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Gustavo Pérez Arevalo
Social leaders are people that fight for human rights and have recognition in the community to operate, coordinate and support projects that are for the collective good, such as, improving living conditions and the construction of a fair and equitable society. Nevertheless these actions are aimed at protecting human rights, their land, and defending their culture, etc.
Here in Colombia there is a mass and systematic killing of social leaders due to criminal groups, elites, economic and political interest and the Colombian government fails to have an impact by not wanting to acknowledge and the issue and denying this problem. According to Indepaz (Institute of Studies for Development and Peace), in 2019, 226 social leaders and Human Rights defenders were killed in approximately 112 different towns of Colombia and in the first few months of 2020, 57 people have been killed (as of time of writing).
In this paper we are going to focus on the specific case of a social leader in Bolivar named Gustavo Pérez Arevalo and how this case can allow us to understand and reflect about social leaders and this difficult situation that is facing our country.
First, it is necessary to learn a little about Gustavo Pérez. According to the HRD (Human Rights Defenders) memorial, a website that is dedicated for those who were killed defending Human Rights, Gustavo Pérez was a social leader that was part of the Santa Rita association and the Sembrando Futuro de Paz association. He was also a delegate of the local Mesa de Víctimas (Victim´s Board) in La Candelaria, Bolivar. Gustavo Pérez had previously requested protection from the Colombian State due to threats from paramilitary groups. However, his request was not answered and eventually he was shot on Friday, September 13 2019 while he was in the Palma Chica village in the area of Los Canelos in Santa Rosa del Sur, Bolívar. He died at the age of 58 and his death has attributed to neo-paramilitary forces in the region.
As a matter of fact, The High Council for the Rights of Victims, Peace and Reconciliation of the Bogotá Mayor’s office said that Perez was a leader of the Victims Participation Board since 2015. As well, Gustavo had contributed to public policy of victims and the concentration of Victim Law in 2011 and he had also been in favor of the victims public policy and also to the establishment of the Victims Law on the same year.
However, some sources rejected the claim he was a social leader, and part of the community is dissatisfied and outraged because they refused to accept the idea that Gustavo was a social leader and reject the comments made by the senator Gustavo Bolivar on his twitter page, where he says that Gustavo Pérez Arévalo was a human right defender. They say that Gustavo was an ex-guerrillero of the ELN and accused him of killing, extortion, kidnapping and displacing many people of his village. According to an article in El Universal, it was suggested that he was part of the insurgent group, the ELN (National Liberation Army) as a commandant, that “Gustavo Torres” was his alias and that in the eighties and nineties he had been a feared guerrillero who was responsible in the past for some deaths, kidnappings and displacement in the region of Simiti, Santa Rosa del Sur, Morales, Rioviejo, San Martín de Loba, Barranco de Loba and Tiquisio. Sources in the area also claimed that he had been responsible for the death of the mayor of San Martín de Loba in 1998 and the kidnapping of teachers Ramón Rodríguez Gahona and José de Dios Botello Ríos. These arguments over whether Gustavo was a social leader or simply an ex-combatant are pertinent given the political polarisation in Colombia.
For this reason, it is important to have a clear understanding of what a leader is and most importantly focus on those regions that are being affected by this problem because at first sight we can denote the lack of the Colombian State and the current government due to the fact that after the peace agreement signed with the FARC guerrilla organisation in 2016, there has not been much interest in the recognition of the conflict or in truly guaranteeing people’s lives. Being a social leader, according to the United Nations, basically covers all those people who work for the defense of Human Rights. This work of “social leader” can be carried out individually or together with other people, and the main objective which they will take into account throughout their journey is the promotion and protection of the rights, whether it be a specific community or territory, or a special topic. Gustavo Perez’s case has not been totally clarified in this regard and this specific case has not been studied by the UN. However, the inhabitants of their community have spoken, demanding coherence from the institutions and demanding clarity regarding everything that happened with the case of this leader, a case in which there are many loose ends. All this also serves to give a general analysis of everything that has happened with respect to the social leaders, and it is that just like Gustavo’s case, there have been hundreds of leaders who have been assassinated and, likewise, they do not take a case study and do not provide due importance nor the interest required to have a thorough investigation of these cases.
There is no reason why an ex-combatant of armed groups cannot subsequently become a social leader, since according to the information presented by the United Nations, any person or group that works firmly in the promotion of Human Rights, whether through intergovernmental organizations, or through projects and work in their communities, can be an advocate. However, the case of Gustavo Pérez was quite particular since, due to the accusations of him being a ex-combatant of the ELN, his death did not have the same reach in society as those leaders whose constant projects and activities were highlighted during their trajectory as social leaders. According to reports, Gustavo Pérez had previously requested protection from the Colombian State due to threats he had received from paramilitary groups, but his request was not met. Regarding this case, the Prosecutor’s Office refuses to receive complaints for victims of Human Rights in the south of Bolívar and there is an evident lack of presence of the Defensoría del Pueblo (Ombudsman’s Office) and accompaniment during these processes. For this reason, inhabitants are demanding coherence on the part of the State institutions: “we are waiting for coherence in the state discourse and that it provides real guarantees to Human Rights defenders”.
In conclusion, social leaders are being killed and no one is actually doing anything to stop this. Thanks to the work of social leaders, it is possible to establish fairer societies and they are the representation of the people and their voice in the midst of so many injustices that occur daily. Unfortunately, for carrying out their work in everything that has to do in the field of Human Rights, they are the target of threats in societies as unjust as ours, and there is also usually a complete indifference regarding their murders. Gustavo Pérez was just one of many people that die fighting for a cause. For some people he was simply a guerrillero and for others he was a defender of Human Rights. However, no matter who he was, the important thing is that he was fighting for the community rights and participated in many projects in order to construct peace in the region. It sometimes seems that people cannot raise their voice to denounce the things that are bad or try to make positive changes in order to improve community conditions. All of us, as members of Colombian society, have to change our mind and work together to make progress along the path to peace. Social leaders are important and they work for people to have a better life, protecting and defending people from abuse. Social leaders are fighting against corruption and the interests of armed groups, and they don’t deserve to be punished unfairly and killed for simply raising their voices.
*Article written by Daniela Araujo, Lilian Caro & Gabriela Castañeda
Information sourced from:
Paz al Liderazgo Social
Image retrieved from https://hrdmemorial.org/es/hrdrecord/gustavo-perez-arevalo/
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