Colombia

Can you imagine risking your life to defend land, water and oxygen? That is an everyday reality for courageous community leaders in Colombia who protect natural resources from the economic interests that threaten them. 

Campesino, Afro-descendent and Indigenous defenders of territory and the environment in Colombia are facing a terrifying increase in threats, attacks and assassinations. Hundreds have been killed in the last two years alone. According to the latest report by Front Line Defenders, Colombia is one of the most dangerous countries in the world to defend land, Indigenous territory and the environment.

As the bloodshed continues, women defenders face the additional threat of sexual violence against them or their daughters. 

Colombian authorities promise programs to protect defenders and their communities yet fail to implement them. Meanwhile, companies are allowed to proceed with projects that damage the environment, violate rights and fuel violence.

August 4, 2020

 

Honourable Mary Ng, MP Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade Global Affairs Canada House of Commons  Ottawa, ON  K1A 1A0

 

Dear Minister Ng,

We were grateful for the opportunity to meet by phone with members of your staff on July 22. We asked for the call following the unsatisfactory response from Export Development Canada’s President and CEO, Mairead Lavery, to the thousands of emails she received from Amnesty Canada supporters and others. The emails denounced EDC’s 2016 loan to help build the Hidroituango dam in Colombia and called on the agency to provide reparations to the affected communities and advocate for their protection.

Since March 14, some 9,000 activists and supporters of Amnesty Canada sent email messages to Export Development Canada’s CEO and Canada’s International Trade Minister demanding remedy for the harm caused by a disastrous big dam project that Canada helped finance in Colombia. This action was developed in coordination with Rios Vivos (Spanish for Living Rivers), a coalition whose members have been threatened and attacked – with six leaders killed – as they continue to speak out against the impacts of the dam on the environment vital to their health and livelihoods. 

"How heartening it is to learn that there has been so much action in Canada,” said Rios Vivos spokesperson Isabel Zuleta, pictured above giving a presentation during last November's visit to Canada. “I will share your activism with our members so they can take strength from it in these hard times.”

In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, Colombia must urgently take appropriate measures to guarantee the rights of Indigenous Peoples, including their rights to health, water and food, Amnesty International said today. These measures must be coordinated with each Indigenous community, respecting their right to autonomy.

In the context of the health emergency declared because of COVID-19 and the “State of Economic, Social and Ecological Emergency” throughout the country, President Iván Duque stated that the authorities would deliver food and money to the most vulnerable people. The Ministry of the Interior is responsible for the delivery of food to Indigenous, Black, Raizal, Palenquero, Afro-Colombian and Roma communities; Community Action Boards; community leaders; and human rights defenders.

However, three weeks after the quarantine was imposed, Indigenous communities in the departments of Casanare, Vichada and Meta informed Amnesty International that they have received no support from government authorities, despite their strict compliance with the isolation measures.

In response to the protest organized on 21 March by people deprived of their liberty in several Colombian prisons, who were calling for efficient measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, which resulted in at least 23 deaths and 83 people being injured in Bogota’s “La Modelo” Medium Security Prison and Penitentiary, Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International, said:

“In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic that confronts us, there are growing concerns about the precarious situation of people deprived of their liberty across the Americas. In Colombia, overcrowded prisons make it impossible to isolate people who may have contracted the virus. In addition, limited access to health services and hygiene products, and the lack of constant water supplies, increase the risks of exposure to infection and affect recovery conditions.”

Isabel Zuleta via wikidata.org

DOWNLOAD THE PDF HERE
 

Isabel Zuleta cares deeply about the Cauca River and all the life it sustains in her homeland of Colombia. 

The river used to be full of fish. It provided both food and income for many families who rely on fishing to survive. 

But that all changed when the government approved the construction of a huge dam. The dam turned a running river into a pool of still water to create electricity. 

The dam stopped fish from swimming up the river to lay their eggs and reproduce. It upset the ecology of the river which means it changed how the plants and organisms relate to the river. The dam affected all the life that depends on a running river.

Isabel joined with other people in a movement called Ríos Vivos, which is Spanish for ‘Living Rivers’. 

Together, they started speaking out against the dam. They organized rallies and campaigns to defend their right to a healthy environment.

Doing so takes courage. Leaders of Ríos Vivos have been killed. So have their relatives. 

Leyner Palacios accepting the World Prize for Pluralism, November 2017. Photo via youtube.com

DOWNLOAD PDF OF UA 169a HERE

Human rights defender Leyner Palacios has been vocal about the presence of illegal armed groups in the territories of Bojayá communities, western Colombia. (See UA posted December 2 and titled Colombia: Thousands in need of urgent protection.) 

On 31 December 2019, 300 members of the Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia arrived in the community of Pogue and placed it and three other communities of Bojayá under forced confinement. On 3 January 2020, the AGC threatened Leyner Palacios and gave him two hours to leave the territory of Bojayá or they would kill him. Amnesty International urges the Colombian government to take immediate action to guarantee his protection.

Please send a letter or email to the president.