At times masked beneath decades of paramilitary repression and hidden behind headlines about Colombia’s armed guerrilla armies, Colombia’s mass movement has survived against all odds. It is now reemerging into the light of day, seemingly without notice in the international press. On November 9, Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos seemed to retreat in the face of a massive nationwide student strike that has lasted since October 12. Santos offered to withdraw his “educational reform” bill from the Colombian congress and sit down to negotiate with the student movement.
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The people of Arboleda and San Lorenzo (Nariño), tired of constant aggressions and the lack of consultation on mining development projects in their communities, reject the presence of the multinational Mazamorras Gold.
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Colombia is the first Latin American country to become subjected to the theatre of United States anti-guerrilla warfare. Colombia has also one of the richest histories of revolutionary politics on the continent extending well over half a century. It is throughout this time, that Colombia has been the battleground of an undeclared civil war.
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A Colombian Army officer charged with multiple civilian killings, known as “false positives,” last month publicly charged the commander of the U.S.-assisted unit – General Javier Fernández Leal - with collaborating in the killings. Fernández Leal has been promoted to chief of joint intelligence for the Colombian military.
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Squeezed between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes, covered by thick, forbidding jungle and drenched by so much rain that it’s among the wettest places on Earth, the Colombian region of Chocó was described by the anthropologist Michael Taussig as “one of the most remote regions of the world.”
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Today the US Office on Colombia published a report on the dramatic situation of land rights leaders and associations of displaced communities in Colombia. Against all Odds: the Deadly Struggle of Land Rights Leaders in Colombia documents the cases of 20 land rights leaders that were assassinated during the Santos administration’s first year in office and the multiple threats, attacks and stigmatizations that such leaders face.
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A TV special by PBS details the threats community activists in Colombia face from armed groups, as they try to keep an industrial gold mining company from seizing their land. "The War We Are Living," which airs November 1 and is part of a five-part series on women and war, raises new questions about the evolution of the Colombian conflict, and the extent to which the new generation of criminal organizations will continue to protect
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In 2010-2011, serious attacks continued against human rights defenders in Colombia, including numerous assassinations. Likewise, the climate of constant intimidation, threats and harassment continued against human rights defenders and their organisations. Among the most affected groups of defenders, were those working for truth, justice and reparation and land restitution, indigenous and peasants leaders, environmental defenders, leaders and members of trade unions, defenders of LGBTI persons, and organisations and journalists who denounced human rights violations.
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Firms involved in Colombia's mines must be more transparent about the payments they make and the way they are governed.
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For more than 20 years, Colombia has seen the ongoing expansion of monoculture tree plantations, to the benefit of transnational companies who have enjoyed and continue to enjoy the support of government policies. To analyze this continued expansion, whose consequences include land grabbing, rights violations and the displacement of communities, CENSAT-Friends of the Earth Colombia organized a forum entitled “Tree Plantations in Colombia: A Critical Look”, held in Bogotá on September 21, the International Day Against Monoculture Tree Plantations.
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