The security situation of community leaders in the Caribbean region continues to deteriorate.

*This text is a translation of an article written by Camila Orozco Flores and Luis Fernando Trejos Rosero and published by La Silla Vacia.

In the first half of 2021, the murders of 6 human rights defenders were registered in the Caribbean region. These cases occurred in the departments of Córdoba (2), Sucre (1), Magdalena (1), La Guajira (1) and César (1). Furthermore, the initial months of 2021 were registered as the most violent since 2018, leading to serious effects on the civilian population, including community leaders and human rights defenders.

While there has been a decrease in the number of murders (of community leaders and human rights defenders) in comparison to the first 6 months of 2020, systematic violence towards this sector has not ceased. Indigenous and Afro-Colombian leaders, promoters of illegal crop substitution programs, land claimants and environmental activists continue to be targeted in particular.

These are the profiles of the human rights defenders and community leaders who were killed in Colombia’s Caribbean region between January and June 2021:

Keeping in mind the increase in armed actions, particularly in the south of Bolívar and the south of Córdoba, cases of attacks on human rights defenders and community leaders must be expected to increase. The murders occurred in territories with the presence of Illegal Armed Organisations (Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia, Autodefensas Conquistadores de la Sierra Nevada, the ELN and the Caparros). Furthermore, there continues to be a tendency whereby responsibility for the murders is not claimed publicly in order to avoid judicial or political consequences; a fact which makes them difficult to analyse. The presence of these groups can be attributed to the strategic value of each territory, which by and large revolves around the control of legal and illegal sources of income present.

The security situation in the Caribbean region continues to deteriorate, not only due to the violent actions, but also because of the continued incursions from Venezuela of units from the Segunda Marquetalia (former FARC fighters who have turned their back on the 2016 peace agreement) into rural areas of Fonseca (La Guajira), very close to the camp of demobilised FARC fighters in Pondores. This dynamic not only endangers these ex-combatants in the process of reintegration, but also the rural and indigenous communities situated in this sector of the Serranía del Perijá mountain range.

In such a complex context, UNCaribe reiterates the following proposals aiming to improve the conditions of (in)security regarding human rights defenders in the Caribbean region:

1. The national government and local governments must promote campaigns across various modes of communication highlighting the work of human rights defenders and the importance of this work for the communities they represent and for democracy writ large.

2. Urge the Public Prosecutor ‘s Office and the Attorney General’s Office to present results of any investigations regarding Transitional Justice Territorial Committees (Law 1148 of 2011) periodically and publicly. Similarly, the Attorney General’s Office must issue orders stating that in the municipalities where there are penal processes investigating threats and victimisations of defenders, reports should be published periodically and publicly stating what progress has been made.

3. Strengthen the National Protection Unit with greater financial and human resources, with the intention being to reduce the time of internal processes.

4. Involve in an active manner the mayors and governors of the worst affected municipalities and departments, with the aim of formulating public policies with specific territorial focuses, keeping in mind the true institutional capacities of each municipality or department.

5. Keep in mind the early warning system of the Ombudsman’s Office in order to articulate territorial institutionality; the objective being to prevent or anticipate violence towards rights defenders and to establish protocols for rapid humanitarian evacuations in the most serious instances.

6. Do not separate the security of human rights defenders from the agenda of integrated rural development, on the basis that there is a directly proportional relationship between both issues.

7. Establish forms of coordination between national, regional and local authorities to create integrated action plans with medium and long term objectives (across terms of mandate) which would allow the creation of legal economic circuits, institutional strengthening and the articulation and qualification of civil society in the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta, Montes de Maria, the Serranía del Perijá and the southern regions of Bolívar, Córdoba and Cesar.

8. Promote the establishment of agreements or humanitarian pacts between local communities and illegal armed actors (often the de facto power in these regions). Such pacts could be facilitated and accompanied by the Catholic church, Evangelical churches and NGO’s, with clear limits being established regarding which topics can be processed or publicly denounced, as well as creating mechanisms for the resolution of conflicts which may emerge through the application and interpretation of such pacts.

9. Accelerate the full implementation of the 2016 Peace Agreement.