Current Situation

We cannot introduce the main facts happened during the month of April, without mentioning the hard situation that the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó (CdP) is suffering after the murder of its members, Nayeli Sepúlveda and Edison David, occurred on March 19^th in Las Delicias, at La Esperanza village. For this reason, the Peace Community asked the Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos (CIDH) for a monitoring visit on the ground in order to report the serious human rights violations that affect not only its members. The CIDH visit aimed at talking and gather information from various national, municipal and civil society representatives to better understand the violence impact on undermining human rights.
During the post-visit press conference, CIDH stressed that the Peace Community is protected by precautionary measures, recently extended due to the situation of violence in loco, and expressed concern, urging State authorities to safeguard the CdP from the armed groups. CIDH will closely monitor the implementation of the protective measures that the State should guarantee to the CdP.
On April 1st, Ever Albeiro Espí Hernández, social leader and President of the Municipal Action Council of Beisal in Arauca Department, has been killed, showing once again how the violence is still a painful issue for the country.

CURRENT SITUATION

For several months, protests against the tax reform (and not only) have continued on a regular basis in various cities of the country. The Personería of Bogotà (i.e. the supervisory body of the various territorial bodies, which is in charge of the defense and protection of Human Rights) observed and denounced irregular procedures of the ESMAD (special anti-riot forces) during the protests at the end of August.
During his visit to Colombia, Monsignor Duffé (Secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development) declared that the demonstrations were “an expression of desperation, a clear "no" to political and economic inequalities, corruption and violence against the poor, contempt for young people, workers and representatives of the civil society”.
The situation in various rural areas of the country is no less serious, because the presence of many illegal armed groups determines conditions of great vulnerability for the civilian population, forcing thousands of people to displacement.

CURRENT SITUATION

 "Mario Paciolla represents - like few - all those wonderful people with whom we feel a connection  coming from the heart and our lives, the kind of person who do not believe in Italian, Colombian, French, Ecuadorian nationality or whatever it is, but believe that life need to be built by taking care of each other, recognizing each other, being critical and self-critical and by creating real alternatives in the face of what is happening".
Manuel Rozental, activist for the organization “Pueblos en Camino” in Colombia, used these words to describe Mario Paciolla during an interview for the Italian newspaper “Manifesto”.

The circumstances of Mario’s death, which took place on July 15th in San Vicente del Caguán, still remain to be clarified. In recent weeks, this episode has strongly re-emerged - as reported in the SIR article - when the Senator Roy Barreras, during a debate in the Senate, "asked Defense Minister Holmes Trujillo if the military indicated in a report the name of Paciolla as an informer, since he had interviewed the mothers of 8 children and adolescents who died when the army bombed the FARC’s dissidence ... ". By reading the article, we also learn that: “The senator revealed there was allegedly an intelligence report about an Italian UN humanitarian worker who was accused of leaking information about the bombing”.

Day by day a pervasive sense of uncertainty and insecurity is haunting the Colombian population who has been bent by the violent acts committed by many illegal armed groups such as the AGC (Autodefensas Gaetanistas de Colombia). At the beginning of October, this illegal armed group smeared walls and vehicles in several cities writing “AGC are present” and leaving flyers in many regions including Antioquia, Cordoba, Chocò and Sucre. By these gestures, they wanted to announce their presence and their determination to stay and control as many territories as possible.

CURRENT SITUATION

The investigation into Mario Paciolla’s death, the UN Verification Mission’s collaborator in Colombia found dead on July 15th in San Vicente del Caguán in circumstances yet to be clarified, is going on. The Colombian newspaper El Espectador has recently reported the decision of the Prosecutor's Office in Rome to launch an inquiry for murder, thus dumping the suicide hypothesis and expressing the intention to shed light on Mario’s death. Also, the Vice-Minister of Cooperation and Foreign Affairs, Marina Sereni, has declared that “the United Nations must cooperate to uncover the truth” since what happened shows a series of “inexplicable facts” and “it is very hard to believe it was suicide.” A beautiful account of Mario’s vocation and life has been realized by Valerio Cataldi (Tg3 Rai) through an article narrating Mario's professionalism and passion in his work in Colombia.

CURRENT SITUATION

Neither on the pandemic side nor on the side of violence against social leaders did we receive any good news from Latin America this month. In many areas of Colombia people are starving, especially where the situation was difficult and precarious even before Covid-19. In the Guajira region, for example, people are experiencing a serious lack of water and the risk of infection has increased due to Venezuelan migrants who cross the area while coming back from different states of Latin America, thus worsening the situation.

The most shocking news for the world, however, was the evidence which has shown that the Colombian army illegally spied on 130 people, among which reporters (some from the US), politicians, Human Rights activists, trade unionists, magistrates and employees from different NGOs. The Colombian military intelligence unit compiled their dossiers by controlling people’s ICT devices in order to collect telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, addresses of relatives and friends and a number of other private and business pieces of information, thus carrying out illegal espionage. The UN office in Bogotà, together with several Institutions and Organizations, expressed deep concern about these violations of labour law committed against the people involved.