Remembering victims, old and new, may there be no more

“There is no death, daughter. People die only when we forget them,’ my mother explained shortly before she left me. ‘If you can remember me, I will be with you always.”

― Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

Accompanying the Committee for Solidarity with Political Prisoners (FCSPP), PBI attended a press conference organised by the National Movement of Victims of State Crime (MOVICE) in the Plaza Bolívar in Bogotá on the 6^th of March 2016. The purpose of the press conference was to commemorate the Day of Dignity of Victims of Colombian State Crime and to denounce the recent attacks and assassinations against victims, social leaders and human rights defenders as well as the reorganisation and reactivation of paramilitarism in the country.

A press release published by MOVICE the same day stated: “After consolidating the information gathered during recent weeks from various human rights organisations, we note that it is shocking the increased paramilitary activity throughout the country, which has caused the death of 28 people in the last month, of which 13 belong to the social movement and human rights organisations; 15 people were killed in the context of what is wrongly referred to as “social cleansing” that forms part of a strategy of terror and anxiety by the paramilitaries to exert control over the communities where they are present. In total there have been 54 attacks on leaders and human rights organisations, equivalent to two attacks per day, these include threats, attacks, killings, baseless prosecutions and surveillance.”[1]

In light of this, during the press conference the organizations demanded that the state guarantees the non-repetition of state crimes and that the peace negotiations between the government and the FARC result in the urgent creation of a high level commission dedicated to guarantee the non-repetition of these crimes.