This month we report on human rights abuses related to measures taken by the authorities to combat Covid-19 in Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil and Argentina. In Venezuela and Argentina the systematic human rights abuses by the security forces have been exposed during the pandemic. In Colombia, the killing, forced disappearances and threats to social leaders from armed groups have accelerated during lockdown. We cover the plight of indigenous communities to defend their land rights in Ecuador and to survive Covid-19 in Ecuador, Colombia and Brazil. We report an international landmark case concerning children’s rights in Ecuador and important decisions by the Supreme Courts in Colombia and Brazil. There’s Good News from Chile and Brazil and an Urgent Action for Ecuador on behalf of indigenous peoples of the Amazon.

REGIONAL

This article, originally published in El Pais, describes the deadly threats faced for centuries by the Indigenous people of the Amazon and across the Americas by uncontrolled extractive activities, now aggravated by COVID-19.

VENEZUELA

The daily number of COVID-19 cases reported in Venezuela has accelerated at the quickest rate yet in recent weeks. According to the organization Medicos Unidos de Venezuela, 71 health workers died from 1 July to 16 August, with 37 of those deaths coming in just the first 16 days of August. Amnesty has accused the authorities of failing to take action to protect the population, particularly doctors, nurses and hospital workers, and jailing those who speak out about their dire labour conditions.

Amnesty has joined 83 other national and international human rights organizations in a call on states at the UN Human Rights Council to renew and strengthen the mandate of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Venezuela. The Fact-Finding Mission was launched with a mandate to investigate human rights violations since 2014, with a view to ensuring accountability for perpetrators and justice for victims. Although the Mission has not been allowed to enter Venezuela, it will present its report to the Council in September, when its current mandate ends.

Human Rights Watch has accused Venezuelan security forces and authorities of using measures to curb the spread of Covid-19 as an excuse to crack down on dissenting voices and intensify their control over the population. [Read more…]

This month, we update you on developments in Colombia, Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador and Chile.  In Colombia, enforced coca eradication threatens the livelihoods of rural communities while armed opposition groups are using repressive measures to enforce COVID-19 curfews in the areas that they control.   In Brazil, there is an increase in land seizures for illegal cattle ranching, Amnesty has called for an end to secret and illegal investigations against government opponents, and COVID-19 is out of control.  In Venezuela, opposition members continue to be subjected to government threats and attacks, while the UN has highlighted impunity for gross human rights violations and a government failure to investigate crimes linked to the mining industry. In Ecuador, Amnesty has called for an urgent action plan to protect indigenous communities from COVID-19.  In Chile, Amnesty has expressed concern for 27 detained Mapuche people who are on hunger strike.  We have two Urgent Actions for you, relating to a Human Rights Defender in Colombia and a missing person in Argentina.

COLOMBIA

ELN Guerrillas in Chocó, Colombia

Amnesty International has issued an Urgent Action on behalf of the Human Rights Defender Jani Silva, who has received death threats from an armed group called “La Mafia”.  They oppose the voluntary crops substitution programme that Jani Silva is promoting in the Putumayo region of Colombia.  According to NGOs, “La Mafia” is behind the killings of 14 persons in the Putumayo region since the COVID-19 lockdown started.  We are urging the National Protection Unit to increase the protection measures for Jani Silva.

Amnesty International has said that ‘The decision of Colombia’s Ministry of Defence to begin ground-spraying operations in coca plantations in some areas of the country could result in human rights violations in the campesino farming communities that depend on coca for their livelihoods. Moreover, beginning a process of forced eradication of crops could exacerbate the conflict in the country, leaving rural communities in an even more dangerous situation, particularly for social leaders. Operations to forcibly eradicate coca crops in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic are a death sentence for rural communities.  Spraying illicit crops not only means depriving rural communities of their only livelihood amid the pandemic, but it could also destroy legal crops, an important source of food.  In addition, these operations expose a population with limited access to health services to contagion.’

In a new report, Human Rights Watch found that in 11 of the country’s 32 departments armed groups have imposed curfews, lockdowns, and other measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19. To enforce their rules, the groups have threatened, killed and attacked people they perceive are failing to comply.  ‘Armed groups imposing measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19 include the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas; the Popular Liberation Army (EPL); the Gaitanist Self-Defences of Colombia (AGC); and several groups that emerged from the 2016 demobilization of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas, often called “FARC dissident groups”.  Human Rights Watch has also documented that Contadores in Nariño and La Mafia in Putumayo have imposed Covid-19 measures.

Colombia has reported 267,000 cases of Covid-19 and 9,000 deaths and new cases and deaths are increasing at an alarming rate. The refusal of the government to lockdown Bogotá, as requested by its mayor, has resulted in the city’s ICUs being overwhelmed by Covid-19 patients, according to Colombia Reports.

