Social unrest amid socio-political violence and humanitarian crises

In December 2021, PBI accompanied Ccajar in Bogotá during a cultural event in which several artists repainted the mural “Quién Dio La Orden” (Who Gave The Order) on a prominent wall in Bogotá, near the José María Córdova Military Cadet School.

Despite the sharp increase in human rights violations, the context of suppression of social protest, the constant humanitarian crises in rural territories and the prolongation of restrictions due to the pandemic, PBI Colombia has managed to ensure that the international community is kept regularly informed of the situations affecting human rights in Colombia. During 2021, multiple virtual advocacy tours were organised, face-to-face briefings were resumed and 78 meetings were conducted in Colombia and abroad allowing the accompanied organisations to connect with PBI Colombia’s support network. It is important to emphasise the efforts made by several of the organisations accompanied by PBI during the National Strike to raise awareness of

the lack of guarantees for the right to protest,

and to highlight their work in the verification, documentation and condemnation of human rights violations within this context. In light of this context, PBI Colombia contributed by facilitating meetings between defenders and the international community, and ensuring that they were updated regularly with quality, accurate information. This ensured that the international community was both kept accurately informed, and were consequently able to make public pronouncements, carry out territorial visits and take direct action regarding the victims of the serious human rights violations and police repression taking place.

PBI Colombia also supported Colombian and international organisations and platforms by arranging, for example, the visit of the International Mission #SOSColombia, an independent body that was created to monitor human rights violations committed by state agents in protest situations.

PBI also worked to highlight the humanitarian crises that have mainly affected ethnic communities in multiple territories in Colombia. PBI has encouraged high-level pronouncements and urgent appeals for the protection of human rights defenders and more than 160 ethnic and rural communities. Since March 2020, these communities, accompanied by JyP, have been calling for a Global Humanitarian Agreement by means of 40 public appeals directed at the Government and the different armed groups present in their territories. PBI supported these ceasefire requests whose fulfilment would reduce the intensity of serious human rights violations such as massive forced displacement, enforced disappearances, sexual violence and massacres, among others. PBI also facilitated advocacy actions which led to the Irish Embassy funding the installation of awarenessraising signposting demarcating the limits of the Uradá Jiguamiandó Indigenous Humanitarian Reserve, increasing their protection against illegal armed

PBI arranged a visit by the accompanied organisation Nomadesc together with relatives of victims of police violence to Bogotá where they met with representatives of the embassies of Switzerland, the United States, Norway, Ireland, Great Britain and Canada.

The Humanitarian Reserves or Humanitarian Zones are self-protection measures that rural communities have created in order to protect their lives and physical integrity. In these zones, which are visibly signposted, the carrying of arms or the entry of any armed actor is not permitted, and are a means of avoiding increasing the risk to the civilian population in the midst of the existing conflict. Through the installation of the signs around the Uradá Jiguamiandó Indigenous Humanitarian Reserve, their self-protection measures were strengthened by making international support for the ethnic communities clearly visible.

PBI also underlines the importance of the visit of the Irish Ambassador, together with the Embassies of Sweden and the Netherlands, along with Colombian institutions to the community of Alto Guayabal (Uradá Jiguamiandó Humanitarian Resguardo). The visit took place as part of the European Union’s #DefendamosLaVida (#WeDefendLife) campaign, with the aim of raising awareness of the situation of risk faced by the Embera indigenous leader Argemiro Bailarín, as well as the seriousness of the human rights violations being committed against ethnic communities in the area.

groups in the surrounding area in the Bajo Atrato region. The Irish Embassy undertook a leading role in supporting the threatened leader by releasing public statements, holding personal meetings with the leader and carrying out the aforementioned territorial visit. Following the volatile situation in the region during 20201, the security crisis in the Bajo Atrato and more generally in the department of Chocó continued into 2022. In this context, the assassination of two of the region’s indigenous leaders in September, and the forced displacement of several indigenous communities in the south of the department as a result of fighting between armed actors prompted PBI to activate its wider support network in an emergency response to the crisis. Advocacy work on the escalation of socio-political violence in Buenaventura, where PBI mainly accompanies three organisations (Fneb, Nomadesc and JyP), was considered a priority throughout 2021. At the beginning of the year, forced disappearances, assassinations and attacks against the civilian population in the port city increased dramatically. Around this time, PBI organised the first on-site visit of a delegation to Buenaventura since the beginning of the pandemic. Eight embassies,the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia, the Mapp-OAS and European ecclesiastical institutions took part in the visit, where their activities included meeting and interviewing victims, social organisations and state authorities. Their intensive work has increased the influece of the #SOSBuenaventura campaign, and succeeded in reducing the violence at its peak. Throughout the year, the international community was kept informed about the situation of enforced disappearance in Buenaventura, as well as about the work of Fneb and JyP in the region. This included updating and asking for support in the progress of the application for precautionary measures for the San Antonio estuary, which were eventually granted by the JEP in December. Advocacy activities were also undertaken to draw attention to the increase in threats against several accompanied organisations including CSPP, Ccajar, Dh Colombia, Nomadesc and Credhos. With regard to the latter organisation, a great deal of work was done to increase international attention on the Magdalena Medio region, where the organisation has been promoting human rights for more than 35 years.

