Colombia

As the National Days of Action for Peace in Colombia begin this week, I wanted to share the original poem "They Don't Believe Us" that Colombian human rights defender, Orlando Bolaños, read aloud to me when I visited him on a human rights verification mission in December. 

“It’s hard for us to do human rights work where we are. We have to hide what we are doing so they don’t watch us. Our comings and goings are monitored.  Our emails are monitored.  Our leaders are in a permanent state of stress, not just for themselves but for their children. It was hard for us to even get out to talk to you.”

This is what I heard from one activist when I visited Colombia on an international mission to investigate the status of human rights defenders this past December. Unfortunately, he was not alone in describing this systematic persecution and attacks against those working for justice in Colombia.