The Internal Displacing Monitoring Centre states that 18 July a massacre in Tibú, in Norte de Santander, perpetrated by an organised armed group left 8 people dead and caused the displacement of 450 people from the area. [Read more…]

Welcome to the latest newsletter. The next meeting  is on Thursday 16th July 2020, 8.00pm, – on ZOOM.  Our initial Zoom meetings have been quite successful, so we will persevere with this platform whilst other options remain closed. A reminder it’s more of a discussion than a “meeting”, so do join us if you can. There will be campaign updates and a discussion on future plans as the lockdown lessens. Please reply to this newsletter if you would like the Zoom invite.

Taner Kılıç Taner Kılıç is one of the founding members of the Turkish section of Amnesty International and its president since 2014. Along with 22 others he was arrested in June 2017 and charged with belonging to a “terrorist organisation”. We featured him in this newsletter in February 2018. At the time he had just been released from prison, but he and 9 others were immediately re-arrested and taken back into custody. We have just heard that Taner has been convicted of being a member of a terrorist organisation and sentenced to 6 years and 3 months in jail.   Idil Esler the former Director of Amnesty Turkey and two  other members of the “Istanbul 10” were also given prison sentences for assisting. This the reaction from AIUK Director Kate Allen:- “This is an outrageous miscarriage of justice and it is heartbreaking to think of the impact on our colleagues and their families.  It is also frightening to think of the signal that it sends to human rights defenders in Turkey.  If even members of Amnesty International, with all of our strength as a global movement, aren’t safe, then who is?” We will keep you updated of any actions relating to this case. More information here:- https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/07/turkey-court-deals-crushing-blow-for-human-rights-and-for-justice-as-four-activists-convicted/

[Read more…]

This month we have a good news item from Colombia and an Urgent Action on Venezuela. The Colombia section explores the data on killings of human rights defenders (HRDs) plus the latest forced evictions and news on anti-personnel mines. We follow the fate of Venezuelan immigrants in Peru, the excessive use of force by the police in Chile, political developments in Venezuela and the granting of unsettling new powers to the armed forces in Ecuador. We provide links to Amnesty’s new films and stories on Women HRDs in Peru and news about a HRD in Chile. Police killings of predominantly Black young men in Rio and indigenous land rights are the focus in Brazil.

COLOMBIA

Good news on last month’s Urgent Action! Since the COVID-19 lockdown started in Colombia, the indigenous community of ASEINPOME faced at least 2 security incidents.

Following pressure, including the appeals from Amnesty International’s supporters, the Technical Investigation Body of the Villavicencio Public Prosecutor’s Office visited the community of ASEINPOME with the intention to identify the attackers and stop them from further threatening the indigenous community. We will be in close contact with the indigenous community to assess their security situation and will swiftly react if there is a new security incident.

The Colombian NGO Somos Defensores (‘We are Defenders) reports that 124 Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) were killed in 2019, the second highest number since the organisation began recording deaths in 2010. This is by far the highest number of HRDs killed in the world (30% of the world’s total). The main reason for this high rate of killings is the ongoing conflict in Colombia in large part fuelled by the enormous profits from cocaine, which encompasses the cultivation of coca, its processing and export to consuming nations.

HRDs killed 2010 to 2019:

2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
32	49	69	78	55	63	80	106	155	124

 

Most HRDs killed were from rural communities who are defending their land rights, many of them indigenous and Afro-Colombian.

HRD’s killed by category:

Land Rights Defenders	Indigenous Leaders	Afro-Colombian Leaders	Environmental Defenders	LGBTI, Trade Union, Women, Academic	Total
79	32	5	2	6	124

 

Although most perpetrators are unknown, of those who are known the vast majority were paramilitaries and dissident FARC. Paramilitaries are armed groups that were once linked to the Colombian Army, Dissident FARC armed groups are formed of FARC combatants, who did not lay down their arms in 2016, and the ELN (National Liberation Army) is not in peace discussions with the Government.

Perpetrators of HRD killings:

Unknown	Paramilitaries	Dissident FARC	ELN	Armed Forces	Total
82	21	16	4	1	124

 

Somos Defensores also reports that 47 Human Rights Defenders were killed in the first three months of 2020 almost double the number in 2019. Risks to HRDs increased as a result of the arrival of Covid-19 in Colombia. Restrictions on movements have impeded threatened HRDs from moving houses and the National Protection Unit has reduced its services.

 The Colombian daily El Espectador reports 3 HRDs killed in the space of 48 hours at the end of June, including. Luz Miriam Vargas Castaño, indigenous woman from Paéz, Cauca, who was killed 26 June 2020. She led the ‘PazAdentro’ project financed by the European Peace Fund.

About 1,300 people of an indigenous community were forcibly displaced in the third week of May from Catrú in Chocó, Colombia. They were fleeing the conflict between various armed groups in their territory.

The magazine New Yorker commissioned a short film Demining sacred space in Colombia’s Amazon basin, which shows how the indigenous Siona people are destroying anti-personnel mines placed by FARC combatants to protect their jungle camps on Siona territory. Mine Action Review notes that ‘Colombia continues to be without an accurate baseline of anti-personnel mine contamination, making it difficult to measure progress, not least because its reporting of survey and clearance is inaccurate.’ [Read more…]