Following serious death threats against Credhos, PBI successfully drew attention to the risks faced by those who defend human rights and the environment in the region and the differential risks particularly faced by women environmental leaders.

The advocacy team also highlighted the defence of the right to access to water, as well as raising the profile of those denouncing the impacts of the two fracking projects that are planned to be implemented in the

region. In October a humanitarian mission attended by embassies and the Mapp-OAS was organised in Northeast Antioquia. The region has historically been abandoned by the state and is the focus of the work of the accompanied organisation Cahucopana2 .

Advocacy tours with human rights defenders to Europe and the United States

Between October and December 2021, when the restrictive measures implemented at the start of the pandemic were relaxed and as part of activities commemorating the fifth anniversary of the signing of the Peace Accords, PBI Colombia organised four face-to-face advocacy tours in Europe. Human rights defenders Franklin Castañeda (CSPP), Danilo Rueda (JyP), Annye Paez (ACVC) and Iván Madero (Credhos), were able to voice their concerns about the human rights violations committed during the National Strike and reflect on the impacts on communities in the absence of a comprehensive implementation of the Peace Accords. In October, following serious security threats against Nomadesc as a direct result of its work in defence of victims of police violence in Cali, PBI organised and accompanied visits by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia and representatives of several embassies to the organisation’s office headquarters. We also organised and accompanied an advocacy tour by Nomadesc’s president, Berenice Celeita, to the United States. One of the most tangible results of these tours is the increased awareness of Colombia’s situation in the European Parliament. In fact, during 2021, around 30 parliamentary questions were raised about Colombia, 10 more than in 2020. Several of these parliamentary questions were a direct result of the visibility and advocacy work carried out by PBI together with accompanied Colombian organisations.

Publications

In 2021, four Human Rights Updates were written and distributed to PBI’s support network in Spanish and English. Additionally, PBI produced multiple further restricted documents in which they provided detailed information on the human rights situation in Colombia, the threats received by the accompanied organisations and the progress of their work. These documents were used by PBI’s National Groups in the preparation of their advocacy campaigns. We also issued two Action Alerts issued highlighting specific high-risk situations facing the communities and organisations accompanied by PBI Colombia.

1. See PBI’s Annual Report 2020. October, 2021. 2. See the report “Resistir en un territorio olvidado” (Resisting in a forgotten territory), pg. 58

PBI would like to thank each of the individuals and institutions that participated in the missions and those who responded to the requests of the Colombian organisations and PBI by releasing public statements. The visits, public statements and follow-up actions to the concerns expressed by human rights defenders have had an important and effective impact in creating safe spaces for the work of human rights defenders and leaders. Likewise, it is important to highlight the work of PBI’s National Groups whose collaboration in terms of advocacy activities, organisation of tours, and preparation of meetings ensures a coherent advocacy strategy in PBI through the implementation of diverse advocacy activities and contributes to increasing the protection of those who defend human rights.

Raising awareness of the serious and ongoing threats faced by human rights defenders

Thanks to the information that is shared by organisations, PBI continues to be a reliable channel through which information on the situation of human rights defenders in Colombia can be disseminated. In 2021, PBI Colombia continued to highlight the risk situation of the organisations and people accompanied through publications, interviews, webinars and through sharing information about emblematic cases on social media channels. The publications have a high readership and our social media followers continue to grow, successfully expanding the outreach of the work of Colombian human rights defenders’ organisations.

Publications: Website and social networks

PBI Colombia’s website continuously reports on the human rights work of the organisations we accompany, as well as commenting on the socio-political situation in the country. This year, 20 blog entries were published in Spanish and 18 in English. The Spanish blog received 43,967 visits and 68,549 views, while the English blog received 12,327 visits and 22,073 views. Among the most visited pages are the profiles of the organisations that PBI accompanies, which detail their trajectory and historical work in defence of human rights. In terms of social media networks, we focus a large part of our awareness-raising work on Twitter, due to the direct and immediate participation of the international community on this platform. The PBI Colombia account (@PBIColombia) has 6,652 followers, an increase of 869 on the previous year. In 2021 we received 54,791 profile visits, five times more than the previous year, and published 927 tweets, almost twice as many as in 2020. Additionally, PBI retweeted 4,170 tweets of relevant information from the accounts of accompanied organisations, media outlets, and different national and international organisations and bodies that defend human rights. Likewise, organisations and influential figures in the international community mentioned PBI Colombia in 3,051 tweets during 2021. This included tweets from the accounts of embassies and parliamentarians in which they expressed their concern about the risk situation of the people and organisations accompanied and which were often part of follow-up actions to meetings and territorial advocacy tours. PBI Colombia’s profile and reach increased on both Instagram and Facebook during 2021. PBI Colombia’s Facebook account increased its reach by 511 people, ending the year with a total of 11,905 followers. On Instagram, PBI Colombia reached a total of 1,354 followers, with an increase of 257 people. A total of 137 posts were published on Instagram, as well as daily stories about threats and attacks against the accompanied organisations, detailing their work in defence of human rights and providing relevant information about the Colombian political context with a focus on human rights.