Over the past year, the Commission for Restoration, Life and Peace (CRVP), CSW’s partner organisation in Colombia, has documented dozens of incidents targeting church leaders and their families in the region of Southern Cordoba. The situation has escalated over the summer and CSW believes, along with our partners, that the region is now at the point of humanitarian crisis. Worryingly, the majority of the incidents, which include extortion, assassinations and attempted assassinations, forced displacement and death threats, have all taken place in a limited geographic area to the south of the capital, Monteria, encompassing Montelbano, Puerto Libertador and Planeta Rica. The region is a major coca growing area and is strategically important for anyone seeking to dominate the regional cocaine trade. FARC guerrillas, a number of different paramilitary groups, as well as government security forces all have a significant presence in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the past three years, the CRVP and CSW have consistently denounced the re-arming and remobilization of paramilitary groups in the region. These groups have claimed responsibility or are implicated in all of the cases documented below. Competition for territory between the illegal armed groups seems to have escalated over the past year. Based on information from communities on the ground CSW and our partners believe that the different armed groups are now each attempting to consolidate their power on the local level. As has occurred in the past, they appear to have identified pastors as key community leaders who must be coerced into a cooperative relationship with the armed groups or eliminated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2008 there were 512 violent deaths, including more than six massacres, and various massive displacements in the department of Cordoba. This was the highest number in the past eighteen years. If recent events and the reports from the first half of 2009 are any indication, the number will be even higher this year. One pastor from the area was forced into hiding in late September after his attempted abduction following repeated threats from paramilitary organisations. Another pastor was brutally shot to death only a few weeks earlier in a nearby town. This followed the assassinations of three church leaders over the summer. A considerable number of pastors from the region have been forcibly displaced after receiving death threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The illegal armed groups responsible for these violations have, on occasions, tried to justify their actions with a variety of rationales. However, the high number of pastors and church leaders who have been targeted for assassination, forcible displacement and death threats in such a restricted region rather indicates a systematic targeting of civil society leaders who directly oppose the ethos and activities of the illegal armed groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition to the murders of these pastors and church leaders over the summer there have also been a number of massive displacements in the region. On June 27, around 200 families fled a hamlet in the area of Montelbano, after a general threat against the population was issued by one of the armed groups followed by fighting between government troops and guerrillas. One day later on June 28, fights over territory between the Paisas\/Rastrojos and the Aguilas Negras resulted in the displacement of 62 families from the areas of Alto Viento, Solo Dios, Agua Viva and Raton Medio in the region of Cadillo in the Department of Tierralta. On July 7, fighting between the FARC and the army in the Tierradentro area of Montelbano Municipality caused the displacement of 50 families who headed to the district of Juan Jose in Puerto Libertador Municipality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The national government appears to be paying little attention to the situation. There are also extremely worrying reports of collusion between the illegal armed groups and government public security forces. In addition, there continue to be serious questions about the government’s commitment to fighting the resurgence of the paramilitary groups, as a number of cases from 2007 and 2008 in the same region, have yet to be investigated. These cases also involved threats, forced displacement, attempted assassination and forced disappearances of church leaders, implicating the same paramilitary organisations. Unfortunately, the government’s insistence that paramilitarism has been eradicated does nothing to encourage local populations that there is any real political will to deal with the problem. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the situation continues to worsen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n