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Community leader and victim of forced displacement Oswaldo Perez was murdered in July 2021.
The department of Bolivar is located in the north of Colombia, in the Caribbean region. It borders the Caribbean Sea and other departments, which makes it one of the most populated departments, and it has a large number of routes that feed it commercially, touristically and culturally, and also connect it with the rest of the country as well as other countries like Venezuela. But these routes also mean the entry of illegal economies and practices such as the sale of weapons, drug trafficking and the cultivation of coca.
As well as its routes, the territories in the department are the source of its growth and recognition. Geographically, the territories in Bolivar are a great advantage for the armed groups that for years have controlled parts of the department, such as the south of the department for example, and villages such as Montecristo and Mina Piojó whose soil fertility, commercial borders and state absence attracts these groups. In addition, these groups sow terror among inhabitants, obliging them to be part of the aforementioned illegal practices. These groups are also chiefly responsible for the murders of social leaders and human rights defenders in this region, as these leaders are often identified as threats or obstacles to the interests of these groups and organisations.
The murder of social leaders is a dynamic that has been present for many years, afflicting the many social leaders of the country, and the government has not been able to control it.
Five years on from the official signing of the peace treaty between the Colombian government of former President Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which brought an end to the internal armed conflict between the government and the guerrilla organisation in Colombia that had began in 1960, the disagreements within this group in addition to the continued presence of other armed groups maintain the illegal economies and the violence against small unprotected communities, something that was supposed to end with the treaty. The intention of the Colombian state was to comply with the policies agreed in the treaty to address and deal with these issues such as drug trafficking and terrorism as well as guaranteeing the rights for all the inhabitants of the country. However, it is evident in places like Montecristo and Mina Piojó that several years after the treaty, the state has not achieved these goals, especially if it is seen from the point of view of social leaders, the only people who dare to confront the control of these groups in search of protection and in defense of human rights for their families and communities. It is for that reason that they pay with their lives the price of daring to make a social change without being intimidated.
In Colombia, being involved in political, economic, or social issues in addition to work in defense of human rights puts your life in danger. Yet if you are not a court magistrate or someone with enough power and money to pay for your protection, chances are you will die in cold blood at the hands of armed people who do not care about your life or the suffering of your family, but only the ability to continue spreading violence, manipulation and intimidation. Continuing with the above and in accordance with the NGO Indepaz (Instituto de estudios para el desarrollo y la paz), in Colombia in 2020, 310 social leaders were assassinated, including indigenous, Afro-Colombian, peasant farmers, and defenders of sexual identity, in addition to 12 of their relatives and 64 signatories of the Peace Agreement. This, far from being a positive result of the agreement, diminishes the hopes of a Colombian society in which thoughts and ideas can be freely expressed. Colombia assassinates those who practice their democratic participation in the regions. To better understand this troubling dynamic, it is helpful to explore the case of one such leader.
Oswaldo Pérez was one of the many victims of violence against social leaders during 2021. He was assassinated mainly due to territorial issues, a problem that seems to never ceases to occur in the country, and which has represented a high relevance for the violation of human rights that occur without adequate intervention of the state. Oswaldo, a displaced person, father, husband and a brave defender of human rights, worked on community development, formulation of governmental support policies, and conducted research about experiences regarding community action as the president of the community action board (junta de acción comunal), which is a non-profit corporation made up of citizens of the same community who join forces to work together for the benefit of the collective. Oswaldo also led the agro mining federation of southern Bolívar in the struggle of getting back their lands and rights. He was threatened several times before a group of armed people entered his house and shot him dead on July 26, 2021. Oswaldo was alone without any chance of help that night since his family had previously fled to another village in search of safety and with the promise of seeing him again. Even though his neighbours and people from the community had reported numerous death threats, the Bolivar Police Department did not act because they were not deemed “official threats” and accounted for the murder by saying that being a leader and “getting into these groups matters” had been the cause of his death. Such a statement offers an indication of the disconnection of the authorities with this village of displaced people, a community which has been immersed in a constant conflict over the possession of land for several years. To compound matters, the Colombian government has failed to sufficiently support social policies focused on alternatives to illicit crops for the subsistence of the community, and this is one reason why many illegal groups continue to prosper, sow terror and commit multiple Human Rights abuses in addition to increasing levels of inequality. These factors have placed social leaders and human rights defenders in the crossfire, meaning leaders with a similar profile to Oswaldo being killed across in the department.
Such indifference from the authorities has allowed these crimes to occur far too frequently and Oswaldo has not been the only victim in the south of Bolivar. Just like him, Luis Caldera, former president of the San Jacinto del Cauca Community Action Board, which is also located in southern Bolívar, was found dead; his body was found floating with his hands tied behind his back in the Cauca River on August 15, 2019. The main suspects in the murder were members of the AGC/Clan del Golfo, another armed group that craves land control and routes for drug trafficking. Luis’ position in this organization was to bring security, promote human rights and become a bridge between the community and the government. As well as Oswaldo and Luis, Edwin Acosta Ochoa, social leader and member of the Interlocution Commission of the South of Bolívar, father of three children and recognized by his community in the village of Mina Seca, south of Bolívar, was assassinated on 26 May, 2020 by three men who shot him dead in his home. That same week, the Community Action Board of the Vallecito village in the south of Bolívar denounced the forced disappearance of María Silva Caballero, 52, a member of the Board and defender of the projects for the voluntary substitution of crops for illicit use. In the same way, a month before Edwin’s murder, the Popular Women’s Organization of Colombia (OFP) denounced the murder of Carlota Salinas Pérez, mother of three and one of its leaders. This murder occurred in the San Pablo village, in Bolívar, on the eve of the quarantine in Colombia due to COVID-19, after she had been promotingthe organization of projects with women producers, leaders and defenders of victims of violence for more than 10 years. Carlota had also been part of the Civil Defense in the municipality of San Pablo, where she worked in disaster risk management and social and environmental action. All these victims leave a hole in their families and communities.
