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Murdered rural leaders Edilberto Cantillo, Manuel Osuna & Gloria Ocampo.
According to the United Nations, a social leader can be any person or group of people who strive to promote human rights, from intergovernmental organizations based in the world’s largest cities to individuals working in their local communities. They support processes or activities of a collective nature that positively affect the life of their community, improve and dignify their living conditions, or help to build the “tejido social” or social fabric. In Colombia, they are being killed for doing this. There are different types of social leaders, but in this article, we will focus on rural leaders and how this complex situation affects them.
Rural areas are remote from the main centers of work, education, health, and generally the institutions which ensure society functions. Therefore, it is difficult for them to have access to some of these services with quality or ease. Rural leaders are involved in projects on behalf of the community which (among others) help them to have access to those services (a better education system, quality healthcare, care systems, a fair economic and trade system, electrical power, clean water, connectivity, and so on). Standing up to the adversity of the situation, and fighting for basic rights in these areas, often in areas where illegal groups operate, is the main reason why many rural leaders have been threatened or killed in Colombia. In 2006, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations organized the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development, where the 95 States present agreed on the fundamental role of agrarian reform and rural development in promoting sustainable development, the human rights protection, food security, poverty eradication, and the strengthening of social justice. In this conference the critical function of the State was reiterated; its responsibility to its economic and social development through national policies for the implementation of agrarian reforms and strategies for rural development, constantly having in mind the importance of cooperation between the State and civil society. In other words, always considering multiple participation of individual actors such as social leaders who represent different communities in Colombian territory. However, the Colombian case is different due to the situation of violence that has been going on for more than five decades.
One of the main focal points of the conflict is the issue of land rights. This is one of the main reasons why the role of rural leaders has been fundamental; the armed conflict has affected many rural communities, which have been forcibly uprooted from their homes to new regions. The presence of guerrillas (The ELN, FARC dissidents) or other illegal organisations (Clan del Golfo/AGC, Pachencas/ACSN etc; groups originated from former paramilitaries) is more frequent in the regions where there is less State presence. Because of this, rural leaders are the ones who are responsible for ensuring the welfare of their community, being channels of communication, representation and negotiation between their rural communities and the State, or in those regions with a poor state presence, with the illegal armed groups. Colombia is one of the countries with the highest number of murdered rural leaders, and this is a consequence of the precariousness of the State presence in areas and regions that have been vulnerable for many years and that have not been able to solve local problems or take control of their destiny. It is important to mention that the killings of human rights defenders have increased since the signing of the peace deal in 2016 as armed groups have swiftly stepped into the breach left by the FARC, thus taking advantage of the state’s absence in some territories. This situation has led to conflicts for control over territory for illegal activities.
Although rural leaders’ work (as the work of social leaders in general) is selfless and fully willing to help people, these actions make them targets of many groups for whom their social work does not suit, so to speak. As the evidence shows, from the signing of the Peace Agreement until July 2020, according to Indepaz, 342 peasant leaders have been assassinated (this profile of leader having the highest number of murders during the period). Specifically in the Caribbean region, according to the database carried out by the Observatorio de restitución y regulación de derechos de propiedad agraria, since 2016 there have been about 40 murders of rural leaders. These have occurred in the departments of Cordoba (17), Cesar (7), Sucre (5), Bolivar (5), Magdalena (3), Atlantico (2), and La Guajira (1). In these territories there are common variables such as the presence of groups forged from the ashes of of paramilitarism (groups formed after the demobilization of paramilitary groups in 2006); inequality in land tenure (only 36.4% of rural households have access to it, and those who have it do not have enough land to carry out their productive activity to a suitable commercial extent; many, in fact, have them informally) and unsatisfied basic needs, with more than 30% of the total national population living in rural areas, of which 46% have lived in poverty, and 21.8% of that population live in extreme poverty (data from the Defensoría del pueblo / Ombudsman’s Officereports). Such a scenario, mixed with the power structures existing in the territories due to the vacuum left by the state and constant marginalization faced by these communities, lead them to have another characteristic in common, and that is being part of entities such as the Agencia de Desarrollo Rural / Rural Development Agency(ADR) which offer agricultural and rural development programs. Nevertheless, these attempts at progress and improvement become a threat to those behind the murders since the main purpose of these attempts by rural communities and their leaders is to regain control of their territory, to assume control of what by right belongs to them. By doing this, they represent exactly what the perpetrators of these crimes want to avoid, as those responsible for the violence are groups and individuals who use the dispossession of land, the monoculture of certain products, the exploitation of natural resources and even the exploitation of peasants themselves as a livelihood. They are therefore not willing to vacate the position of political and economic power in which they find themselves.
