AIUK SOUTH AMERICA TEAM OCTOBER 2024 NEWSLETTER

Dear Friends
This month we bring you news from Colombia, Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Peru. 
Highlights are:

• Regional: Amnesty has called on seven South American Presidents to strengthen action to reduce the risk of wildfires after recent record fires had a devasting impact on indigenous territories
• Colombia: We have an Urgent Action calling for those threatening and harassing Jani Silva to be brought to justice
• Argentina: We have a new Urgent Action urging Congress to insist on the passage of a law to improve pensions for older people.
• Venezuela: Amnesty has called for the extension of the mandate of the UN’s International Independent Fact-Finding Mission for Venezuela
• Brazil:  Global Witness reports that 25 land and environmental defenders were killed in Brazil during 2023
• Chile: President Boric has promised to push for the repeal of a dictatorship-era law that rules out most investigations of crimes against humanity committed under General Pinochet.
• Peru: Former President Alberto Fujimori, who was convicted of human rights abuses and corruption, has died aged 86.
• Uruguay: Human Rights Watch report Uruguay’s shortcomings in meeting the support requirements of people with disability

REGIONAL

August and September 2024 saw record fires across South America, with several millions of hectares burning not only in rainforests of the Amazon basin, but also in diverse ecosystems stretching across entire countries.  Amnesty has published an Open Letter addressed to the presidents of Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru calling for governments to ramp up action to extinguish wildfires, strengthen efforts to abandon fossil fuels, protect territories of Indigenous Peoples and provide guarantees to environmental human rights defenders.

COLOMBIA

Amnesty has issued a new Urgent Action : On 10 September Jani Silva, a defender of land, territory and the environment in the Colombian Amazon (department of Putumayo), received a phone call threatening to “blow you up, car and all”. Jani and her association ADISPA have protection measures in place, provided by the government’s National Protection Unit (UNP). We call on the Colombian authorities to identify those responsible and to bring them to justice. Please take action. This is the letter we sent at our last meeting.

Global Witness reports that in 2023 Colombia was the most dangerous country in the world for land and environmental defenders ‘with a record 79 defenders killed last year compared to 60 in 2022, and 33 in 2021. With 461 killings from 2012 to 2023, Colombia has the highest number of reported environmental defender killings globally on record.’ [Read more…]