AMERICA/COLOMBIA - Archbishop of Cali: the systematic murder of social leaders and human rights defenders is a real tragedy

Monday, 23 July 2018 local churches   violence   social situation   politics   armed groups  

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Cali (Agenzia Fides) - "Until the structures that are at the origin of these deaths are not dismantled, we are not sure of being able to help anyone, not even social leaders": these are the words of Mgr. Darío de Jesús Monsalve, Archbishop of Cali (Colombia) after the news of the assassination of another social leader, José Osvaldo Taquez, and the discovery of the remains of Iber Angulo Zamora, also a social leader belonging to the Community Council of El Naya, who had been kidnapped on 5 May.
The statements of the Archbishop of Cali on the umpteenth murder of a social leader in the department of Antioquia, which took place this weekend, were broadcast by the local radio station RCN, and sent to Agenzia Fides. Mgr. Monsalve defined the systematic murder of social leaders and human rights defenders throughout the Colombian territory as "a real tragedy".
Mgr. Darío de Jesús Monsalve highlighted that the country should stop protecting these leaders in every territory and ask the government to know the truth about what is happening. "It is important to identify where these death instructions are coming from" the Archbishop reiterated, and highlighted that in Valle del Cauca young people of the African communities in Colombia are recruited by the criminal gangs.
According to data provided by local sources, in 2018 alone, more than 100 social leaders have been murdered in Colombia. The data were verified by the Instituto de Estudios para el Desarrollo y la Paz (Indepaz), which also shows the areas where the highest number of murders occurred: Arauca, Cauca, Antioquia, Norte de Santander, Santander, Valle del Cauca, Nariño. The report also highlights three murders committed in the capital, Bogotá, considered an atypical event. The thing that worries the most, according to the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia, is the total silence of the Colombian government on the requests for security and investigation of the facts.
One of the causes of this violence seems to be the lack of the application of the peace agreements signed with FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and, consequently, the abandonment by the government of the development plans for these territories, once controlled by FARC, which now, according to Fides sources, have to deal with the presence of new groups of paramilitaries and even of Mexican elements of drug trafficking. (CE) (Agenzia Fides, 23/07/2018)


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