[News] Colombia - Rather than peace and social justice, communities are instead witnessing right-wing terror

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/FARC-Commanders-Son-Killed-in-Double-Murder-as-Colombia-Peace-Deal-Gives-Way-to-Terror-20170510-0020.html 



  FARC Commander's Son Killed in Double Murder as Colombia Peace Deal
  Gives Way to Terror

May 10, 2017

The son of a commander from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, 
FARC, has fallen victim to paramilitary violence alongside a friend in a 
brutal double homicide. The murders, which occurred in Argelia, southern 
Cauca, raise yet more questions about the implementation of the peace 
deal signed last year between the FARC and the Colombian government.

The killings occurred in the early hours of Sunday when Yonnier Sujeimer 
Rosero Muñoz, the son of an assassinated commander of the 60th front of 
the FARC, and his friend, Pablo Erazo Mamian, were together. The two 
young men were fired upon 17 times by a gunman equipped with an 
automatic rifle, according to officials speaking on condition of anonymity.

Seriously injured, the victims were then executed as they lay prone on 
the ground. The perpetrator then fled to the nearby jungle.

Relatives say that the two young men made their living as farm workers 
in the town of El Sinai, where they were known by the endearing 
nicknames “Cotorra” and “Amoniaco.”

Communal leaders say that the violence is the outcome of the arrival of 
armed groups in the region which followed the decamping of FARC fighters 
stipulated by last year's peace deal.

While FARC combatants agreed to comprehensively hand over arms to United 
Nations officials, ending the long conflict between revolutionary 
insurgents and the state, the vacuum created by the FARC departure 
allowed for the entrance of armed right-wing militias, mercenaries and 
paramilitary brigades.

Rather than peace and social justice, communities are instead witnessing 
right-wing terror committed by non-state actors such as the Gaitanista 
Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, known by its Spanish acronym AGC, and 
other groups. Many of these armed civilian paramilitaries stocked their 
arsenals thanks to Plan Colombia, a 1999 counterinsurgency initiative 
that saw the U.S. pour billions of dollars into the country for the 
purpose of further militarizing the region. The year 2016 witnessed the 
blossoming of such far-right paramilitary and narco-paramilitary groups, 
who extended their regional presence and visibility.

Paramilitary groups in Colombia are often linked to powerful oligarchs 
within the country as well as multinational companies seeking to secure 
economic interests in resource-rich territories. Prominent politicians 
like former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe are suspected of having 
supported paramilitary death squads which helped depopulate areas that 
were then subject to illegal land-grabs 
<http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Colombia-Denies-UN-Claim-of-Paramilitary-Linked-Violence-20170502-0038.html>.

“In post-conflict zones it is necessary to look at the rearrangement of 
legal and illegal forces,” Cauca government secretary Alejandra Miller 
told Colombian newspaper El Pais. “It was to be expected that violent 
events of this nature would increase, and Cauca is no stranger to (these 
events).”

The western agricultural province of Cauca is coveted as an ideal 
location for growing coca plants and opium poppies that fuel a 
still-booming drug trade. One of the more violence-plagued provinces in 
the South American nation, Cauca once boasted a presence of nearly 7,000 
FARC combatants, according to reports.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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