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Rural leaders Teofilo Acuña & Jorge Tafur worked to stop the development of private initiatives such as mining on public lands in Cesar until they were silenced by bullets.
*Article written by Ada Hernandez, Valeria Rincon & Alejandra Niebles
Colombia has been recognized, unfortunately, for suffering almost seventy years of internal conflict. The same conflict that has affected much of the population and, particularly, has affected those commonly called social leaders. Social leaders are people who stick up against the human rights infractions in the country and represent the interests and needs of their community according to the Humanitarian Leadership Academy, and it is a form of authority earned within the different communities and founded upon personal reputation. In 2016, the Colombian government and the FARC guerrilla group signed a historic Peace Agreement, product of several years of negotiations in Havana, Cuba; nevertheless, this agreement has not guaranteed the end of conflict as many people think. The FARC guerrillas may have laid down their weapons and vacated territories they once controlled, but other illegal organizations have stepped in to replace them. Violence continues to be used as a way to control the population in long marginalized rural communities and those who represent the interests of such communities, principally social leaders, are being murdered with a worrying frequency. This text wants to explore this situation by looking at certain cases of violence against social leaders in the department of Cesar in order to analyze the dynamics present in that region and better understand this current wave of violence in Colombia.
Cesar is one of thirty-two departments that make up Colombia. It is situated in the northeast of the country, and it is a department where cattle farming and coal mining are central to the economy. In Cesar, two men were shot in cold blood at the same place and hour. Two families got destroyed and two women became widows. Teófilo Acuña and Jorge Tafur were murdered on the evening of 22nd February 2022 in San Martín, Cesar. They were social leaders, who wanted to resolve land disputes in the region because, even with the signing of the Peace Agreement, the issue of land ownership and access to land remains unresolved, and threats and infractions against activists and human rights defenders still occur. And this is not an isolated episode; in Colombia people like Jorge and Teófilo receive warnings and threats because of their activism and community work. Most leaders keep fighting and, unfortunately as in this case, are killed because of the work they do and the interests their work complicates. Jorge and Teófilo were working on behalf of communities to have access to playones comunales. These are vacant territories that are periodically flooded by the water of the swamps or rivers, and these have been historically accessed and inhabited by peasant communities in this territory. These playones located in Cesar and Magdalena Medio were the main struggle of both Jorge Tafur and Teofilo Acuña. This struggle led them to disputes with different landowners and private interests in these areas. In particular, the leaders were opposed to the commercial mining interests that were planned on some of these playones. Both leaders had received threats for the actions they were taking; Teófilo Acuña had brought legal action against the state for the granting of mining titles in these supposedly protected public lands. According to a report in El Espectador, this legal action resulted in a decision in favor of Acuña. Unfortunately, this decision came seven months after Acuña and Tafur were brutally murdered. As was already mentioned, Colombia is a country marked by violence, and this violence is almost integrated into its culture. Therefore, unfortunately, these men were identified as being an obstacle for the interests of some and these men were killed, like many other social leaders in Colombia. One can also observe certain irregularities in relation to the investigation of this crime, such as the fact that the police reportedly never arrived at the scene of the crime (Verdad Abierta,2022). Such a situation provides an indication of how affected certain state institutions must be by the corruption of the country and how these institutions allow, in one way or another, the impunity which reigns in relation to cases like this. This information also indicates why so many other cases have happened in the department of Cesar.
As well as the case of Jorge Tafur and Teófilo Acuña, many other leaders have been murdered in the department of Cesar such as Alexander Escobar Molina, Albert Mejia Portillo, and Uladiemiro Vega Garcia. Alexander Enrique Escobar Molina was the president of the JAC (Community Action Board) of the Nuevo Amanecer neighborhood, in the municipality of Aguachica in the south of the department of César. However, he was shot dead outside the house where he was living in Sabanalarga, Atlantico, on July 13th, 2021. While there have been arrests for the murder, no motive has been clearly established. Albert Mejia Portillo was a recognized social and peasant leader, who was part of land reclamation processes in the region, and was from El Silencio, in rural Tamalameque. Albert was shot dead on November 25th, 2021, as he made his way to a meeting about land restitution. Finally, Uladiemiro Vega Garcia, president of the Community Action Board of the Cimarrón corregimiento, in the Río de Oro municipality, Cesar, was murdered on February 10th, 2022, at the hands of armed men. Uladiemiro had been known as a dedicated social activist in the area who had defended the rights of workers. Furthermore, there was the murder of rural leader Jose Luis Quiñones, who like Teofilo Acuña and Jorge Tafur, had been involved in efforts to stop the development of private interests on the playones of his region. Like Teofilo and Jorge, Jose Luis Quiñones was also silenced by gunmen, in August 2022. Unfortunately, these cases are indicative of the threats and violence faced, not only by leaders in Cesar, but also by leaders throughout Colombia. And despite all this, we are yet to see definitive action from the government in order to resolve this situation. This is a situation which is repeated in departments throughout the country. According to INDEPAZ, over 1,400 social leaders, like the cases outlined above, have been murdered in Colombia since the signing of the peace agreement with the FARC in 2016. Such stark numbers make it imperative to explore the root causes behind this situation, which in many instances means looking at inequality and land access.
