Already in January of this year, 23 social leaders have been assassinated in the country. More than 800 leaders have been assassinated since the peace agreements were signed in November 2016 along with 170 ex-combatants of the FARC guerilla. This genuine humanitarian crisis is not being dealt with in any real or effective way by the government of Iván Duque Márques; nor was it during the government of Juan Manuel Santos, in spite of the fact that it was under his government that the peace talks were concluded with the now extinct guerilla of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC.

With the blunt clarity that characterizes our social leaders – who are assassinated precisely for being outspoken –, Leyner Palacios Asprilla, an Afro-Colombian leader who survived the massacre of Bojayá in the Chocó Department in 2002, sent a letter to Iván Duque before a meeting that was later held with the President, informing him that there were over 300 armed men in his municipality. In his letter of January 8, 2020, he pointed out to the President that: “The activities of paramilitary groups of the AGC (Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia or “Clan del Golfo”) are being carried out in collusion with the state security forces based near the Atrato River and many other sectors of the Pacific region; this contradicts the legitimacy of a Government that proposes legality as a principle of intervention.” He further points out that the presence of 300 armed men in the community of Pogue and others near the Bojayá River increases the horror, since in some communities, in previous months, this armed group had attacked women physically and sexually. At the same time, he points out that the presence of the guerillas of the National Liberation Army, ELN, has expanded its occupation of the territory, generating anxiety and imminent risk in our communities by their actions of war and the increasing installation of anti-personnel landmines.

Palacios rejects the Government’s position of blaming activities linked to drug trafficking in the region as the only cause of the critical situation, “because it is well-known that historically this regional conflict, in addition to the drug trade, has been associated with the instigation of development, such as large-scale mining, oil palm agribusiness and infrastructural megaprojects.” He concludes by pointing out that a policy must be established to guarantee autonomy over the use and control of the territory by the Indigenous and Afro-Colombian peoples of the region. The first measure in this sense should be the total implementation of the peace agreement, on which there is a consensus in the whole region.  He also underlines continuation of the fight against drug trafficking through the substitution of crops of illicit usage; the continuation of negotiations with the ELN guerilla movement and a policy that the paramilitary bands must submit to the State.

In my opinion, Palacios is right in identifying the most important problem behind the assassination of social leaders, not only in Chocó and in the Colombian Pacific region, but also in other departments of the country such as Antioquia, Cauca, Putumayo and the North of Santander, where the majority of assassinations of social leaders and FARC ex-combatants are concentrated. That is, the connivance of detachments of the state security forces with illegal armed organizations, primarily with the paramilitary groups that are present in these regions. It is inadmissible that in strongly militarized territories such as those noted above, paramilitary groups are present every day, displacing populations, assassinating social leaders and dominating the territory with activities linked to drug trafficking. They can only do this because they have deeply infiltrated units of the National Army and the Police that are present in these territories, as well as a large part of the local governments that they penetrate by financing their political campaigns.

While no serious public policy is in place for dismantling the paramilitaries, we will continue seeing the assassination of our social leaders across the country and principally in those regions in which the communities want to abolish the cultivation of coca and the illegal mining that these criminal organizations feed on. The Peace Agreement signed with FARC established, in my opinion, the central elements of such a policy, as well as the organizations that should complete its formulation and set it in motion, The agreement established that the National Commission of Security Guarantees would be comprised of the Ministers of Defence and Interior, the Attorney General's Office, the Ombudsman, five delegates of human rights organisations and the General Commander of the Armed Forces, along with the Commander of the Army, and the national director of the Police. It would be presided over by the President of the Republic. This Commission is meant to draw up public policy for dismantling the paramilitaries, for which it would have the support of an Autonomous Unit in the Public Prosecutor’s Office, an elite corps of the national police under its command, with resources and its own budget, along with its own staff of investigators.

All of this has remained on paper only. During the almost 18 months of the Duque administration, the government has only called a meeting of the Commission three times, when, according to the accord, it should meet at least once a month. This body has not tackled its principal task, which is to provide the country with a public policy to dismantle the paramilitaries; a meeting has been called only when faced with the overwhelming crisis of assassinations of social leaders, but without guaranteeing the regular continuity of its functioning.

And as for the Special Unit in the Public Prosecutor’s Office for confronting and dismantling criminal structures, the disastrous and corrupt ex-prosecutor Nestor Humberto Martinez took on the task of subordinating it to the public prosecutor, so that in effect he managed to denature its functioning and submit it to his own office, by which it lost its reason for being and its autonomy. Today it is a bureaucratic entity that does not show any results. So what Leynar Palacios is saying is not only accurate but can also be extended to those policies related to dismantling the paramilitaries, which is envisaged in the Peace Accords.

The insane increase in the assassination of ex-combatants of the guerilla and of social leaders was one of the reasons for the calling the mobilizations that took place in 103 municipalities of the country on January 21. They are the first mobilizations this year in the framework of the so-called National Strike that began on November 21 last year. The mobilizations, even if not as big as the marches that took place in 2019, are the beginning of this new round of protest. They were important, with tens of thousands of demonstrators in the streets to keep up the pressure on the government that up to now has refused to negotiate with the National Strike Committee. The challenge now is to maintain this mobilization and in this direction, the national meeting being held on January 30 and 31 in Bogota is very important in order to debate not only the contents of the demands but also to develop strategies for new calls. This is the new challenge.

Bogotá, 23/01/2020

(Translated for ALAI by Jordan Bishop and Joan Remple)

- Pedro Santana Rodríguez es director de la Revista Sur (Colombia)