This month, we update you on developments in Colombia, Brazil, Venezuela, Paraguay, Chile, Peru and Bolivia, including some good news from Peru and Paraguay. Demonstrations have taken place in Colombia to condemn the many people killed or disappeared in clashes near the Venezuelan border. A family of human rights defenders have been killed in Brazil. The United Nations have reviewed the human rights situation in Venezuela. We met the British Ambassador to Paraguay to discuss Amnesty’s report about sexual violence against children and adolescents. In Chile, the new cabinet has a majority of women. The Guardian has a report on the impact of mercury contamination on indigenous people in Bolivia.
COLOMBIA

In the first weekend of January, at least 33 people were killed, others disappeared and hundreds forcibly displaced in Arauca Department, near to the border with Venezuela, according to WOLA Colombia Peace Monitoring. They provide the background to the continued fighting between former guerrilla groups ELN (National Liberation Army) and FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) dissidents over the control of the cultivation, production and trafficking of cocaine in this region and possible measures that should be taken by the Colombian authorities.
The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre reports that 871 people were forcibly displaced in Chocó Department 12 to 25 January. This followed fighting between ELN former guerrillas and former paramilitaries in an area where drug trafficking is widespread. A further 1,230 people were confined to their homes and two of them killed by indiscriminate gunfire.
To commemorate the 5th anniversary of the Peace Accord, the UN Verification Commission reports on human rights and the Peace Process in Colombia. They examine all the interrelated issues, including its implementation, the work of the Truth Commission, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, reintegration of former combatants, security guarantees, gender and child violence and ethnic affairs. They evaluate recent actions by the International Criminal Court, the USA, the Colombian Congress and the Colombian government intended to help resolve these issues.
In its annual report on Colombia, Human Rights Watch covers issues ranging from climate change to human rights abuses by the police and prison officers. The report notes that while violence subsided following the Peace Accord, ‘conflict-related violence has since taken new forms, and abuses by armed groups [ELN, FARC dissidents, former paramilitaries] including killings, massacres, and massive forced displacement increased in many remote areas of Colombia in 2021’.