It is important to mention that among the main problems that can be found in the department of Cesar, and indeed throughout Colombia, are related to conflict over land. For this reason, many causes and consequences of this conflict are related to the productive models of the region such as extensive cattle ranching, monocultures, and agroindustry. In other words, economic activities demand enormous extensions of land. Consequently, this productive model has generated a process of concentration of properties, land, and water little by little. The main characteristic of the territory of Cesar is that most of its municipalities are rural; this factor plays a fundamental role in the analysis of the area concerning issues such as violence and poverty. According to the National Administrative Statistic Department (DANE), in Cesar, the monetary poverty index is 56.0% and the multidimensional poverty index is 25.3%; the unsatisfied basic needs index is 22.8%; All of which evidences the high vulnerability of the population, mainly in the case of the dispersed rural population, where misery affects 14% of the population. The demand for land for private enterprises, micro and macro, legal and illicit, turns this situation into a perilous one. So, what can and should be done to improve things?
For these reasons, we want to suggest some strategies to promote peace in Cesar’s society. These recommendations are based primarily on the studies of Unimilitar researchers. Now, considering what these researchers have said, we would like to see a search for respect for communities and social leaders in a practical and forceful way. From education to then having an increasingly wise and prudent course of actions, they state that the best way to prevent the spread of hateful policies and disrespect for history, communities and social leaders by certain segments of civil society is to know and understand history from the most primary sphere of education. This is because those children who grow up educated in history and with respect for it, tend to have a particular conception about the way they need to behave, promoting civic participation and a sense of belonging. This way, we can identify what is happening in the education system and, by knowing what the problem is, keep working in order to find a solution. Other relevant suggestions to implement and try to mitigate the violence in the department of Cesar include the UN recommendations. According to the United Nations, many of these cases of violence and territorial conflicts have been increasing due to non-state armed groups, and for this reason it recommends concerted and decisive action by the State in the following areas. The institution says that the State should significantly reduce and eventually eliminate the presence of non-state armed groups in the territories affected by the conflict, through the adoption and adequate implementation of an effective public policy for the dismantling of armed groups, as well as the development of a legal framework and an optimal strategy for the collective subjugation of the groups as foreseen in the Peace Agreement. On the other hand, the UN proposes that Colombia develop and implement a state strategy for the protection of civilians and suggests that there be a call from the populations affected by the violence and the internal conflict for the implementation of humanitarian or peace agreements with non-state armed groups. One of the most important recommendations that the United Nations give for cases, such as Cesar, is the prioritization of the correct implementation of the Peace Agreement, particularly the project of Rural Integral Reform, focused on the Development with a Territorial Approach (PDET for its initials in Spanish), and last but not least, this institution recommends the strengthening of local governments throughout the territory and in the areas most affected by violence and the internal armed conflict, through reinforcing the presence and capacity of the institutions of the justice system and control agencies in the territories.
Finally, about the current situation in the country, the situation is becoming more and more relevant in the international sphere but also in the local community because each time there are more people raising their voices for human rights. However, as seen in this text, there are people silencing them in the most extreme way. Cases like these are concerning because of the increasing impunity one can identify regarding the more than 1,400 social leaders murdered since the peace agreement in 2016. Also, one cannot ignore the absence of the State in the department of Cesar and the weakness of many of its institutions exploring the root causes behind this situation. In addition, the threats and murders of social leaders are increasing not just in Cesar, but in the entire country. For this reason, civil society, local groups and international institutions have initiated a monitoring of the peace agreement. Likewise, these types of cases have acquired greater visibility in the press and have awakened a national interest in finding a solution to this problem. Such a solution is absolutely essential for the future of the country as when leaders like Jorge Tafur and Teofilo Acuña are murdered, families are torn apart, communities lose valuable voices and struggles for greater equality and social development are stalled. We hope that this text will help you to understand the situation a little more and to invite you to support communities affected by violence.
Information sourced from:
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/07/colombia-urgent-government-action-needed-rising-violence-rural-areas-gravely
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