On August 10, the Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project tweeted that Lars Bredal, Deputy Head of the Delegation of the European Union to Colombia, visited the Isla de la Paz neighbourhood in Buenaventura to learn about the serious risks experienced by ethnic communities and members of the Comité del Paro Cívico.

Recently, a member of the Comité del Paro Cívico (the Civic Unemployment Committee) was wounded in an attack.

On July 26, Semana reported that just hours before the “marches for life and the defence of social leaders” in Colombia, several armed men entered the home of Civic Unemployment Committee coordinator Carlos Tobar and shot him several times.

PBI-Colombia’s tweet notes that the visit to Isla de la Paz by the Deputy Head also involved the Black Communities Process (PCN) and the Association for Social Research and Action (NOMADESC), which is accompanied by PBI-Colombia.

PCN and NOMADESC have noted, “Isla de la Paz is mostly composed of people who were forcibly displaced from rural areas by the political violence of the late 1990’s and early 2000s, primarily from the Naya, Raposo and Yurumangui river communities, after the occurrence of barbaric acts such as the massacre of the Naya.”

The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has explained, “In the dark annals of violence in Colombia, the Naya massacre occupies a special place. During Holy Week [April 10-13, 2001], a group of 400 paramilitaries entered this remote jungle area. …Scores of people were murdered in the most gruesome ways.”

Buenaventura also has a recent history of resistance and repression.

New York-based NACLA has commented, “In May 2017, Buenaventura residents held a 22-day civic strike to protest ongoing investment in its port instead of investing in local residents. In an impressive show of organizational capacity, Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities and organizations united to shut down the city, blocking the port and flooding the streets. Residents demanded resources to invest in building a local hospital, more economic opportunities, and potable water.”

In June 2017, Telesur reported, “Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos responded to the protest by sending in armed anti-riot units in an attempt to control protesters. …Human rights organizations raised alarms over the treatment of protesters in Buenaventura at the hands of ESMAD, Colombia’s riot police.”

Canadian organizations have worked in solidarity with the leaders of that strike.

In October and November 2018, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) and other unions and organizations organized a cross-country speaking tour in Canada with three of the Buenaventura civic strike leaders.

PSAC highlights, “The strike—which the visiting leaders are careful to note was suspended, not ended—won an agreement containing important concessions from the government to improve public services, including community housing, health services, roads, the justice system, and a new framework agreement to protect the rights of port workers.”

But it also adds, “Yet, since May 2017, threats against strike leaders have continued as plans go forward to expand and modernize the port, while the government fails to implement its agreement with the strikers.”

And while Carlos Tobar will hopefully recover from his attack, another human rights defender was shot to death in Isla de la Paz in January 2018.

Both PCN and NOMADESC have denounced the murder of human rights activist Temistocles Machado (who was known as Don Temis).

The groups explained, “With an incredible level of commitment, Don Temis defended his community and resisted the expansion of port installations in Isla de la Paz, as well as infrastructure mega-projects and the pressure of armed groups to control the territory.” He was also involved in “litigation to prevent the systematic dispossession of the community’s territorial space and guarantee the restitution of the territorial rights of the community.”

In a September 2018 article in The Guardian, Father Alberto Franco of the Inter-Church Commission on Justice and Peace, another organization accompanied by the PBI-Colombia Project, commented that the construction of a freshwater port in Buenaventura region was a factor in the displacement of indigenous people from the lower stretches of the Calima and San Juan rivers.

That article highlights, “Buenaventura, where many displaced rural people end up, is one of the most dangerous cities in South America for local people, especially from the indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities, who face racial discrimination.”

PSAC reminds us that despite the signing of the peace accord in 2017, “violence, land grabs and dislocation” have not stopped in Colombia and that “regrettably some of these violent incidents are also associated with Canadian companies that have been emboldened by the 2008 Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.”

The Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project has opened the call to select volunteers who would join the field teams in Colombia starting in July/August 2020. Volunteers are based in Bogotá, Barrancabermeja and Apartadó.

The deadline to apply is October 11.

Following that, key dates include:

Between November 2019 and January 2020 – interviews with candidates.

February, March and April 2020 – an online training program that seeks to provide candidates with a greater knowledge of the situation in Colombia and the work of the team.

June 6 to 13, 2020 (tbc) – an intensive training session in Spain.

PBI-Colombia notes, “The people selected at the end of the training/selection meeting will join our teams in the second half of 2020 or the beginning of 2021, as established from the project based on our human resources needs.”

Last year, twenty-seven PBI-Colombia volunteers accompanied members of thirteen organizations and two individual human rights defenders working on business and human rights and forced disappearances.

Earlier this year, Javier Ignacio Hoyos from Canada joined the PBI-Colombia team.

Javier says, “I applied to PBI Colombia because I value its principles, I believe in its mission and I admire its work over the last decades.”

He adds, “I sincerely believe that by accompanying these people and communities in their day to day work and protecting their spaces for action, I will in a small way be part of the collective construction of a more peaceful, fair and inclusive society.”

