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QUITO, ECUADOR - Claudia’s* life changed the day she saw a paramilitary group kill a man in her hometown of Buenaventura, one of the most violent places in Colombia. Not only did she see the killers. Worse, they saw her. They threatened to murder her if she told anyone what she had seen. She promised …
SANTANDER DE QUILOCHAO, COLOMBIA - Clemencia Carabali did not know the number that appeared on her phone when it rang last June. She didn't recognise the man's voice on the other end of the call. "If you don't leave the territory by 5pm today, you're a dead woman," Carabali recalled the man saying. Carabali reported …
Continue reading "For many women in Colombia, peace never arrived (Al Jazeera)"
SANTANDER de QUILICHAO, COLOMBIA - In June, Clemencia Carabali received her first death threat this year. She was in her office planning workshops for the local community, when an unknown man called her personal phone and told her she had until 5 p.m. that day to leave the territory, or be killed. Then he hung …
Continue reading "Colombia’s New Killing Spree (The Progressive)"
ICONONZO, COLOMBIA - A handful of former guerrilla fighters met Sunday at La Tienda (The Store), the only store and social area in the FARC reintegration zone near Icononzo, Tolima, to watch the election results. But the space that is normally full of laughter and banter was grim Sunday afternoon. Many wondered what will be …
Continue reading "FARC fears after rightwing Duque elected (New Internationalist)"
BOGOTA, COLOMBIA - Piedad Cordoba has long been a well-known Colombian human rights activist, lawyer, former congress woman, Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and was once named the most influential Ibero-American intellectual by Foreign Policy magazine. She also briefly ran as a candidate in this year’s presidential elections, but dropped out of the race in March. …
QUITO, ECUADOR — Every night since March 26, when three Ecuadoran journalists were kidnapped near their country’s border with Colombia, their colleagues have gathered to demand their rescue. “We’re missing three! We want them back alive!” they have shouted while protesting in front of the presidential palace in the capital, Quito. The kidnappings of Javier …
EL ESTRECHO, COLOMBIA - For more than 35 years, Blanca Ducuara Gomez lived in Colombia's mountains, patrolling the countryside as a member of the country's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). But today she lives in a FARC disarmament camp (also known as reintegration areas) in the southern state of Cauca, …
Continue reading "Why are former FARC rebels leaving reintegration camps? (Al Jazeera)"
QUITO, ECUADOR - Liliany Obiando is finally free – after nine years. For almost a decade, Colombian sociologist, human rights worker and former political prisoner Liliany Obando has been engaged in a long and complex battle with the Colombian state and judicial system. She was charged with ‘rebellion’ in 2008, but this March the state officially …
Continue reading "Amnesty: A Win for Colombia’s Peace Process? (The New Internationalist)"
