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href="https://colombiareports.com/ongoing-war-colombias-social-leaders/">https://colombiareports.com/ongoing-war-colombias-social-leaders/</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">The ongoing war on Colombia’s social
leaders</h1>
<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">written by Larisa
Sioneriu - August 16, 2017<br>
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<p>The silent, but persistent and deadly attacks on
social leaders and human rights defenders has claimed
another life in southern Colombia, pushing the number
of leaders killed during the peace process above 50.</p>
<p>The bullet-riddled corpse of Fernando Asprilla was
found by the locals of the community of La Tigre, a
rural hamlet in the municipality of Piamonte, <a
title="Cauca, Colombia" class="aalmanual"
target="_self"
href="https://colombiareports.com/cauca/">Cauca</a>.</p>
<p>Asprilla was an active member of the social umbrella
organization Patriotic March and the vice-president of
the local Communal Action Board.</p>
<p>The Patriotic March, which strongly rejected yet
another murder of a member, pointed out that Asprilla
was also coordinating a restitution of illicit crops
process together with authorities.</p>
<p>This year accounts for over 50 social leaders killed
across the country so far, according to
conflict-monitoring NGO Indepaz.</p>
<hr>
<h4><a
href="https://colombiareports.com/social-leader-killed-every-4-days-colombia-report/">‘A
social leader is killed every 4 days in Colombia’:
Report</a></h4>
<hr>
<p>The assassination of Asprilla took place only two
days away from another tragic killing in the same
department. The tortured and raped body of Idalia
Castillo Narvaez, a social leader and victims’
representative, was also found by the locals.</p>
<p>According to the coordinator for Human Rights Network
of Southern Colombia, Devin Hurtado, three social
leaders in Cauca were threatened with death in August
alone.</p>
<p>In effect, Cauca is the department with most victims
of the systematic persecution of social and community
leaders since the beginning of the year of 2016.</p>
<p>Out of the 134 social leaders murdered in 2016, 31%
were from Cauca, according to the country’s Ombudsman.</p>
<p>A 2016 UN report outlined the four departments most
affected by the killing of local leaders: Cauca, <a
title="Antioquia, Colombia" class="aalmanual"
target="_self"
href="https://colombiareports.com/antioquia/">Antioquia</a>,
<a title="Norte de Santander, Colombia"
class="aalmanual" target="_self"
href="https://colombiareports.com/norte-de-santander/">Norte
de Santander</a> and Valle de Cauca.</p>
<h2>Geography of social leaders and human rights
defenders abuses</h2>
<p>In what concerns the geography of the abuses on the
human rights defenders, there are three outstanding
common characteristics of these regions.</p>
<p>The first has to do with the few economic resources
for survival, which naturally led to illegal economies
such as illicit crops and illegal mining, the UN
report claimed.</p>
<p>The second notable characteristic is the fact that
these regions collide with key <a title="Colombia
drug trafficking" class="aalmanual" target="_self"
href="https://colombiareports.com/drug-trafficking-in-colombia/">drug
trafficking</a> routes and territories where growth
and production of cocaine are abundant, Indepaz said.</p>
<p>Consequently, many of these regions used to be under
control of the now-disarmed Marxist rebels <a
title="FARC profile" class="aalmanual"
target="_self"
href="https://colombiareports.com/farc/">FARC</a>;
the power vacuum left by the FARC in the affected
regions becoming a major factor, the UN concluded.</p>
<h2>The multi-layered systematic killings of social
leaders</h2>
<p>Most of the killings take place in regions where
violence has been prevalent for decades and often for
the same presumed reasons as this year’s murders.</p>
<p>The power vacuum left by the FARC, disregarded by the
government, made it ideal for the other illegal groups
to step in and take over the lawless regions.</p>
<p>Therefore, it is not surprising that 67% of the
assassinations are attributed to paramilitary groups,
according to human rights NGO Somos Defensores.</p>
<p>Targeting social and human rights leaders is also a
strategic attack in many of the cases as instigating
fear in the community facilitates the control over the
territory.</p>
<p>Armed actors perceive social leaders and human rights
defenders “as obstacles to achieving their political
and economic interests,” according to the UN.</p>
<p>Therefore, there is no surprise that most of the
leaders killed “are activists in the defense of land
rights and the environment,” said Indepaz.</p>
<p>The same report claimed leaders of communal action
boards and other farmers’ associations are the most
targeted victims. They are followed by members of the
Patriotic March and leaders of indigenous communities.</p>
<p class="hatom-extra"><span class="entry-title">The
ongoing war on Colombia’s social leaders</span> was
last modified: <span class="updated"> August 16th,
2017</span> by <span class="author vcard"><span
class="fn">Larisa Sioneriu</span></span></p>
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