The Andes
Colombia: kingpin named in Trujillo Massacre
Colombia's prosecutor charged notorious drug kingpin "Don Diego" with masterminding several massacres between 1988 and 1994 in which hundreds of peasants were killed.
Tag: ELN
The Andes
Colombia: multinationals on ‘trial’ for rights abuses
An "Ethical Trial against Plunder" was held in Bogotá to air testimony on the environmental and human rights practices of mining and oil interests in Colombia.
The Andes
Blasts shut Colombia’s second largest oil pipeline
Two explosions shut down Colombia’s Caño Limon oil pipeline, in the latest guerilla attack. Such blasts have spilled much crude in the rainforest region in recent years.
The Andes
Colombia: rebels attack coal mine amid strike
Colombia’s largest coal miner, Cerrejon, under force majeure due to a work stoppage, was targted in a guerilla attack that left four of the company’s trucks destroyed by fire.
The Andes
Colombia: guerillas free captives
After tense negotiations, the Red Cross transported to safety two Colombian National Police agents taken captive by the FARC guerillas in Cauca department last month.
The Andes
Colombia: ELN to join peace talks?
Colombia’s peace advocates are calling for inclusion of the ELN guerillas in the Havana dialogue with the FARC, warning of a “marginalized” front in the civil war.
The Andes
Colombia: ELN abducts gold prospectors
Guerillas of Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN) abducted five gold prospectors working for a Canadian company on an exploratory mission in BolÃvar department.
The Andes
Colombia: FARC ends unilateral ceasefire
Colombia’s FARC rebels announced the immediate end of a two-month unilateral ceasefire and renewed its call for a bilateral truce to hold peace talks with the government.
The Andes
Colombia: ICC ‘false positive’ probe advances
The International Criminal Court issued an interim report on the Colombian military’s “false positives” extradjudicial killings, finding official complicity up the chain of command.
The Andes
Colombia: war, illegal mining encroach on indigenous communities
Embera indigenous communities on Colombia’s Pacific coast came under bombardment by army helicopters, while an Awá community expelled illegal gold miners from their land.
The Andes
GIG
Under pressure to address the ongoing wave of targeted assassinations in Colombia, President Iván Duque for the first time spoke before the National Commission to Guarantee Security, formed by the previous government to address continuing violence in the country—which has only worsened since he took office last year. Duque said 4,000 people are now under the government's protection program for threatened citizens. But his office implied that the narco trade is entirely behind the growing violence. Interior Minister Nancy Patricia Gutiérrez told the meeting: "This great problem is derived from the 200,000 hectares of illicit crops that we have in Colombia." However, it is clear that the narco economy is but part of a greater nexus of forces that fuel the relentless terror—all related to protecting rural land empires and intimidating the peasantry. (Photo via Contagio Radio)
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mosque161
Gilberto Valencia, a young Afro-Colombian cultural worker, became 2019's first casualty of political violence in Colombia, when a gunman opened fire on a New Years party he was attending in his village in Cauca region. As the death toll from around the country mounted over the following weeks, the UN Mission to Colombia warned President Iván Duque that he must address "the issue of the assassinations of social leaders and human rights defenders." Colombia's official rights watchdog, the Defensoría del Pueblo, acknowledges that there was an assassination on average every two days in the country last year—a total of 172, and a rise of more than 35% over 2017. (Photo via Caracol Radio)