrogate people. One of the questions they ask is whether these spokespersons for these organizations motivate them to protest against the government. "What's being set up is a witch hunt," said Carlos Flores, spokesperson for the Water Forum, as he denounced the government-led effort to dismantle civil society organizations and criminalize peaceful protest.

In July, Amnesty International declared some of these falsely criminalized environmental and human rights defenders as prisoners of conscience, including José Ángel Pérez, Alejandro Henríquez, and prominent human rights and anti-corruption attorney for the human rights organization Cristosal, Ruth López.

We call on the government of El Salvador to end the systematic persecution and incarceration of advocates for the environment, civil and human rights.

Last month, the Peace Commission of the Evangelical [Protestant] Council of Colombia (CEDECOL) issued a statement condemning the massacre of eight Christian church leaders in a rural area of Calamar municipality, Guaviare Department.

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. 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. 

We are urging 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

Maryuri Hernández, Jesús Valero, James Caicedo, Óscar García, Nixón Peñaloza, Maribel Silva, Isaid Gómez, and Carlos Valero: ¡presente!