Those responsible are not homogeneous groups. The bullets are fired from weapons wielded by many hands, among which are included the so-called “organized or type C common criminal groups”, which according to the definition of the National Police, is a grouping of three or more people that exists for a certain time and acts in concert with the purpose of committing one or more crimes that affect citizen security and coexistence. They have a mainly local level of scope and their purpose is based on economic and material benefits. If these groups develop a certain organized structure, expand their geographic reach, acquire a criminal modality and generate alliances with Organized Armed Groups based on drug trafficking or other types of “outsourced” criminal activities (among other aspects), they can gain more power and evolve into “organized criminal groups or type B” or “organized armed groups (GAO) or type A”. The “Clan del Golfo”, which is an organized armed group, is considered the largest, most dangerous and best structured group in Colombia, calling itself “Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia”. The origins of the AGC are multiple: dynamic local scenarios, the conformation and evolution of self-defense and paramilitary groups (ACCU and AUC) in Urabá and the failed demobilization process of the Popular Liberation Army (EPL) in Urabá in the 90s. After 2006, this group emerged as a product of the demobilization of the Centauros, Elmer Cárdenas and Norte Blocks of the AUC paramilitaries. They are above all, a group inherited from paramilitarism. It has gained strength thanks to its military apparatus, its relationships with other criminal groups, control over certain illegal economies (drug trafficking, micro-trafficking, illegal mining, extortion and contract killing activities). More worrying still are reports of its level of incidence in local powers. The GAOR (Grupos Armados Organizados Residuales; Residual Organized Armed Groups) are the armed groups that emerged from the FARC-EP, a guerrilla group demobilized in 2016 (part of the peace agreement agreed with the government), whose members did not adhere to the peace accords and returned to arms, forming these groups. They are known as FARC-EP dissidents and, although they have the same insurgent origin, several are at odds with each other for territorial control of illegal activities, some even working with national and international criminal organizations. In addition to these armed groups, there is the extreme left and revolutionary-oriented insurgent terrorist and guerrilla organization, the “Ejército de Liberación Nacional/ National Liberation Army” or ELN. In many cases, suspicion for the killing of rural leaders falls on whichever group or groups are present in the region where the crimes are committed. It is important to note that to a large extent the existence of these groups is the result of the weakness of the Colombian State and its institutional absence in many regions throughout its history. Equally, illegal groups may not always be the perpetrators in cases of violence towards rural leaders; defending the rights of rural communities may bring leaders into conflicts of interest with wealthy landowners or private investors who simply remove any oppositors rather than negotiate with them. Either way, the scenario remains the same; the presence of illegal actors, in addition to a low state presence, means danger for rural leaders.
While it is difficult to identify who is behind the decision to kill rural leaders, and indeed those responsible may well vary from case to case and region to region, it is important that individual cases are analysed. It would be impossible to detail the story of each of these rural leaders , but we can exemplify some. While the statistics provided above are vital for understanding the scale of the violence towards rural leaders, it is crucial to remember that all the victims were people who had lives, dreams and goals. Sadly the conflict and state neglect took these people away but their fight is far from over. One such victim was Gloria Isabel Ocampo, 35 years old and the mother of two children. Gloria was a recognized peasant leader who supported voluntary substitution of crops, manual eradication projects and the formulation of development plans with a territorial approach. In addition, she became president of the Community Action Board of the La Estrella village in the municipality of Puerto Guzmán in the department of Putumayo, a space in which she worked as a secretary. Since 2019 she had been receiving threats. On January 7, Gloria Isabel was assassinated in front of her residence. Armed men arrived at the scene and fired indiscriminately. The leader died along with her neighbor Eladio Moreno, who was with her at the time of the attack. On January 8, the capture of Abel Antonio Loaiza Quiñonez, alias Azul, was reported. He was reportedly a member of a group of FARC dissidents, identified as one of those responsible for the act and linked to the murder of other leaders in the region. Edilberto Cantillo Meza was a rural leader, focused on land reclamation, but he was murdered on March 2, 2017 in El Copey (Cesar), by two men who shot him three times. Edilberto Cantillo had arrived at El Copey, after having been previously displaced from the municipality of Piedras Blancas by paramilitares from the Juan Andres Alvarez Front of the Northern Block of the AUC. After his arrival, he joined the Copey Victims Association and was elected president of the Community Action Board of the village of Entrerrios. He had also joined the “Peasant Assembly of Cesar for the Restitution of Lands and Good Living”. Manuel Osuna