It is imperative that the government of Colombia provide effective protection measures to land rights and human rights defenders who are in situations of risk—and respond immediately when they report specific threats.
Narciso Beleño Belaides, age 62, was a well-respected peasant leader and dear friend of Community Peacemaker Teams (CPT-Colombia), a close partner of IRTF. For more than three decades, Narciso worked to defend campesino families and their farm lands in southern Bolívar against the presence of paramilitary groups that isolated and forcibly displaced communities in the region. He was recognized for his constant fight for the rights of peasant communities and the preservation of the San Lucas mountain range, which is currently being disputed by armed groups such as the Gulf Clan (paramilitaries) and the ELN (rebel group).
Narciso was a member of the National Agrarian Coordinating Body (CNA) and was the current president of the Agromining Federation of Southern Bolívar (FEDEAGROMISBOL). For several decades, FEDEAGROMISBOL has suffered attacks by paramilitary groups through threats, disappearances and murders, as well as by state agents in the past.
On the evening of April 21, Narciso was entering his home in the El Recreo neighborhood, an urban area of the municipality of Santa Rosa del Sur, Bolívar Department. Armed men were waiting for him. They shot him four times.
Just hours before he was shot to death, Narciso had denounced the Gulf Clan paramilitaries for a new incursion into the area that began April 18.