Manuel Osuna: The campesino whose gruesome murder highlights the impunity which reigns in Colombia.

Manuel Osuna, the rural leader who was brutally murdered by neo-paramilitary structures for his commitment to crop substitution programs

The systematic killing of social leaders in Colombia has become an important issue to discuss in multiple scenarios such as social media, political discourse, or even on a daily basis among civil society. According to the Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement (Codhes), 86% of the cases are unpunished. Unfortunately, there have been more than 300 social leaders (going by the lowest estimates) killed all over the country since the signing of the peace agreement between the government and the FARC guerrilla group in 2016. In this article we want to focus on the case of Manuel Osuna and the objectives of neo-paramilitary groups who are frequently involved in these acts of violence. Manuel Osuna was a farmer who was murdered and decapitated by armed men, who, after carrying out this heinous act, proceeded to burn down his house. The community where he lived indicated that those responsible were from paramilitary structures that dispute territorial control.

On a Saturday morning, July 6th of 2019, peasant and social leader Manuel Osuna was beheaded and his farm burned down, supposedly by members of the armed group “Los Caparrapos”. The commander of the Córdoba police, said that the murder was reported by a resident of the area, who went to the town of San José de Uré to alert the authorities of the situation. Manuel Osuna worked with the Association of Peasants of the South of Córdoba (Ascsucor) on crop substitution issues and was also a land defender. One of the main problems that social leaders are facing is related to their cultural identity because, according to them, when they are displaced from their lands they lose their autonomy. For this reason, the defense of their territory via opposition to the development of illegal mining with mooring machines, has put them at greater risk and has undermined the traditions of these communities. Manuel Osuna’s case took place in the village of “El Cerro” in the South of Córdoba, where basic needs are unsatisfied by the government and there’s also a power vacuum left by the retirement of the ex FARC-EP guerrilla. Such a scenario highlights the centralized nature of the government and how some regions or areas around the country are forgotten by the state, a fact which is evidenced by the power vacuum in the absence of the guerrilla organisation. However, such a situation cannot be allowed to normalize.

San José de Uré, where Manuel Osuna was killed, is a municipality located at the south of the department of Cordoba. This place represents a political border between the Andean region and the Caribbean region of Colombia. However, the main characteristics of this territory can be summarized by a lack of state presence, marginalisation of its inhabitants, and the continuous illegal exploitation of minerals, cultivation of drug crops and trafficking of arms.These activities are carried out by illegal armed groups that try to maintain dominance in the zone. Because all of this, the public policy and institution that began with the Peace Agreement between now disbanded FARC guerrilla and the Colombian Government, called “National Program for the Replacement of Illicit Crops”, asserts that San José de Uré is a priority for the implementation of its policies. Besides, the government also catalogues the territory as a primary objective of the “Development Program with Territorial Focus”, another key tenet of the peace process. There are also some documents from civil society that explain the current situation of rural areas and the violence in Colombia. One of those is the “Report of Patterns of Violence in Colombia”, where it is possible to find correlations between the systematic assassinations of social leaders and some structural problems related to the lack of institutional order in the country, like illegal economies, mining and energy exploitation, the presence of paramilitary groups in some rural areas, and the forced displacement of rural communities. According to “Defendamos la Paz”, the leader murdered was part of the Association of Peasants of South Córdoba, Ascsucor, of which eight members have been murdered since the signing of the Peace Agreement with FARC-EP guerrilla organisation. Furthermore, because of being a land defender, there is a common aspect between the labours of this social leader, Manuel Osuna, and the social leader María del Pilar Hurtado, who was killed in front of her son, and who represented the land interests of the people located in the nearby town of Tierra Alta. Both cases highlight the precarious position in which local leaders find themselves in the south of Córdoba.

One reason for a lack of optimism over seeing a decrease in these killings is the apparent indifference of the national government, one contributing factor to President Duque’s unpopularity. This is understandable, not because people believe that the president has direct responsibility, but because the lack of specific actions on the part of the national government to protect these human rights defenders, political activists, environmental defenders, and social leaders in general, attests to a huge lack of political will on the part of the government. In the context of the Colombian post-conflict, it is clear that the government is not doing enough to protect social leaders and the communities they represent. Last year, for example, Luis Barrios Machado, who had asked for protection from the government, was killed in the department of Atlantico while watching a football match. As long as there is no real commitment, manifested in clear policies and specific actions on the part of those who hold positions of power, gestures of solidarity (such as the ill-fated appearance of President Duque a march in support of social leaders) appear completely shallow. As long as the government does not take the protection of social leaders in the national territory as a real priority, Colombians will continue to accuse it of being complicit in these killings. Refusing to address the urgent need for protection of our social leaders not only shows a lack of political will on the part of the government, but also goes beyond a lack of empathy; ignoring social leaders is equivalent to letting them die, often in brutal circumstances such as what happened to Manuel Osuna.

To summarize, it seems obvious to state that Colombia is witnessing a clear and notorious path of impunity, injustice and human rights infringements. The lack of attention that this issue receives as well as the indifference of not only government officials but also society in general, threatens to intensify and even normalize such cruel acts of violence. Our marginalized communities, especially, are living in fear and under the threat of dangerous criminal networks that seek selfish interests and spread terror among those who raise their voices for fundamental causes. Manuel Osuna’s case is just one among the wave of killings that are happening all around our country. The fact that social leaders are being silenced for defending such important and necessary ideals should be a matter of primary interest in terms of policy production, effective punishment and incarceration processes. It is imperative that we make a desperate call to the authorities so that our social leaders can develop their activities in complete safety; we demand for the sake of democracy and the protection of rights in Colombia that the killings stop, and that aggressors are heavily punished. As a society, we must raise our voice and spread the word; denounce the killings, and take action!

*Article written by Daniela Riaño, Daniela Rodriguez, Sebastián Lujan & Valentina Velasquez.