Blog Posts

We heard from our longtime LAWG partner Nancy Sánchez, who has worked many years in Putumayo, Colombia, about this sorry case of fumigation of pineapple crops of the Association of Women Pineapple growers, Oroyaco Hamlet, Municipality of Villagarzon, Putumayo.

"What is going wrong in Colombia?" asks the coalition of human rights defenders in Colombia. The government of Juan Manuel Santos last year invested time and funding in mechanisms to protect communities and people at risk, among them human rights defenders. 

And yet, in 2012, every five days a defender was assassinated in Colombia, and every 20 hours one defender was attacked. In 2012, 357 men and women in Colombia were attacked for their work as human rights defenders, according to Somos Defensores ("We Are Defenders"), which maintains a unified database of attacks against human rights defenders. Sixty-nine defenders were assassinated, a jump from 49 assassinations in 2011. Indeed, this is the highest number of aggressions against defenders registered by the database in the last ten years, and a 49 percent increase since 2011. The attacks include: 202 threats, 69 assassinations, 50 assaults, 26 arbitrary detentions, 5 forced disappearances, 1 arbitrary use of the penal system, 3 robberies of information, and 1 case of sexual violence...

Nowhere in the world is the situation for unionists more dangerous than in Colombia. Approximately 3,000 trade unionists and labor activists have been murdered since 1986, with the great majority of these cases still unresolved. Leaders routinely receive death threats and members of unions are fired as punishment for their membership. In order to help remedy the dire situation, the Labor Action Plan (LAP) was signed between the United States and Colombia in April 2011 as a forerunner to the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement. The goal was to clean up the rampant labor rights violations and provide protection for workers’ rights. Unfortunately, progress has been slow and the abuses continue...

Now is the time. With spring just around the corner, it’s time we all start thinking about Days of Prayer and Action for Colombia. Every year, communities across the United States come together and join in solidarity with our Colombian brothers and sisters in an effort to show policymakers that now is the time for real change in U.S.-Colombia policy.

2012 has come and gone and Colombia still has far to go in following up on the Labor Action Plan (LAP). The Labor Action Plan was signed by both the U.S. and Colombian governments during the contentious debate for approval of the Colombia-U.S. Free Trade Agreement.  It was intended to serve as a road map to address severe labor rights problems in Colombia as well as the systemic problem of anti-union violence which has made Colombia in recent years the most dangerous country in the world to exercise worker rights...

As Colombia's peace process advances, here are some words to live by.

“We can't condemn Colombians to another one hundred years of solitude and violence.”
--Enrique Santos Calderón, former editor of El Tiempo, brother of President Juan Manuel Santos

“It's one thing that the victims aren't present at the table in Havana, and it's another thing to ignore their voice, deny their rights.  A peace without victims will have neither political nor moral legitimacy.”
--Senator Juan Fernando Cristo

"The dialogue for ending the armed conflict should be a moment in which sectors of Colombian society that have been marginalized, discriminated against and excluded have an opportunity to effectively present their demands, needs and rights that have long been neglected."
--Coordinación Colombia Europa Estados Unidos...

The police tried to impede Trinidad Ruiz from looking for the bodies of her husband and son. They were disappeared by paramilitary forces on March 23, 2012.  Manuel Ruiz, age 56, and Samir Ruiz, age 15, were executed. Their bodies were dumped in a river and discovered more than four days later by the surviving members of the Ruiz family who were accompanied by Colombian and international human rights organizations. More than eight months later, Mrs. Ruiz and her family are still searching for justice in the highest profile murder of 2012 in Colombia.....

On December 11, the day after International Human Rights Day, the Colombian Congress approved a justice “reform” bill that will likely result in many gross human rights violations by members of the military being tried in military courts—and remaining in impunity.  The bill, along with a separate ruling by the Council of State, unravels the reforms put in place after the “false positives” scandal in which over 3,000 civilians were killed by soldiers.

“Here we have two governments and a very standard labor issue with a small group of workers, yet no resolution, which is very disconcerting. If this can’t be resolved, what can we expect to happen in terms of broader protection for labor?”
Lisa Haugaard, Executive Director of the Latin America Working Group

On September 13, 2012 the Washington Office on Latin America, the Latin America Working Group Education Fund, Witness for Peace and the United Steelworkers welcomed Jorge Parra, leader of ASOTRECOL, Association of Injured Workers and Ex-workers of General Motors Colombia, to speak about the group’s struggle protesting their illegal firing from the U.S. - based company.  Claiming they were fired for their work-related injuries, members of ASOTRECOL have been protesting in front of the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá, Colombia, demanding to be reintegrated into the company -and to be fairly compensated for their work-related injuries.

We are often telling you about the dangers faced by Colombian human rights defenders—the email death threats and terrifying phone calls, the funeral wreaths labeled with their names sent to their homes, the trade unionist or land rights activist shot dead.

But there is also much to celebrate in the creativity, bravery and dedication of Colombia's human rights community.  And celebrate they did in September 2012, as Colombian civil society leaders and the international agencies coalition DIAL (Inter-Agency Dialogue on Colombia) launched Colombia's first national human rights prize.