To the lurid number of crimes against social leaders in Colombia we must add a new victim with the murder of Óscar Humberto Rodríguez, one of the councilors of the municipality of Linares (Nariño), which was perpetrated in the early morning of December 29.
In addition to working in the council of the population of Nariño, Rodríguez was president of the Association of Peasant Workers of Linares (Astracal), political spokesperson for the Peasant Union for Peace of the municipalities of Linares, Sandoná, Ancuya, El Peñol and El Tambo, as well as national leader of the Popular Agro-Environmental Unity for La Paz in the South of Colombia (Upazsur), reported at the Institute for Development and Peace Studies (Unpeaceful).
“He was a recognized defender of human rights, of peasants and a tireless worker for the Peace of his people, He also stood out for his work as a councilor for the municipality of Linares from where he publicly and repeatedly denounced the current management of the Linares aqueduct and sewerage company “EMPOLINARES”. due to corruption and mismanagement that harmed the inhabitants (sic)”, they published on the Facebook account of Upazsur.
Even the councilor he led processes of substitution of crops for illicit use from the presidency of the Association of Workers of Coca Growers (Astrokan).
this murder joins the 33 homicides committed against social leaders and human rights defenders reported between January 1 and November 30 in this region, according to figures compiled by the Ombudsman’s Office, which makes Nariño in the department with the highest number of murders in the country.
After condemning the crime and urging the competent authorities to clarify and prosecute the facts, The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia made a call to reactivate the Territorial Table of Guarantees of Nariño as a high-level space in which to specify action measures to guarantee the work of social leaders and human rights defenders in the territory.
For its part, from the Platform of Social Organizations, Victims and Defense of Human Rights of Nariño The Minister of the Interior, Alfonso Prada, and the departmental governor, Jhon Alexander Rojas, were questioned in a statement to request the establishment of a Unified Command Post for Life with an “effective presence of national order institutions.”
Nariño is one of the Colombian departments hardest hit by violence and armed conflict, in which several illegal groups have a presence and confront each other to gain control of a key territory for the drug trafficking route.
Various social organizations have been asking for several years for the reactivation of the Territorial Table of Guarantees to adopt measures that protect the civilian population and to the defenders of human rights of the violence of the armed actors.
Prior to the crime of Rodríguez, on December 21 the homicide was reported in Armenia (Quindío) from Jose Ricaurte Quintero Marin who headed the Manna Survivors Foundation, that make up the relatives of victims of forced disappearance.
During this last month of 2022, there was also a record of the homicides of the social leaders Jesús María Mora in Dolores (Tolima) and Javier Gámez Hinojosa in San Juan del Cesar (Guajira).
According to Indepaz data, this year that is ending 188 social leaders and human rights defenders were killed, leading to 1,408 murders of these people since the peace agreement was signed between the extinct FARC guerrilla and the Colombian State.
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