Colombia: News & Updates

Colombia’s constitutional court voted Monday to decriminalize abortion in the first 24 weeks of pregnancy, a transformative shift for the majority-Catholic country and the latest sign of a turning tide in Latin America. The ruling makes Colombia the third large country in the region to decriminalize the procedure in slightly more than a year, after Mexico and Argentina, a development that appeared unlikely just a few years ago. Abortion rights activists said it could fuel further gains for abortion rights in the region. Since 2006, the procedure has been permitted in Colombia in cases of rape, nonviable pregnancy and when the life or health of the mother was in danger. At the time, those rules positioned the country as a regional leader in abortion rights. But between 2006 and 2020, the court heard, nearly 3,000 people were prosecuted for having an abortion. More than 90 groups filed a lawsuit in September 2020, arguing that the criminalization of abortion exacerbates the stigma around the procedure and creates barriers to access, even for patients who qualify under the exemptions.

Confrontations between Indigenous Guard land defenders and FARC rebel dissidents are escalating. According to a 2021 report by INDEPAZ, at least 611 environmental defenders have been killed since the signing of the peace agreement in Colombia in 2016. Of these, 332 were Indigenous, the report said, and 204 of the killings took place in Cauca, Colombia. This year so far, 12 Indigenous people  have been killed in Cauca, according to Juan Camayo Diaz, coordinator of Tejido de Defensa de la Vida, an Indigenous human rights organisation in the province. The situation in the region is “one of the most concerning in Colombia”, said Juan Pappier, a senior Americas researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Today many of the municipalities in the region face even higher levels of homicides than immediately before the peace process. That’s a tragedy that requires an urgent re-think of the government’s security and protection strategies,” Pappier told Al Jazeera.

During a two-day visit to Bogotá, and first as U.S Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland outlined concerns by the government of President Joe Biden that Colombia faces “risks by external actors and authoritarians,” as well as “cybersecurity threats to propagate lies and stories that are not of Colombian origin.” Nuland’s visit also included a U.S.-Colombia Strategic Security Dialogue to discuss regional security, democratic institutions, and economic ties. “We have shared intelligence information, national security information, where any foreign influence, or attempted influence, can be identified in our electoral process,” stated President Duque. Without mentioning specific countries by name or those “who do not wish our democracies well,” recent allegations by the Colombian government that Russia is engaging in a military build-up with Venezuela’s Armed Forces, and charges by the country’s Defense Minister Diego Molano, of “foreign intervention” along the Colombia-Venezuela border, once again, signals a new low in deteriorating Russia – Colombia relations.

U.S. civil society organizations from different sectors released a statement during the high-level dialogue between the U.S. and Colombian governments to demand a serious police reform in Colombia and to stop supporting the Colombian police until that is achieved.

In Colombia, the signing of peace with the defunct FARC guerrilla five years ago caused a profound transition to which the military has not been able to adapt with the required speed, and the National Police has not been able to respond to the challenge in 2021, which represented the wave of protests against the government of President Iván Duque, an unprecedented social outbreak. The country is heading to close the year with the highest homicide rate per 100,000 inhabitants since 2014, according to data from the Defense Ministry itself. And in the midst of that crisis that multiple indicators show, a succession of scandals has cracked the image of the uniformed.

This year kicked off with a violent start on the Colombia-Venezuela border, where dissident militant factions have been competing for territorial control of lucrative drug routes that connect the South American country to the US and Europe. The renewed violence comes more than five years after the Colombian government signed a peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), ending a 52-year armed conflict that killed up to 220,000 people and displaced as many as 5 million people. Colombian President Ivan Duque vowed to stamp out the violence during his presidency. But it continues to plague rural areas, where peace was supposed to bring development and new opportunities -- mounting concerns that the country's most violent days might not be over. Here's what you need to know about the simmering conflict on Colombia's border with Venezuela.

Fighting between rival guerrilla groups along Colombia’s border with Venezuela has ushered in a bloody start to the new year, leaving dozens dead and sending residents fleeing from some of the worst violence since the country’s historic peace accords five years ago. At least 23 people were killed in clashes between leftist armed groups in the northeastern department of Arauca during the first weekend of January. Later in the month, car bomb exploded in front of a building where more than 40 social leaders were gathered in a self-protection workshop, injuring dozens and killing a security guard.

For nearly 30 years, the town of El Carmen de Bolivar and the surrounding region of Montes de María were infamous for violence perpetrated against LGBTQ+ individuals, targeted at one time or another over the country’s long civil war by rightwing paramilitaries, leftwing guerrillas, government soldiers and the police. In 1999, Helicopters were dropping pamphlets with a warning to the LGBTQ+ society to leave town. Now, Many of those who left are returning as their home has become much safer. “It gives me a lot of joy to see how we have been able to achieve so much in a place that people thought was impossible," Tito, leader of a folk dance group, says.