Activist leaders are being killed in the hundreds each year in Colombia. The number grows year by year, being at 115 in 2016 and growing to 138 in 2017, which accounts for an activist leader being killed every four days. The killing of four activists in one week alone sparked protests across 50 cities and also other countries, to where Colombians reside.
The protests were aimed against the governement, who has been aggressively going against protests, social movements and organisations with incarcerations and killings, which signals a huge backward tendency for all the social, economic, culutural and political changes, which had been fought for the prior decades in Colombia. All of this is being carried out under the pretense of peace, which started with the signing of the peace treaty with the FARC in 2016. It was then that the assasinations started.
Noone is fooled by the illusion the Colombian state is trying to push. The repression is felt nationwide, especially in the territories, which used to belong to FARC. In said territories different groups are still fighting each other, many doing the bidding of multinational corporations or fighting for drug trafficants, who are trying to get the resources found there.
In the affected territories many of the victims are indigenous people or are from afrodescendancy. The different factions try to rule them by fear, spraying housewalls with black letters signaling curfews or rules to follow. Many activists face death threats everyday, some of them being killed at home or being shot on the street. The activists and townspeople have not succumbed to fear and instead have taken up arms. They have taken matter into their own hands and formed guards to patrol their territories, to keep people away from stealing their resources and terrorizing their people. These communities know they can only trust in their own power and by doing this they are steadily pushing back their enemies!
We salute the people of Colombia, who are fiercely fighting for their rights against the reactionary Colombian state!
Freedom to all political prisoners!
Stop the killing of activist leaders!
Rebellion is justified!
Due to the enormous movement a 20 minute-long documentary was produced on the topic. The documentary is in Spanish, but the video shows some images of what has been written on this article.