Amnesty International (AI) on Tuesday called on the Colombian government to end impunity for crimes committed against the north-Colombian Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado.
The San Jose Peace Community was established in 1997 in response to Colobmia’s ongoing internal conflict. The group’s desire to remain free of all violence has since made them a leader of the nonviolent resistance movement in Colombia, though it has not always saved them.
“More than 170 of its members and other local people have been killed or ‘disappeared’ since 1997,” AI said on its website.
The announcement and a call on people to demand justice from the Colombian authorities came on the seventh anniversary of a paramilitary attack which killed eight community members, four of them children.
According to Amnesty, the San Apartado Peace Community is one of many groups which has suffered from human rights abuses by paramilitaries acting in concert with the army, but has not received justice for these crimes.
