Action Alerts

Did you know that last year almost 1,500 Colombians* were violently forced from their homes each day? It's no wonder that Colombia now has more internally displaced persons than any other country in the world, even more than Sudan.

We're saddened to report that the spouse of an indigenous activist working in Cauca was killed when Colombian soldiers fired shots into his vehicle this past Tuesday. The killing of Edwin Legarda shows that despite recent firings of top military officials, the Colombian government is not doing enough to prevent new civilian killings by the army.

There have been some positive signals on human rights in just the first three weeks of the Obama Administration. But since U.S. policy towards Colombia and Latin America is not a priority for this administration, we have to make sure that the United States is indeed standing up for human rights by putting our energy into educating and cajoling our representatives to support our values.

On October 12th, more than 12,000 indigenous Colombians gathered to peacefully protest the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement and the Colombian government's consistent failure to return land obtained by violence to indigenous communities.