was a 67-year-old farmer and rural leader, who on July 6 2019 was decapitated and his house set on fire by unknown assailants in a rural area of the municipality of San José de Ure, in the Department of Cordoba. Manuel Osuna had been dedicated to working on crop substitution issues and was a land defender. He was also part of the National Integral Program for the Substitution of illicit crops and of the Association of Campesino del Sur de Cordoba. In these cases, and in many others, rural leaders of the same associations to which they belong are assassinated or threatened because the work that they were involved in (voluntary crop substitution and land restitution in particular) is seen as undesirable to the wishes of illegal groups and local elites who dominate the area in which they operate. It must be pointed out that the pursuits these leaders make are also striving to help Colombia as a whole, seeing as rural stability and development would benefit all sectors of the country. For this reason, we must recognize the courage, determination and conviction that rural leaders possess so that despite the difficulties and adversities that they face, they continue with their work to represent, protect and ensure the welfare of the communities to which they belong. The cases of Gloria Isabel Ocampo, Edilberto Cantillo Meza, and Manuel Osuna are examples of the struggle that many rural leaders live but which many of us privileged to live in peace and safety are simply unaware of.
Cases like those previously mentioned exist in droves; rural leaders must face the danger of violence every day. Not all of them are dead, but for those who are still alive, the situation is not easy to cope with. Leaders in this line of work are constantly threatened through emails, calls, warnings with messengers, the killing of relatives, and so on. Due to the complexity of the situation, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has emphasized that it is the duty of the State to be present throughout the country, implementing a wide range of comprehensive public policies and “more solid measures” to guarantee the rights of all its citizens; hence in 2020, the government presented a strategy to guarantee the exercise of social leadership and the work of human rights defenders. Prevention and protection, led by the Ministry of the Interior and whose main allies (in theory) are governors, mayors, control entities and social organizations. Security, led by the Ministry of Defense and run by the military forces and the National Police. Unfortunately, so far no significant impact has been evidenced with the implementation of such strategies. In the Caribbean region, the UNCaribe think tank (Centro de Pensamiento UNCaribe) has made some proposals to improve the situation of social leaders in general. For example it has highlighted the need for the government to carry out campaigns to highlight the work of the leaders, not to detach their security from the integral local development agenda, and to promote the signing of local humanitarian agreements or pacts between communities and illegal armed actors or the de facto powers that control the territories. These recommendations can have a great impact in changing the lives of hundreds of rural leaders, not only introducing them into society but also dissolving past fears and all the obstacles that the leaders confront in defending their beliefs and rights.
To conclude with this article, we know that there are different types of social leaders, that each leader is vital and has different roles in societies, but in this case, our focus of study was specifically the rural leaders. As mentioned above, rural leaders are those in charge of having a leadership relationship with the community, since no one will know better the events of each community than their own members. In the struggle for the rights and assets that must be respected and valued in these societies there is always that factor of scarcity of resources. For this reason rural leaders are threatened and killed due to their struggle to achieve the best for their societies. Likewise, the void left by the FARC and the distribution of land, in addition to the lack of true state intervention, excessively affects the management of the problem. What has been demonstrated is that both the number of deaths of social and rural leaders has increased, mostly in areas with common characteristics such as land ownership conditions, poverty levels and struggles for territorial control between armed groups. This article reflected on the cases of Gloria Isabel Ocampo, Eladio Moreno and Manuel Osuna, yet they represent only a tiny fraction of the situation as a whole. Throughout the years, different solutions have been proposed, such as the active participation of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, which tries to emphasize to the State what is happening in rural communities. Regarding rural leaders, they are the representatives and spokespersons of different Colombian communities, which demand total control over their lands, to be in a condition of equality with the rest of the country, and for their rights to be respected in order to be able to prosper with dignity. They are aware of the risk and difficulty that doing this implies in Colombia and yet they persist. They insist on their convictions for a better future society; without having the due public recognition, it should be noted. Still, it is evident that they deserve to be distinguished as heroes. Currently, they are the hidden national heroes. They need our help.
*Article written by Karoll Beltran, Camilo Gutierrez & Pamela Muñoz.
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