We hope you are doing well. This month, we update you on developments in Colombia, Brazil, Venezuela, Paraguay, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile.

We have some good news to start 2021. Argentina legalised abortion. International pressure on the President and the Senators was crucial. Paraguayan authorities have opened an investigation into the attack on Bernarda Pesoa, leader of a Qom community, and they have provided her with protection. Bolivia’s civil registry has authorised for the first time a same-sex civil union following a two-year legal battle on what is the first step to future changes in marriage law.

 We ask you to sign Amnesty International’s petition to Colombia’s Congress to protect human rights defenders. Presently, 22 Army generals are being investigated for the extrajudicial killings of over 1,000 young men in Colombia. Amnesty International prepared a submission for the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review of Paraguay in May 2021, outlining human rights violations of indigenous people. A report by the Office of Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has concluded that there are reasonable bases to believe that crimes against humanity have taken place in Venezuela.

 COVID-19 Impact on South America.

As vaccinations are taking place around the world, confirmed coronavirus cases are rising in South America, having a negative impact on these countries’ economies. The lack of safety measures, miscommunication from governments and the decision to avoid future lockdowns present a challenging scenario for the region, in addition to the unequal distribution and access of the vaccine. As of January 2020, Brazil reports nearly 8 million deaths from Covid-19, Argentina 44,273 deaths, Peru 38,049 deaths, Chile 16,974 deaths, Ecuador 14,165 and Colombia 45,431 deaths.

COLOMBIA

Gloria Isabel Ocampo, rural community leader killed by dissident FARC 7 January 2020

 UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet condemned the heightened violence being carried out by non-state armed groups targeting peasants, indigenous and Afro-Colombian people, and called on State authorities to take concrete actions to effectively protect the population.

 So far in 2020, the UN Human Rights Office in Colombia has documented 66 massacres, in which 255 people have been killed. In addition, the Office has received information on the killing of 120 human rights defenders so far this year. The Nasa community has been one of the worse affected indigenous groups with 66 of its members in Northern Cauca department reported killed in 2020.

 Please sign Amnesty International’s petition to Colombia’s Congress to protect human rights defenders here.

 The Attorney General informed the International Criminal Court that 22 Colombian Army generals are being investigated for the extrajudicial killings of over 1,000 young men between 2004 and 2008. Known as ‘False Positives’, the Army kidnapped and killed innocent men, claiming that they were armed guerrillas. 544 soldiers from the Army’s First Division are in the process of being charged for such crimes.

The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre reports that in December more than 900 indigenous people have been displaced in Bahia Solano, Chocó, following the assassination of the community leader. The 2016 peace agreement with the FARC ‘was a highly significant development and a prerequisite for achieving durable solutions for the country’s 5 million IDPs. However, obstacles remain including compensation, land and property restitution, and implementation of points agreed in the peace deal.’

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) found that the violence, intimidation, harassment and threats suffered by the Colombian Collective Lawyers Corporation (CAJAR) was linked to their activities in defence of human rights. And it ‘was encouraged by the State’s arbitrary intelligence work as well as stigmatizing pronouncements by high officials. This situation constitutes not only a serious breach of the duty to protect, but it was also actions that were openly contrary to that duty, with the necessary implications in attributing responsibility to the State for the acts of violence, threat and harassment against CAJAR.’

Human Rights Watch has submitted an opinion to the Constitutional Court in a case brought to decriminalise abortion in Colombia. ‘Access to abortion is legal in Colombia in cases of rape, incest, unwanted artificial insemination, severe fetal abnormality and to protect the person’s life or health. But even when they have a legal right to abortion, women face problems getting one.’ [click to continue…]