Slaying of Colombian land activist is latest in series of attacks, rights groups say

Slaying of Colombian land activist is latest in series of attacks, rights groups say
By Associated Press
8:42 p.m. EDT, May 19, 2010

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — A leader of families displaced by Colombia's violence was shot dead in what human rights groups said Wednesday is the latest attack on activists seeking the return of land stolen by far-right paramilitary groups.

Rogelio Martinez, 51, was riding on a mototaxi near his residence in San Onofre, Sucre province when gunmen intercepted the vehicle and shot him at least three times Tuesday, police Col. Hugo Javier Agudelo said.

No arrests had been made and police didn't offer a motive. Human rights groups said Martinez had been receiving death threats since December 2008.

Martinez lived with 52 displaced families locked in a dispute with a paramilitary group over a 556-hectare (1,374-acre) farm called "La Alemania," according to a press releases from the Interchurch Commission for Justice and Peace and the human rights group CODHES.

Christian Salazar, representative for the Colombia office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, condemned Martinez's killing and said activists for the displaced seeking return of their lands are one of the most threatened sectors of society.

More:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-lt-colombia-activist-killed,0,2834693.story

Google translation of an Agence France-Presse article:

Rights defender murdered in Colombia displaced
(AFP) - 1 hours ago.

BOGOTA - A defender of the rights of the displaced in Colombia was killed Tuesday by unknown persons in the department of Sucre (northwest) reported on Wednesday, prompting condemnation from human rights office of the UN.

Rogelio Martinez was killed by "a group of masked men dressed in black" after forcing him to lose his motorcycle on his way to his farm in the department of Sucre, said the National Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE).

The representation of UN condemned the killing and announced a visit to Sucre and Bolivar departments of a diplomatic mission and the European Commission to advance a dialogue "about the effective protection of human rights defenders."

"We urge the Colombian authorities quickly clarify responsibility for this murder," said Christian Salazar, representative in Colombia of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a statement.

The peasant leader, a member of this movement in Sucre, had received threats in 2008 and 2009 for his denunciations of paramilitary infiltration in the local and regional political bodies.

In recent years, according MOVICE, Rogelio Martinez led the return of half a hundred families were displaced by paramilitaries in the area.

"There is a persecution, extermination and a warrant has been completed," he told AFP another member of MOVICE in Sucre, Adil Melendez, who also received a threat in 2009.

According to attorney Rogelio Martinez was scheduled for Thursday a meeting with representatives of several embassies in Colombia.

Meanwhile, the Colombian Ombudsman, Volmar Perez, condemned the incident and asked the authorities "to advance a rigorous investigation" and "exemplary sanctions".

The Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES) also rejected the murder, stating that at least 34 leaders of displaced people have been killed since 2002.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gDXyk3DtCOViY5RsikDcTn6l7phg

Caracas,
Wednesday
May 19,2010

Peasant Rights Activist Murdered in Colombia

BOGOTA – Peasant leader Rogelio Martinez, a member of a non-governmental organization that advocates on behalf of victims of state crimes, was killed in a rural area of northern Colombia, that group said Wednesday.

The killing was carried out by “a group of hooded men dressed in black,” the National Movement of Victims of State Crimes, or Movice, said in a statement released in this capital.

The unknown assailants took the rights activist by surprise as he was traveling to his residence in La Alemania, a ranch in the northern province of Sucre that had been awarded more than a decade ago to dozens of rural families, the NGO said.

The gunmen forced him off his motorcycle and killed him, according to Movice, which did not specify what weapon the assailants used in the attack.

More:
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=357163&CategoryId=12393

Caracas,
Thursday
May 20,2010

Violence Increasing on Colombia-Venezuela Border, Group Says

The independent group Fundacion Progresar warned of a “serious” increase in human rights violations along Colombia’s border with Venezuela, where some 16,000 people have been murdered and 1,800 have disappeared over the past decade

BOGOTA – The independent group Fundacion Progresar warned Monday of a “serious” increase in human rights violations along Colombia’s border with Venezuela, where some 16,000 people have been murdered and 1,800 have disappeared over the past decade.

Fundacion Progresar, which is based in the northeastern province of Norte de Santander, aids victims of Colombia’s decades-long internal conflict.

Fundacion director Wilfredo Cañizalez told Efe that, far from diminishing, the cases of forced disappearance and murder along the border have increased in recent years.

In his opinion, the political confrontation between Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez “has created a blanket of obscurity to cover and hide the reality of the border.”

“A porous border, where everything has a price, where criminal activities have been strengthening, where drug trafficking, the smuggling of gasoline, food, steel, vehicle theft, extortion and kidnapping are the daily fare,” Cañizalez said.

During six months of research in Norte de Santander and the neighboring Venezuelan state of Tachira, Fundacion Progresar determined that in the last decade there were about 1,800 reports of disappearances on the Colombian side of the border.

“Of these, we have been able to determine that in about 200 cases it is certain that the bodies were dumped on the Venezuelan side,” a regular practice that results in these disappearances not being included in the official figures or covered by the media, he said.

In addition, some 16,000 people were murdered on both sides of the border, 70 percent of them in Norte de Santander, and there has been a “worrying” increase in such killings in the past few years.

Meanwhile, in Tachira the situation has gone from 45 murders in 1998 to about 500 annually in each of the past three years, and in Norte de Santander, more than 800 people are known to have been killed last year, especially in the capital, Cucuta, where 1,200 people died in the past two years, 85 percent of them at the hands of killers for hire.

Cañizales said that the 2004 demobilization of the right-wing militias operating in Norte de Santander resulted in a decrease in rural violence, but the former fighters went to the cities, especially Cucuta, which subsequently acquired a huge concentration of guerrillas, paramilitaries and drug trafficking groups.

“We have not gotten an answer from either Bogota or Caracas to this phenomenon,” said Cañizalez, who criticized the fact that the only measure undertaken by both governments has been a militarization of the zone that has not managed to prevent the progressive strengthening of illegal groups.

http://laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=356766&CategoryId=10718

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