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Slain social leaders Erminson Rivera, Martin Bayona, Jose Obdulio Sanchez & Eduardo Vanegas
Article written by Leslye Amador, Alejandra Barrios & Estefania Venegas
The armed conflict has not only killed people, but also the hopes and dreams of entire communities throughout Colombia. This is the case of many municipalities located in the south of Bolívar, where violence perpetuated by illegal actors has been a constant struggle. According to Indepaz (2021), the groups that have the strongest presence in the zone are Frente 37 of the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) dissidents, the ELN (Ejército de Liberación Nacional) and the AGC (Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia). Even though the Peace Agreement has tried to mitigate the effects of the conflict and bring closure to the victims, during recent years there has been an increase in threats to social leaders (people who advocate for social causes on a regional or local level) in these vulnerable areas, with threats and violence mainly perpetrated by the groups previously mentioned. The legacy of the conflict dynamics that first emerged during the 1990s during the paramilitary occupation continue to affect the communities living in the south of Bolívar. The dispute over power between paramilitary, guerrillas and state forces have provoked a clash that has turned the south of Bolívar into a battlefield. According to Rutas del conflicto (n. d.), the issue in some of these municipalities is not state abandonment, since public force is mostly present. The problem is that the strategies by which they are supposed to protect citizens and their properties are not effective, especially because much land and resources are concentrated in the hands of armed actors. Despite the implementation of the PDETs, a government program created as part of the peace agreement to promote the social and economic development of the areas that have been most affected by the armed conflict, violence remains an everyday feature. Among those targeted are social leaders, who have been systematically attacked by armed actors for standing in the way of their interests. This text will explore the cases of three social leaders who were victims of this situation.
As mentioned by Indepaz (2021), from the signing of the Peace Agreement in 2016 until March 2022, 1327 people who exercised social leadership or human rights defense have been murdered in Colombia. Among the areas that have been most affected by this, there is the south of Bolívar. According to Verdad Abierta (2016), during the 1950s, some municipalities were taken over by antioqueños, cesarenses and santandereanos (people who come from the departments of Antioquia, Cesar and Santander, respectively), attracted by the booming business of timber harvesting. Their closeness to the río Magdalena and the Serranía of San Lucas also caught the attention of illegal groups dedicated to the cultivation of coca, the commercialization of cocaine, and gold exploitation. The FARC guerrillas entered the territory in 1983, followed by the AUC paramilitaries in 1998. According to the Comisión de la Verdad, these groups brought an extractive business model to these territories supported by the cultivation of illicit crops and illegal mining, causing forced displacement and land grabbing. Many of these issues are still to be resolved, and this is why the role of social leaders and activists is so important in these regions.
This situation was not a primary concern for the government during the last decades of the 20th century, so these illegal practices have continued to have a presence in municipal towns such as Morales, located in the south of Bolívar. Among those who fought for a better future for their communities, there was Martín Bayona, the president of the Junta de Acción Comunal of La Cuchilla, a vereda, or small rural community, in Morales. According to the Alcaldía de Barranquilla, the Juntas de Acción Comunal are civic, social and community organizations that aim to achieve integral and sustainable development through participatory democracy. In this sense, Martín’s activities were essential for the development of his community. He was also involved in the local institute of sports and recreation. Additionally, he was a member of the PDET implemented in the area. As stated before, the PDETs (Development Programmes with a Territorial Focus) are a planning and management instrument that is intended to stabilize and transform the areas that were most affected by violence, poverty, illicit economies, and weak institutions. Nevertheless, they have not been fully implemented and that is why these problems continue to affect territories like Morales. Unfortunately, Martín’s initiative to promote La Cuchilla’s development was brutally ended on September 22nd, 2021, when unidentified armed men arrived at his farm and shot him twice. The few clues indicate that they were probably acting on behalf of the ELN or the Frente 37 of the FARC dissidents, which are the groups who have the most presence in La Cuchilla. What happened to Martín is one example of the failure of the strategies that the government has attempted to stop the violence. As stated before, extreme militarization of these peripheral areas is not enough, since the role of public forces must be accompanied by the improvement of infrastructure, education, and mitigation of poverty, which could be achieved by guaranteeing the full establishment of PDETs, along with other strategies. One of the inhabitants of Morales perfectly summarizes the situation: “Here the only State investment has been to the military. And not only weapons produce war, but also poverty and abandonment” (Verdad Abierta, 2016). Sadly, Martin Bayona has not been the only victim of armed groups in the war-torn municipalities of Bolívar.
