[News] Colombian Activist Plinio Pulgarin Killed by Paramilitaries as Forced Displacements Continue

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Colombian-Activist-Plinio-Pulgarin-Killed-by-Paramilitaries-as-Forced-Displacements-Continue-20180119-0009.html 



  Colombian Activist Plinio Pulgarin Killed by Paramilitaries as Forced
  Displacements Continue

19 January 2018
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On Thursday another Colombian social activist, Plinio Pulgarin, was 
killed by paramilitaries in the department of Cordoba, a region rife 
with a continued displacement of families.

A social pillar and a promoter of voluntary replacement of illicit crops 
for legal products in the community, Pulgarin worked as the president of 
the Community Action Board of San Pedrito. The news of his death, which 
took place in the wee hours of Thursday morning, has rocked the town 
creating fear that more incidents could occur in the coming days.

Also fueling fear in the community is the continued forced displacement 
of families in the region. Within hours of Pulgarin's murder, 
paramilitary forces barged into homes and displaced at least 70 families.

Activist Andres Chica denounced the forced eradication by 
paramilitaries, recounting the experience of another community activist 
who was targeted and harassed by militia in the midst of the fray.

"Mr. Plinio Pulgarín was the coordinator of that area in advancing all 
the supplies for the respective substitution, just like Mrs. Diana 
Dorado,” Chica said.

“In the early hours of today (Thursday, January 18), armed men, unknown 
until now, arrive in Plinio and told Mrs. Diana Dorado that they 
were giving her half an hour to leave,” he said, adding that the militia 
corralled the rest of the community and told the congregations of over 
50 families they had to leave their homes by noon that day.

Since the evacuation of Colombia guerrilla groups, such as the FARC and 
the ELN in the wake of the Peace Agreements, illegal paramilitary groups 
have flooded into the regions and continue to enact violence 
against rural communities.

Over the last year, hundreds of social activists, indigenous leaders, 
and former guerilla militia have fallen victim to Colombia’s violence 
which human rights groups have denounced as government negligence 
towards the terms of the peace accords continues.

-- 
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