All of the information on how to apply can be found here.

The United Nations has highlighted that human rights defenders play an important role in helping to avert further climate breakdown.

The Global Climate Strike on September 20 and September 27 is an opportunity for people around the world concerned by climate change to acknowledge that role and the risks land and environmental defenders face.

On July 30, the Global Witness report Enemies of the State? highlighted that 164 land and environment defenders were killed in 2018.

That report specified that in 2018: 24 land and environment defenders were killed in Colombia, 16 in Guatemala, 14 in Mexico, 4 in Honduras, 2 in Kenya, and 1 in Indonesia.

That report notes that among the key resource sectors that are driving the violence against human rights defenders is agribusiness.

The Union of Concerned Scientists has reported, “Unfortunately, because current palm oil production methods often cause the destruction of carbon-rich tropical forests and peatlands, it is a major contributor to global warming.”

In 2012, the top palm oil producing countries included Colombia, Honduras and Guatemala. Colombia is the fourth-largest producer globally and the largest in Latin America.

Danilo Rueda is with the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission, an organization accompanied by the Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project.

In an interview with PBI-Colombia, Rueda says, “Palm oil means death because of the violence it brings with it and because of the environmental damage it causes. Because big business, hand in hand with Colombian and international policy, is destroying water sources and flora and fauna by depleting the forests. This is capitalist logic, which favours the accumulation of capital, and in the long term, the effects are highly negative.”

The death of Afro-Colombian land rights activist Hernán Bedoya has been linked to the expansion of the palm oil industry in that country.

The Guardian has reported, “Bedoya was shot 15 times on 5 December [2017] while he was riding his horse to the vet in Pedeguita y Mancilla, Chocó.”

That article explains, “A year before he died, Hernán warned the palm oil companies planned to plant another 1,000 hectares (2,470 acres), which would be impossible unless he and more than a dozen other campesinos were dispossessed.”

And it notes, “[Hernán – a] leader of the opposition to palm oil plantations – was assassinated by a gang linked to agribusiness and narco-traffickers. …[His son believes] his father’s death was ordered by a politician, who secures land for businesses with the hired muscle of the Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia.”

The writing in the PBI-Colombia photo included at the top of this article reads: “Sin olvido (we will not forget you) Hernán Bedoya”.

Hernán has not been forgotten and his story will be remembered and recounted by PBI-Canada during the Global Climate Strike next month.

A 4-minute video featuring Hernán shared by the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission, Frontera Invisible and Transport & Environment can be seen here.

On August 15, the Peace Brigades International-Colombia Projected posted, “Last weekend, PBI accompanied CAHUCOPANA in the Northeast Antioqueño in the first steps of implementing the Comprehensive Reparations Plan, in the presence of the Victims Unit.”

PBI-Colombia has previously explained that more than three hundred family farmers formed the Humanitarian Action Corporation for Coexistence and Peace of the Northeast Antioquia (CAHUCOPANA) in 2004.

With respect to the Comprehensive Reparations Plan noted in the PBI-Colombia post, Julia Zulver from the University of Oxford has explained, “Colombia’s unprecedented reparations programme guarantees financial, land restitution, and holistic benefits for millions of victims [of country’s half-century long internal conflict].”

Her JusticeInfo.net article further notes, “The Victims’ Unit and the Land Restitution Unit were created as the institutions in charge of meting out the various reparations guaranteed under the Law [Ley 1448 de 2011].”

But her June 2018 article also significantly cautions, “With only 7% payment to date, the government faces the challenge of making good on promises to its citizenry, undermining the potential for building lasting peace.”

She specifies (with the numbers available last year) that more than 8.6 million Colombians have registered with the Victims Unit as victims of the armed conflict, while only 580,415 people have received payments.

Notably, with respect to land restitution, Zulver notes that less than a third of those eligible to apply have registered with the Land Restitution Unit.

Frances Thomson has written in Forced Migration Review, “There are numerous reasons for the lack of applications.”

Thomson notes lack of trust in the authorities, absence of awareness or limited understanding of the law, as well as difficulties accessing the relevant institutions for various reasons, including travel distances and costs.

She then highlights, “But perhaps the most urgent threat to the restitution process is the attempt to crush it using violence. At least 72 land restitution claimants and leaders have been murdered, and thousands more have received threats against their lives.”

And Thomson specifies, “Paramilitary ‘successor groups’ are responsible for the majority of crimes against land claimants and restitution leaders, as is well documented and widely acknowledged.”

PBI-Colombia has noted, “CAHUCOPANA has been lobbying to raise awareness of the neo-paramilitary presence and the absence of guarantees for leaders and farmers in Northeastern Antioquia.”

It adds, “The FARC’s departure has produced a vacuum that is being filled by other armed groups, which threaten the communities and the construction of genuine peace.”

PBI-Colombia has accompanied CAHUCOPANA since 2013.