A journalist working for Spanish-language daily El Mundo was released on Friday (27 May) after being kidnapped in Colombia for nearly a week. Correspondent Salud Hernández thanked the Catholic Church for the role it played in negotiating her release after she was taken hostage by members of the leftist ELN (National Liberation Army).
Hernández who was captured last month had been working on a story about kidnapping in the dangerous Catatumbo region around Colombia’s border with Venezuela. Her ordeal comes amid growing concern for the safety of journalists and human rights campaigners in Colombia, one of the world’s most homicidal countries. Cafod, the Catholic agency for overseas development, released a statement this week calling for the protection of human rights defenders after a spike in killings.
Between 15 February and 15 March this year 13 campaigners were killed in Colombia - the highest number ever recorded during one four-week period. “Being a human rights defender in Colombia is a dangerous, often deadly job,” said Monsignor Hector Fabio Henao, Director of Caritas Colombia, one of Cafod’s partners in the region.
“Despite positive progress in peace talks between the Colombian Government and FARC guerrilla group, and recent announcement of peace talks between the Government and Colombia’s second largest anti-government rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), attacks against human rights defenders in Colombia have been increasing.”
Peace talks with FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) opened on 5 October 2012 with the aim of ending the conflict that has affected millions of people, but the deadline to sign a final peace accord to end Latin America’s longest-running war was missed. The Colombian Government has been fighting far left rebel groups since the 1960s. FARC and the ELN – the two main opposition groups – claim to be fighting for the rights of the poor, motivated by a Communist ideology.
But at the heart of Colombia’s internal armed conflict are economic interests and land. Millions of Colombians have been forced to flee for their lives, with almost 7 million people internally displaced, making Colombia the country with the second highest number of internally displaced people in the world after Syria.
Despite a Victims and Land Restitution Law (Law 1448), communities continue to face risks when registering for land-restitution and seeking to return to their homes. They also run the risk of being once again dispossessed of their territory due to the continued presence of illegal armed groups and occupiers of the land who took unlawful possession once the community had been displaced.
According to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Bogota, 729 human rights defenders were killed in Colombia between 1994 and 2015.
PICTURE: Police officers stand in an area in the centre of the Colombian capital Bogota known as El Bronx. Over the last few days thousands of police officers accompanied by city officials have been raiding the notorious no-go area in a bid to clean up the city. they have so far found a number of kidnapped people, brothels, a 'chopping shop' for dismembering murder victims and drug dens
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