Excmo. Sr. Presidente Gustavo Petro Urrego President of the Republic of Colombia contacto@presidencia.gov.co | Sr. Fiscal Francisco Barbosa Delgado Attorney General of Colombia |
August 23, 2022
Dear Sirs:
We are writing to call for accountability for the assassinations of five social leaders in the departments of Cauca, Valle del Cauca, Tolima, and Putumayo over the past month.
July 16, in Cauca: 25-year-old member of the Awá Indigenous guard Kiwe Thegna Jorge Eliécer Mejía was in the town center of Mondomo, Santander de Quilichao municipality, when several armed men arrived, approached him, took him by force and shot him in the middle of the road.
July 18, in Cauca: A group of armed men arrived in a vehicle in a rural area of Suárez municipality and kidnapped social leader Larry Reinoso Sánchez, a co-founder and the legal representative of the Association of Peasant Workers of the Cordillera (Asocordillera), an affiliate of the United Agricultural and Livestock Union Federation (FENSUAGRO-CUT) and of the National Association of Peasant Reserve Zones (ANZORC). Farmers in the village of El Amparo discovered his dead body on July 21.
August 5, in Putumayo: Armed men assassinated Kedinyon Jeider García, a member of the Human Rights Committee of the Community Action Board of the Brisas del Yurilla village, Puerto Guzmán municipality, in the morning hours while he was in the La Ceiba sector.
August 6, in Valle del Cauca: The renowned 42-year-old environmental and animal rights leader Javier Usechi, a founding member of the Tatayamba Social and Cultural Collective, was assassinated in the village of El Salado, El Águila municipality.
August 12, in Tolima: Diomedes Bermúdez Aguirre, a signatory to the Peace Agreement and ex-FARC combatant enrolled in the official reincorporation process, was intercepted by armed men who shot him while riding a motorcycle on the road that leads from the Playa Rica sector of Rovira municipality to Tolda Blanca in Ronces Valles municipality. Diomedes Bermúdez Aguirre became the 32nd signatory to the Peace Agreement assassinated this year.
We therefore strongly urge that you:
- conduct thorough and impartial investigations into the assassinations of the persons listed above (with the goal of finding both the intellectual and material authors of the attack), publish the results, and bring those responsible to justice
- provide protections for signatories of the Peace Agreement, especially those who have reported threats, with terms agreed upon by the parties being protected
- construct comprehensive and inclusive measures to implement the Peace Agreement, with approaches that focus on gender, territorial, and ethnic groups
Sincerely,
Brian J. Stefan-Szittai and Christine L. Stonebraker-Martínez
Co-Coordinators
copies:
Luis Gilberto Murillo, Ambassador of Colombia to the US ~ via email, US mail
Alfonso Prada Gil, Minister of the Interior ~ via email
Joel Hernández García, Rapporteur for Colombia , Inter-American Commission on Human Rights ~ via email, US mail
UN: Juliette De Rivero, Representative in Colombia of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights ~ via email
US Embassy: Francisco Palmieri (Chargé d’Affaires, ad interim); Kristen Farrell (human rights); Mariel Chatman (vulnerable populations) ~ via email
US State Department: Christine Russell, Desk Officer for Colombia ~ via email
US Senators Brown & Portman ~ via email
US Representatives Beatty, Brown, Gibbs, Gonzalez, Johnson, Jordan, Joyce, Kaptur, Latta, Ryan ~ via email
17 AUG 2022_ContagioRadio_Colombia
