Stand by Colombia's Victims of Violence

Afro-Colombian communities in the past year have faced increasing threats of displacement and violence. On September 21st, LAWGEF joined the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) and other partner organizations in organizing a public event in DC where Clemencia Carabali Rodallega, a prominent Afro-Colombian leader, spoke about the dire situation that many communities are in today. The following video and quotes were taken from that event.

In 2005, I visited the community of San José de Apartadó, Colombia. A group of poor farmers who had been repeatedly displaced from their homes by violence, they had decided to call themselves a “peace community” and reject violence from all sides—paramilitaries, guerrillas and the army.  Yet the community was subjected to ever more harassment and violence, including by the local 17th army brigade.  Some 170 members of the peace community have been assassinated since 1997. My visit came soon after seven members of the peace community, including three children, and a local farmer had been massacred and dismembered.  The community members had left their army-occupied town to construct a bare-bones, dirt-floor village down the road.

For a lot of people, the day after Labor Day is the time to get down to business. For us, it's just September 7th. Why? Because when you're going for change as big as we are on U.S.-Colombia policy, you never stop working hard.

I wanted to write a quick, exciting update on the situation with the Afro-Colombian community La Toma:

We stopped the eviction!

Colombia's Constitutional Court issued an important decision last week which sent Colombia's new administration back to the drawing board to secure approval for a U.S.-Colombian military base agreement.  The decision effectively struck down the contentious agreement, chastising the Colombian executive for having failed to get approval from Colombia's Congress, and requiring them now to seek congressional endorsement before moving forward. 

On August 13th, a car bomb was detonated near the Caracol Radio headquarters, one of the largest networks in Colombia. LAWGEF and its partners issued the following statement in response:

Stop the eviction of this
incredible community!If the Colombian government does not change its mind, tomorrow the 1052 families that make up the Afro-Colombian community La Toma will be evicted from the land that they have lived on for almost 400 years. We cannot let this happen.

Take action now to support the community and stop the eviction!



A big white teddy bear sat on top of one of the little coffin boxes, and red roses on the other three. The remains of the four sisters were finally being returned to their mother, Blanca Nieves Meneses.

“I never thought that this is the way they would be returned to me,” said their surviving sister Nancy. “I always kept hoping that they would be returned alive.”

This week marked the 10th year since the infamous U.S. aid package known as “Plan Colombia” was signed into law. And while some U.S. and Colombian officials have been celebrating it as a “success” and pushing to use it as a model for other countries like Afghanistan or Mexico, the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) chose to commemorate this anniversary by releasing a report that describes exactly why that analysis is not only misguided but also dangerous.