The figure revealed by the Institute of Studies for Development and Peace is worrying. In the first 33 days of the year they were assassinated 17 leaders and three signatories of the peace agreement.
The departments with the highest concentration of crimes are Cauca (5) and Arauca (4), followed by Putumayo (2), Nariño (2), Antioquia (1), Meta (1), Casanare (1) Chocó (1).
Seven of these leaders were communal, three indigenous, two environmentalists, one peasant, another land claimant, one civic, one Afro-descendant and one cultural.
For their part, the crimes of the three peace signatories assassinated in this first month of the year have been registered in Arauca, Magdalena and Caquetá.
(You may be interested in: They kill an indigenous person during the burial of two other natives murdered in Cauca)
The murders shocked the country, they were all done savagely. That is the case of José Albeiro Camayo Güetio, an indigenous guard from Cauca, who was murdered in front of children on January 24. Also the case of Luz Marina Arteaga Henao, a doctor by profession and peasant leader, rights defender and land claimant, who disappeared on January 11 and her body was found five days later in the Meta River.
One of the crimes that most shocked the country was that of the 14-year-old environmental leader, Breiner David Cucuñame, who was shot dead in the Las Delicias reservation, Cauca.
(Also: He gave up everything to go into a Chocó jungle to fulfill his dream)
Luz Marina, the land claimant who was silenced
Luz Marina Arteaga, medical professional, peasant leader, defender of rights.
Claretian Corporation Norman Pérez Bello
Luz Marina Arteaga Henao was a doctor by profession and a well-known peasant leader, rights defender and land claimant in the Matarratón and El Porvenir process, in the municipality of Puerto Gaitán (Meta).
He led the process of demanding compliance with the sentences STP 16298 of 2015 of the Supreme Court of Justice and SU-426 of 2016 of the Constitutional Court, which orders the National Land Agency (ANT) award them these lands, as well as to the governmental entities the protection of the fundamental rights of historical peasant communities.
She was also an overseer of the program for older adults in Orocué, a municipality of Casanare, a neighbor of Puerto Gaitán, where she was an active participant in the collection of signatures for the revocation process of the mandate of the mayor of Orocué, Monchy Yobany Moreno.
Because of this activism, the Claretiana Norman Pérez Bello and Jurídica Yira Castro corporations, human rights defenders, pointed out, became visible in the area and was the target of threats.
(In context: The lifeless body of a doctor and social leader of the Llano is found in the Meta River)
“He had repeatedly received death threats from people posing as armed actors and telling him to stop fighting for land and not to attend meetings in the framework of the land demand,” they reported.
In 2021, the Claretian Corporation denounced to the Prosecutor’s Office the threat against members of the Porvenir and Matarratón process and of the same human rights organization, as well as surveillance and the attempted kidnapping of one of its members.
On October 2, 2019, two unknown men, approximately 25 and 45 years old, roamed and monitored the El Raudal farm, owned by the leader Luz Marina Arteaga, for a long time.
The strangers asked the people of the community questions about his whereabouts such as: “When are you going to come to the farm? Where is she and when does she communicate with you?
The neighbors also warn that the strangers indicated knowing that the leader had recently been present on the farm, since the place was clean.
This same situation was repeated on October 6, 2019, where the community mentions that three unknown men who were traveling by canoe on the Meta River were looking for her. “These threats were brought to the attention of the different entities headed by President Iván Duque, as well as the National Protection Unit, who were unaware of the seriousness of the situation, assigning them soft measures,” denounce the Claretian Norman Pérez Bello and Jurídica Yira corporations. Castro.
The leader disappeared on January 11, when she left her farm for the urban area of Orocué, Casanare. And her body was found, five days later, lifeless, on the banks of the Meta River.
The guard who sacrificed everything to guard his territory
José Albeiro Camayo Güetio was persecuted by threats, kidnappings and attacks during his life in the indigenous guard of Cauca.
He was 42 years old and was one of the founders of the guard and one of the most courageous defenders of his community.