All these examples show that both in Bolívar and in the rest of Colombia, being a social leader is a risky job, and the risks are ever present. The most recent case of violence against social leaders in Bolívar was that of Martín Bayona, murdered on September 22 in the municipality of Morales, in the south of Bolívar. Martín was president of the La Cuchilla Community Action Board and a member of the Development Programs with a Territorial Approach (PDET, for their initials in Spanish, are regional development programs agreed as part of the 2016 peace deal with the objective of helping provide better opportunities and living conditions for the sub-regions which have been historically worst affected by the armed conflict) and was assassinated by unknown armed men who broke into his farm and killed him with several gunshot wounds. His murder, though just one among the national statistics, was condemned by the IACHR using social networks alongside calls for the State of Colombia to “investigate the fact promptly and diligently and punish the material and intellectual responsible, considering, as a hypothesis, the activity that Martín Bayona carried out as a social leader in his community.” As in 2019 and 2020, this year the murder of social leaders, women and men, defenders of rights, continues to increase at a national level.
This wave of violence against leaders has been on the rise for the past number of years. According to a report on the deaths of social leaders in Colombia published by Indepaz in 2020, since the signing of the Agreement with the FARC, between 2016 and October 15, 2020; 840 leaders and 131 female human rights defenders were assassinated, which leaves in evidence the weak structure of the government in terms of monitoring threats and killings of leaders, since in most cases those responsible for these massacres were not made public or were strategically hidden, as in the case of Oswaldo, whose death threats were not listed as official and therefore were not followed up on. For that reason, the president of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), Eduardo Cifuentes, assured that the lives of the leaders “are at high risk due to the threats, homicides, disappearances, kidnappings, displacements and other attacks” of which they have been victims since the signing of the peace agreement in November 2016 and asked, from his position, the to government adopt a defense resolution in which it makes recommendations to the State institutions, and that these resolutions have differential approaches and a territorial perspective, in order to set the roadmap to “stop this human tragedy” and the violence against social leaders, because, even after countless deaths of social leaders in Colombia, the reason for the increase in threats, attacks and homicides against these leaders is not known with precision. What is clear is that they are killing leaders with three profiles, defenders who want to participate in politics, people who oppose illegal economies and claimants of land or truth, as assured by Indepaz. In the same way as the IACHR, the UN has also drawn attention to Colombia, demanding an effective response that explains the constant increase in these murders, because although this is an issue that has been happening during the mandate of different governments, it has become more than worrying during the current administration, and it is here that the question arises as to why the state has not been able to stop these crimes which represent a deeper problem than the daily death figures suggest.
Consequently, it becomes evident that due to the political polarization in Colombia and its increase, together with the lack of attention and weak response from the state regarding peace policies in the country, many people have been displaced and have had to flee to other cities, leaving a vacuum of territorial power that is eventually filled by these armed groups on the fringes of the law. These groups fight for control of these evicted territories and for the profitable cultivation of coca. According to report No. 63 of the International Crisis Group, if the Colombian Government does not provide alternative livelihoods for local peasants, as well as developing improvements in security and governance at the community level, it would increase the risk of losing political control over these parts of the country, since by resolving disputes and defending illicit livelihoods against security forces, these groups have established a rudimentary and authoritarian form of local political leadership. Such a scenario leaves social leaders on their own defending their rights and needs, dealing with these conflicts over the possession of land; an issue that could highlight the state’s absence and the weak scope of the peace treaty. In such a context, peace policies must be sought to build trust between the State and citizens, something that would guarantee them security and their rights. However, in the absence of such commitment on behalf of the state, the fledgling process has not produced the desired results. In fact, it could be argued that the opposite has happened and that instead of building on the peace process to transform the dynamics of violence, the violence has been transformed and geared increasingly towards those who wish to see their communities and their region prosper.
To conclude, the heartbreaking case of Oswaldo and the many other social leaders remain part of the statistics. However, each of these victims leaves a void in their families and a trace of sadness and hopelessness in their communities, as well as unfinished social processes and weakening the courage of other people who, like Oswaldo, could have faced armed groups to defend their rights. In this way, the constant sowing of fear, the marginalization of many parts of the population in Colombia and the constantly growing social inequality have become central problems for these regions where it has become common to see militarization as a response to the problems presented . Even if the number of coca crops can be reduced, this is just a temporary effect, since the peasants are not offered an alternative and besides, they are often forced to be part of this. This also shows that Colombia currently does not have a structural solution to this structural problem and therefore, no solution for these families that live in state abandonment with little security or guarantee of their rights. This state absence is the same faced by the community that Oswaldo and his family were part of, the community that he wanted to defend but that in doing so, just like Luis, Edwin, María, Carlota, Martín and many other social leaders in Bolivar and throughout the country, he ended up being silenced in the most horrific and permanent manner.
*Article researched and written by Katia Gonzalez with assistance from Roberto Gomez.
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