PBI-Colombia accompanies meeting with Special Jurisdiction for Peace about the San Antonio Estuary in Buenaventura

On January 18, PBI-Colombia tweeted:

“We accompany the meeting with the @JEP_Colombia [Special Jurisdiction for Peace] and petitioners of the Precautionary Measures of the San Antonio estuary in Buenaventura. It is important that the measures be maintained and that a macro-case on forced disappearance be opened. @IrelandColombia.”

PBI-Colombia also shared this tweet from the Nydia Erika Bautista Foundation (FNEB) that further explains: “FNEB Mothers for Life and the Inter-Church Commission insist that the JEP president open a macro-case on forced disappearance under the principle of equality before the law and not lift Precautionary Measures for the Protection of San Antonio estuary in Buenaventura, as the risk persists.”

The Inter-Church Commission of Justice and Peace also tweeted the photo above with the text: “The image of the day In JEP facilities, petitioners of precautionary measures on the San Antonio estuary, spoke with the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, about the extension of the measure, risks, difficulties and the need for a macro case on forced disappearance.”

The City Paper has explained: “The San Antonio estuary is believed to be the final resting place for hundreds of disappeared persons killed by drug-traffickers vying for control of routes, that like the San Antonio estuary, meander through overcrowded shanties.”

In April 2021, El Tiempo also reported that the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) tribunal had agreed to study a request from 16 organizations, including the Inter-Church Commission for Justice and Peace and the Nydia Erika Bautista Foundation for Human Rights, to order the protection of the wetlands in the south of the city so that residents would have the right to search for their missing relatives.

And PBI-Colombia has explained: “Communities and organizations of victims of enforced disappearance who have resisted the violence alongside human rights organizations like the Nydia Erika Bautista Foundation (FNEB) and the Inter-church Commission de Justice and Peace (JyP) who, together with others, in December 2021 achieved the implementation of precautionary measures for the San Antonio Estuary.”

PBI-Colombia has also explained the importance of the measures: “The precautionary measures granted by the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), prohibit any intervention in the estuary, in particular dredging and civil works as these represent the serious risk of causing irreparable damages in the locations where the disappeared bodies lie.”

In September 2022, W Radio reported: “The Section of Absence of Recognition of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) extended for six more months the protection measures on the Estero San Antonio de Buenaventura, an area in which they investigate the possible presence of remains of disappeared.”

Expansion of the port

The Nydia Erika Bautista Foundation for Human Rights (FNEB) has opposed expansion of the port in Buenaventura because it destroys areas where they report graves.

In September 2021, Peace Brigades International made this intervention at the Interactive Dialogue with the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances that highlighted: “Expansion works port in Buenaventura would irreversibly affect the location of the remains of people disappeared, as in the case of Estero San Antonio, on which the Special Jurisdiction for Peace is studying the approval of precautionary measures.”

PBI-Canada has also raised this concern with the Canadian Embassy in Colombia this past summer in relation to the expansion of the port due to increased trade as a result of the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement.

PBI-Colombia has been accompanying the Nydia Erika Bautista Foundation occasionally from 2007 and in full since 2016. And it has accompanied the Inter-Church Commission of Justice and Peace since 1994.