In that sense, the following cases also show the complexity and variety of actors which intervene in the social dynamics of the region. To have a better understanding of the situation in the south of Bolivar, Pueblito Mejia is a key point for our analysis. It is a corregimiento (a rural community larger than a vereda, but not large enough to classify as a municipality) that is located in the surroundings of Barranco Loba and was once the home of Eduardo Vanegas, one of the social leaders that we will focus on. According to El Tiempo (2010), the presence of illegal groups goes back to the late ’90s. In that sense, the “paras” (paramilitary groups) arrived at the territory and recruited around 1,500 civilians from the zone to work exploiting gold mines. This developed as the main funding source of these groups, with these groups consequently establishing a regime of terror in which nobody dared to seek assistance from the government. The miners were extorted by illegal groups in order to secure the area’s control. In recent years, the situation has not gotten any better because in 2021 the alarms of fear, violence and uncertainty rang once more. Because of that, the mayor of Barranco Loba made a public statement calling out for help from local and national authorities demanding that there must be permanent security in the territory for the sake of its inhabitants. According to the Human Rights Council (2021) the “OHCHR observed an increase in the number of massacres and human rights violations against human rights defenders, primarily in municipalities with high levels of multidimensional poverty, where illicit economies that fuel endemic violence flourish.”. In the case of Pueblito Mejia, there were multiple actors that benefited from illegal mining who were interested in the area especially because of the easy access to coca plantations and gold mines.
On that account, Eduardo Vanegas was truly a light of hope for his community until his projects were terminated by gunshots. He was president of the Junta de Acción Comunal Minera of Pueblito Mejía. Also, he stood out as head of the Desarrollo Comunitario Municipal (Municipal Community Development) and had interests in developing a mining-business project, in the so-called 'Mina La Gloria', in his corregimiento, which due to the active presence of armed groups was declared by the State as a Special Reserve Area in 2012. Before his death, he had filed a complaint regarding threats received to the Ombudsman’s Office, however, they did not pay attention to it. After his passing, the institutional body issued an alert for the municipalities of Altos de Rosario, Barrancos de Loba, Norosí and Tiquisio in Bolívar, due to the constant instigations of irregular armed groups against members of the Juntas de Acción Comunal, mining organizations, and victims of the armed conflict. Eduardo was not only a social leader, but had also been a victim of the armed conflict. Hence, he knew plenty about the interests of the groups who had an active presence in the zone. Unfortunately, he was murdered on March 5th, 2022, and it remains uncertain as to who pulled the trigger. As with all acts of violence towards social leaders, the consequences of his murder are extensive; silencing not only his voice but that of the population he represented.
Taking into consideration the reports by Indepaz in 2021, the prospect for 2022 is not very hopeful either. According to the organization, in the first quarter of 2022, 60 social leaders and human rights defenders were assassinated throughout Colombia. In addition to those already mentioned (Martin Bayona and Eduardo Vanegas), the case of Erminson Rivera Henao stands out: he was the president of the Junta de Acción Communal in La Esperanza, a rural area of the municipality of Cantagallo. As previously stated, the growing activity of armed groups in the south of Bolívar and the lack of effective state presence in that territory has led to a situation where social leaders are risking their lives when carrying out their work. A relevant example of this is Rivera, who was taken from his home in the early hours of a Monday morning and later, was killed near the area, along with José Obdulio Sánchez, his brother in law and another social leader who supported him and his work. They were both killed on April 25th. In fact, according to the early warning 25/20 of the Ombudsman’s Office in the south of Bolívar, there are atomized groups that are difficult to categorize and confront because of the alliances that are constantly made, so it is arduous to recognize if they were both killed by one specific armed group. In relation to this, the mayor of Cantagallo stated: “That sector of the rural area is going to be reinforced with Army troops. It is a site of difficult access”, which explains the current role of the government and how it only focuses on short-term measures that do not solve the problem itself. This shows how the solutions to the conflict proposed by the government have been focused on sending more military troops, but they do not tackle the structural social factors which contribute to it. This means that the armed conflict is not over; there is still a latent, and very real, threat against social leaders and human rights defenders.
To conclude, there are multiple factors which have deepened the crisis amongst the population living in these vulnerable areas. Thus, it demands even more attention to our social leaders’ causes, given the fact that they have been disproportionally affected for many years. We suggest that the population stops normalizing violence as we have done for many decades. In order to find a solution and bring total peace to every territory, it is mandatory to spread awareness and demand that the government guarantees human rights, justice and reparation to the victims. For our country to achieve this, the state presence must be aimed at bringing the rule of law to the entirety of the territory, and to guarantee justice and equality for every citizen. Reiterating what has been said before, the conflict is not a military matter alone, so the approach should not be purely related to the use of force. Hence, the importance of broadening the government’s institutional offer in the peripheries, providing communities with access to political participation, and quality education, among other urgent needs. The strategies must not be reactive, but preventive. Only in this way will the systemic violence faced by social leaders who stand up for their people be addressed correctly.
Sources used:
https://www.radionacional.co/regiones/bolivar/asesinato-lideres-sociales-nuevo-caso-barranco-de-loba
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