ECVC stands in solidarity with FENSUAGRO president after death threats

ECVC stands in solidarity with Elsa Nury Martínez, president of FENSUAGRO in Colombia and member of the International Coordination Commission of La Via Campesina, after the Aguilas Negras – Bloque Capital paramilitary group sent death threats to her and her family on November 3 and pressured her to flee her territory.

This adds to a series of human rights violations committed against the peasant organisation, including threats, harassment, forced disappearances, displacements and murders. Neither the Colombian State nor the international community is guaranteeing the safety and lives of the peasant, indigenous and social leaders in Colombia, to which they committed in the Peace Agreement signed between the Colombian government and the FARC on 24 November 2016. Since that date, 251 social leaders have been assassinated in Colombia by paramilitaries, 38 of whom belonged to FENSUAGRO.

The European region of La Via Campesina, ECVC, rejects and denounces these serious attacks on the lives and fundamental rights of those fighting for peasants’ rights in Colombia. ECVC demands that the Colombian Government, specifically President Ivan Duque Marquez, investigate these events and urgently take effective protection measures for Elsa Nury Martínez and the other peasant and social leaders who have been threatened and harassed by the paramilitary groups.

We also demand that the UN, and in particular the EU and its Member States, as guarantors and supporters of the implementation of the Havana Peace Agreement, take immediate action to ensure that the Colombian government fulfils its responsibility to protect the peasant and social leaders under threat, as well as effectively fulfilling all the commitments set out in the Agreement.

We also ask European civil society organisations to highlight the seriousness of the situation surrounding the Peace Process in Colombia and to put pressure on national and international institutions to react accordingly. Drastic action is required to protect human rights defenders and the international community must intervene to ensure the necessary monitoring, follow-up and support to stop this massacre.

Contacts:

Federico Pacheco – ECVC Coordinating Committee: +34 690 651 046– ES, FR

Paula Gioia – ECVC Coordinating Committee: +49 178 139 0024 – PT, ES, EN, DE