PBI-Colombia amplifies statement on Catatumbo signed by accompanied organizations CAJAR, CSPP and CJL

Published by Brent Patterson on March 7, 2025March 7, 2025

Image by the CAJAR lawyers’ collective: “For a social pact for Catatumbo with guarantees: we call for presidential rectification” 

Organizations accompanied by PBI-Colombia, including the “José Alvear Restrepo” Lawyers’ Collective (CAJAR), the Committee of Solidarity with Political Prisoners (CSPP), and the Corporation for Judicial Freedom (CJL), “strongly reject” a recent statement made by Colombian president Gustavo Petro.

They say Petro’s comment puts the lives of defenders at risk.

“Attention. Human rights platforms and social and victim organizations reject statements made by Gustavo Petro during the Council of Ministers in which he links civil society organizations and their members with armed groups operating in Catatumbo. This puts their lives at risk and turns them into military targets. We demand rectification.”

Repost by PBI-Colombia.

This joint statement signed by numerous other organizations notes that during a televised session of the Council of Ministers on March 3 on the situation in Catatumbo, Petro stated: “we know that many of the social organizations presented by Alexander are permeated by weapons, subordinate to arms”.

Context to understand this statement

“Alexander” appears to refer to Alexander López Maya, the director of the National Planning Department (DNP) whose had resigned three weeks ago, but whose resignation was not announced until March 6.

Caracol Radio reported: “The delay in his departure, according to government sources, has to do with the fact that the head of state would have entrusted him with the presentation of the Social Pact for Catatumbo, one of the government’s main bets to address the humanitarian crisis in this region.”

The Social Pact of Catatumbo, as explained by the President’s Office this past week, sees the sub-region as a “territory organized around water with social and environmental justice, supported by the right to education, health, drinking water, habitat and sustainable social development [with a strategic axis of] education, health, infrastructure, economy, territorial planning and total peace.”

And, slightly differently, El Pais explains: “It was known that his temporary stay was due to the need to present the Catatumbo Plan, a key project for investment and development in one of the regions most affected by violence in Colombia.”

The Catatumbo Plan reportedly includes the Petro government seeking “to eradicate 25,000 hectares of coca in the Catatumbo region within 140 days, as part of an effort to decrease violence and weaken rebel groups that profit from the cocaine trade. …Farmers in Catatumbo will eradicate their coca plantings voluntarily and will be paid by the government while they transition to legal crops.”

“Social leaders put at risk”

The statement signed by CAJAR, CSPP and CJL highlights: “By irresponsibly relating the work of social organizations and social leaders with the actions of the armed organizations operating in the Catatumbo region, they are put at risk, and even in the condition of military targets, given the current context of violence in the area, unleashed, among other reasons, for the accusation against peace signatories of allegedly collaborating with one of the armed groups in confrontation.”

It continues: “The language used by the President is not only irresponsible and disrespectful to those who dedicate their lives to the defense of human rights in contexts of armed violence, but also deepens the risk that they face for exercising this work. This public stigmatization reinforces the narrative that has historically sought to criminalize social struggles, legitimizing the persecution against those who seek to build a country in peace with social justice, as well as phenomena as serious as the forced displacement of communities, the murder of civilians by armed actors, and the political annulment of social organizations in regions especially affected by the conflict.”

And the joint statement concludes: “From human rights platforms and social organizations, we call on the President of the Republic to rectify his statements and guarantee the rights of social leaders who, with courage and dignity, work for peace, justice and human rights.”

Humanitarian Caravan

PBI-Colombia recently accompanied the Board of Directors of the Catatumbo Peasant Association (ASCAMCAT) during the Humanitarian Caravan for Peace that arrived in the municipality of El Tarra in the department of Norte de Santander in the Catatumbo region on February 4 of this year.

For more on that: PBI-Colombia accompanies Humanitarian Caravan that seeks an end to armed violence against civilians in Catatumbo (February 5, 2025) and PBI-Colombia accompanies Board of Directors of ASCAMCAT during the Humanitarian Caravan to Catatumbo (February 12, 2025).