Afro-Descendant & Indigenous: News & Updates

Attacks continue on Garífuna territory defenders in Honduras. Karla Ignacia Piota Martínez was the 70-year-old sister of Amada Piota Martínez, a Garífuna spiritual leader and member of the governing board of OFRANEH (Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras). She died on January 11 from seven bullet wounds inflicted during an assassination attempt on December 28, 2019. This is the third killing of a Garífuna community member in Masca in recent months. The assassinations of Garífuna leaders is part of a strategy to expel the Garífuna people from their ancestral territories by dividing communal Garífuna territories into individual lots and selling them to land speculators. The National Agrarian Institute (INA) continues to illegally issue land titles to third party investors. The Garífuna people are watching their beaches, swamp forests, and lagoons taken away by force, with Garífuna leaders assassinated in the process.

We are outraged at the wave of violence that continues to impact many regions of Colombia. Since January 1, two dozen social leaders have been assassinated across the country. In this letter we list the names of 20 assassinations that occurred in 6 departments: Antioquia, Cauca, Chocó, Huila, Norte de Santander, and Putumayo. These victims include ex-combatants who are abiding by the provisions of the Peace Accords by participating in the reincorporation process. Also being killed are farmers who are part of the crop substitution program, another key component of the Peace Accords. We echo the statement by the United Nations Security Council on January 15 which characterizes this as “a grave situation of security” and demands that the government of Colombia take “effective actions” to stop these egregious crimes against social leaders.

As a survivor of the Bojayá Massacre in 2002, Leyner Palacios has become an outspoken social leader and, as a consequence, has suffered reprisals, including death threats. Since 2002, the communities of Bojayá have suffered serious human rights violations, including forced displacement and mass killings by paramilitary groups and the army. On December 31, 2019, the Inter-Church Commission for Justice and Peace denounced that 300 members of the AGC arrived at the Bojayá communities of Pogue, Corazón de Jesús, Loma de Bojayá and Cuia, placed them under forced confinement, and threatened to kill them if they tried to resist. On January 3, 2020, they threatened Leyner Palacios, warning him to leave Bojayá or he would be killed.