He had the role of Kiwe, a Nasa name for leaders. For his friends, he was a man who had his courage, a cane and a comb as weapons. He had endured attacks of all kinds. He had murdered a brother and a nephew.
He lived his childhood until adolescence as a student at the Educational Institution for the Intercultural Development of Communities (Inedic), located in the same territory of the Las Delicias reservation, in rural Buenos Aires, where he was born and was murdered.
As a child he was already an indigenous guard, because that was his vocation for the defense of the native territories. He said that his vision was that of an indigenous person who sought to transmit a message of peace, through the wind, the sound and the flute.
He took advantage of a station that was created in Las Delicias to transmit that message of tranquility and harmony to the members of the Las Delicias territory. At the time he continued to work as an indigenous guard.
After finishing processes in the local indigenous guard, he was appointed as guard coordinator at the zonal level of the so-called Cxhab Wala Kiwe, in 2013.
He accompanied this process until 2016 and in 2018 he was appointed coordinator of the entire indigenous guard of northern Cauca until last year.
He wanted the armed groups to respect the indigenous people for more than 10 years, at a time when the Farc had plagued Cauca with guerrilla takeovers and harassment. At that time, the groups that affected the north of the department were the sixth front and the ‘Jacobo Arenas’ column with the ELN and the paramilitaries based in Naya.
The last three years have intensified the attacks of the dissidents that remained after the peace agreement. Camayo, community members say, was the target of intimidation and slander. In August 2019 he was the victim of an attack, when he was traveling on the road between Toribío and Caloto. Two months later he was kidnapped, apparently by dissidents. He was tied to a pole with barbed wire and was later left there.
(In context: What is behind the crime of indigenous leader Albeiro Camayo?)
In April 2020, armed men tried to intercept him in the same Las Delicias reservation when he was in a car, but he managed to escape.
And on January 24, members of the mobile column ‘Jaime Martínez’, from the dissidents, led by ‘Paisa’, arrived to intimidate the population of the Las Delicias reservation, they took Camayo out of his house and he was killed with gunshots. gun in front of children.
The entire guard of his town accompanied him to his grave with songs and their batons, remembering their leader who said: “Many times I endured cold, hunger, loneliness of being away from my children just to defend my territory.”
The young indigenous man who cared for the trees in Cauca
Breiner Cucuñame, 14, was training to be an indigenous guard and dedicate himself to protecting the environment.
Breiner David Cucuñame was just 14 years old when he was assassinated on January 14 by members of the ‘Jaime Martínez’ front of the Farc dissidents, in the Las Delicias reservation, in northern Cauca.
He was the oldest of four brothers, he was in seventh grade, he liked to play soccer, plant trees and ride motorcycles.
Breiner, who was already a member of the Nasa indigenous guard, and his father Samuel had left early from work building a house and on their way home they found that the guard, with their batons, were trying to get out of their territories to a group of dissident youth who were patrolling with their rifles, as they regularly try to do in this area, which had already generated several altercations with the indigenous community.
That day, the discussion between the guard and the dissidents ended in tragedy. Breiner David and Guillermo Chicame, indigenous guard and escort agent of the National Protection Unit, were killed by the armed group.
“We were only interested in getting out of there, out of that fire,” recalls his father, Samuel Cucuñame.
Breiner, says his father, was a happy person, without fear. “He was judicious. Like all children, he had his rebellion in his time and one as a father should advise him “.
“He had a spirit and a body that was not convinced by the violent, that the weapon was the best way out. I want them to remember him as that boy who stood on the line and liked a healthy and calm life”, he points out.
Breiner David was a member of the Student Indigenous Guard, with which he carried out tree planting and river cleaning activities. He was a defender of Mother Earth, the same one where, after a massive ceremony attended by more than 500 people, he has returned.
“Unfortunately, one has to return him so young to mother Earth, but that’s life, unfair sometimes. Still, we have to return it because if nature asked for it at this early age, we cannot fight against the current, ”said his father.
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