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The Passing of Dianna Ortiz
February 19, 2021
It is with great sadness that we share this news. Sister Dianna Ortiz passed away this morning (Feb 19 2021). Sister Dianna was well-known in the Latin America solidarity movement for the past 30 years. "In 1989, while working as a missionary in Guatemala, Sister Dianna Ortiz, an American Ursuline, was abducted by security forces and brutally tortured. Her case attracted international attention-- not because it was so unusual, but because of the explosive charge that the man who intervened with her captors, a mysterious "Alejandro," may have had connections with the US Embassy." (From the book jacket of her autobiography, which she wrote with Patricia Davis, The Blindfold's Eyes: My Journey from Torture to Truth)
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RRN Letter
Honduras, 02/15/2021
February 15, 2021
Twenty-six year-old nursing student Keyla Martínez died in police custody on February 7. Arrested the night before for an alleged violation of a COVID-restriction curfew, an autopsy found that she had died from “mechanical asphyxiation” in her jail cell. While police initially reported her death as a suicide, the former director of forensic medicine reports that she suffered torture, strangulation, and possible sexual abuse at the hands of police in jail. The Center for Women’s Rights in Honduras stated, “The femicide of Keyla Martínez is added to the history of abuse of power and disproportionate use of force, that with or without the curfew, are exercised by public functionaries, above all police and military, against the population.” Honduras consistently ranks among the top five nations in the world in femicide. Equally alarming is the high rate of impunity for those who commit these murders. We demand justice for Keyla Martínez. #JusticiaParaKeyla
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Event
International Flower Workers' Day - an international conversation
February 14, 2021

This weekend, we honor the Colombian laborers who make many sacrifices to supply the US with 2 out of every 3 flowers. We ask you to take action to show your solidarity with flower workers this weekend. Flower workers, who are largely women in economically vulnerable situations, have reported health issues, mistreatment by management and grueling work hours- up to 22 hours a shift between the Valentine’s and Mother’s Day months. With the signing of the 2011 Labor Action Plan following the United States-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement, the United States committed to protecting the rights of flower workers. Yet, almost 10 years later, the promises to workers have been left unfulfilled. Hear from workers about strategies they are implementing to promote their cause of labor rights and justice.

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RRN Letter
Colombia, 2/14/2021
February 14, 2021
Death threats to María Eugenia Mosquera Riascos are part of a larger context of illegal armed groups intimidating members of the human rights community in Buenaventura, Valle del Cauca Department. These armed groups, responsible for forced recruitment of youth, are trying to impose their control in the city through fear, various extortionist tactics, and advertising what they call a “social cleansing” in the city. Maria Eugenia Mosquera Riascos is the legal representative of CONPAZCOL (Association of Communities Building Peace in Colombia) and member of the Roundtable for Access to Justice, Victims, Protection and Memory), which participates in the Buenaventura Civic Strike Committee. On January 7, again on January 29 and 30, she received a series of threatening messages on her mobile phone. One threat read: “you have three guys watching you,” and “we are the ones who kill informant toads of those other people.”
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News Article
Colombia peace update: February 13, 2021
February 13, 2021
Colombian President Iván Duque on February 8th decreed that all Venezuelans who arrived in the country before January 31 may receive a “Temporary Status for Venezuelan Migrants” (ETPV) allowing them to stay in the country for 10 years, to work legally, and to access health and education services, including COVID-19 vaccines. El Tiempo revealed a February 6 communication that the Cuban embassy in Colombia shared with the Colombian government, the chief of the UN Verification Mission, and two Catholic Church representatives. It reads: “Our embassy received information, whose veracity we cannot assess, about an alleged military attack by the Eastern War Front of the ELN in the coming days. We have shared this information with the ELN peace delegation in Havana, which expressed total ignorance and reiterated the guarantee that it has no involvement in the organization’s military decisions or operations.” In Buenaventura, the port that accounts for 70 percent of Colombia’s import-export activity, a paramilitary-derived gang that briefly dominated criminality in the city, “La Local,” underwent a December schism into two factions, the “Chotas” and the “Espartanos.” Daily street fighting has ensued, leaving much of the city’s 400,000 people in the crossfire. Estimates of the toll so far in 2021 range from 20 to 52 killed, and 112 to 1,700 families displaced.
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RRN Letter
Honduras, 02/13/2021
February 13, 2021
Police used force to displace 44 campesino (peasant) families from two communities in Francisco Morazan. On the morning of February 5, police dressed in black came to their rural communities and—without presenting a legal eviction order—began a forced eviction that ended in the destruction of all the collective work the families had built for more than 12 years. Homes and community buildings were bulldozed. When Luvy Canales, the families’ legal representative, requested to see a legal eviction order, police detained her. The lands that these families inhabited have been designated as communal (ejido). They are used for subsistence purposes only (growing food, raising animals) by families who do not own their own land. The National Association of Rural Workers (CNTC) has initiated an investigation process into this forced eviction. We are urging that officials in Honduras: 1) instruct INA (Instituto Nacional Agrario) to investigate the legal titles of these disputed lands to establish true ownership/possession and make accommodations for the 44 families; 2) safeguard the life and security of all citizens of Honduras through the execution of a comprehensive and inclusive agrarian policy that protects the most vulnerable.
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News Article
Colombia: Buenaventura’s population protests against violence, government inaction
February 13, 2021

In Buenaventura, the port that accounts for 70 percent of Colombia’s import-export activity, a paramilitary-derived gang that briefly dominated criminality in the city, “La Local,” underwent a December schism into two factions, the “Chotas” and the “Espartanos.” Daily street fighting has ensued, leaving much of the city’s 400,000 people in the crossfire. Estimates of the toll so far in 2021 range from 20 to 52 killed, and 112 to 1,700 families displaced.

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RRN Letter
El Salvador, 02/12/2021
February 12, 2021
Hate speech incites violence. Deadly attacks on FMLN party members are occurring in a hostile atmosphere being fostered by President Nayib Bukele. On January 31, FMLN activists María Gloria Rogel de López and Juan de Dios Tejada were killed when gunmen opened fire on their pickup truck in San Salvador as they were returning from a campaign rally supporting the candidacy of Rogelio Canales for mayor of the capital. Three days later, armed gunmen entered the home of former FMLN Councilman José Berríos and shot him dead. President Bukele has been making unsubstantiated accusations that officials from the Supreme Electoral Tribunal are conspiring to commit fraud against him and his Nuevas Ideas political party, which will be running candidates for the first time on February 28.
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News Article
Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras: A Pandemic within a Pandemic: Violence in Latin America against Women and the LGBTQ+ Community during COVID-19
February 12, 2021

The Latin America Working Group (based in Washington, DC) has been monitoring the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on human rights across the region. This blog is focused specifically on the impact of the pandemic on women’s and LGBTQ+ rights. The following are brief summaries that capture the situation for women and members of the LGBTQ+ community since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and to call attention to the lack of support and urgency behind addressing this violence by these governments.

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News Article
Colombia: Social organisations warn of major humanitarian crisis in Buenaventura
February 11, 2021

Social organizations based in the city of Buenaventura, Colombia’s largest Pacific port, have warned of a deteriorating humanitarian situation due to the presence of paramilitary groups and increased violence against residents.

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