Social leaders traveled from Colombia to Washington DC this week to meet with the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (IACHR) and US officials to seek protection after the assassination of more than 340 since 2016.
Around the time President Ivan Duque met his American counterpart Donald Trump in New York, social leader Hector Marino Carabali from Cauca arrived at the iACHR offices to talk about the mass killing of land claimants, human rights defenders and other activists.
While all the camera crews were in New York, Carabali met with State Department officials, US senators and human rights organizations to draw attention to the plight of Colombia’s social leaders.
“The world must know that they are killing us and the government does nothing,” Carabali told newspaper El Espectador.
Hector Marino Carabalí
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Carabali was forced to flee his home in Buenos Aires in July after masked men kidnapped and murdered his friend Ibes Trujillo, and the “Aguilas Negras,” an elusive far-right collective, threatened that he would be next.
The Cauca native is not sure when or if he can go home, he told El Espectador. Carabali is not the only one, partly because Colombia’s Prosecutor General’s Office is apparently reluctant to adequately investigate the violence, or arrest the alleged masterminds behind the killings.
Hector Marino Carabali
According to Carabali, the situation only worsened after the June election of Duque, a conservative who opposes the peace process promoted by many of the killed and threatened social leaders.
Hector Marino Carabali
Carabali and US human rights organizations have been seeking support in Washington in particular, because of the US’ involvement in counter-narcotics and counter-insurgency operations.
“Colombia’s peace is also the United States’ peace, many of that country’s citizens say,” according to Carabali, who bashed the apparent discrepancy between Duque’s promise before the UN to promote peace while escalating tensions in Colombia.
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To further seek Americans’ attention for the plight of Colombia’s social leaders, Carabali will be present at a screening of the documentary “They Are Killing Us” of filmmakers Tom Laffay, Emily Wright and Daniel Bustos in New York on Friday before returning to an uncertain future in Colombia.