Neo-paramilitary groups are the main generators of violence and threaths against civilians in the northern Middle Magdalena region, according to a Colombian NGO.
According to the conflict monitoring NGO Nuevo Arco Iris, death threaths against civilians living in the Santander department, northern Colombia, have continued after the 2003-2006 demobilization of the paramilitary coalition AUC. The main generators of threaths and violence against civilians are neo-paramilitary heirs of the AUC, known by the acronym Bacrim, or emergent criminal groups. Leon Valencia, director of the NGO, critiziced the administration of former president Alvaro Uribe for declaring the death of paramilitarism after the demobilization of the AUC.
“This created a state of tranquility within the public force and the people which allowed many mid-level leaders to regroup…and they arrived in Middle Magdalena to stay, because this zone is very important as a route of access to the center and west of the country,” said Valencia.
Valencia’s claims about neo-paramilitary presence in the region were echoed by Todd Howland, the representative of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights ( in Colombia.
“There are pamphlets which include many persons and many groups. In this region there are socio-economic violations…there are no guarantees of dignified work, nor dignified education,” Howlett said to newspaper Vanguardia, while statiing the United Nations were “worried” because there was “very little protection” for human rights’ defenders in the region.
“There are very few sentences [in regard to] the threaths against human rights defenders in Santander. For example, this year there has not been a single decision,” the UN representative continued.
Howlett said the paramilitaries never dissappeared from the region, instead “they turned into Bacrim and [are] violating the rights of the Colombians.”
The AUC demobilized between 2003 and 2006 under a peace accord, known as the Justice and Peace process, with the Colombian government.