Case summary

The Pitalito community was displaced from their land in 2010 following a series of violence and threats, carried out by the Colombian army, the ESMAD riot police, and private armed guards, led by Mr Juan Manuel Fernandez de Castro, former army officer and plantation owner. The community´s land falls in the jurisdiction of two municipalities; Curumani and Chimichagua, in the department of Cesar.

Human rights defenders working with forcibly displaced people in Barrancabermeja, Northern Colombia, received three death threats from paramilitaries on 13 and 14 May. Their families are also at risk.

The daughter of Ingrid Vergara, a prominent Colombian human rights defender, has received a text message telling her that her mother had been killed.

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For the past three decades, economic liberalisation backed by paramilitarism in Colombia has been driving demand for land, and with it land speculation, resulting in the most dramatic cycle of land grabbing in the country’s history. Between 1980 and 2010, an estimated 6.8 million hectares changed hands according to the government agency Acción Social, with agroindustry, mining and oil companies steadily taking over areas where small farmers once grew food crops.

I - Introduction

En Pdf. The internal armed conflict present in Colombia for over half a century has left thousands of State crime victims. During the validity of the Security Act at the end of the 1970s, over 5.000 persons, in Bogota alone, were detained and tortured by the military and according to a report by the Ministry of Defence, over 60.000 persons were detained by the military during the first year of the Turbay Ayala administration (1978-1979).