La Congoja is a remote place. This village is a significant distance from the urban centre of the municipality of Yondó. To get there you have to travel cross half the municipality, for hours along a rugged track. The landscape is dotted with green hills and sparse woods. Surprises await around every corner: Continue reading In La Congoja, writing History is a collective endeavour
“If a person can be non-violent, why can’t the world be non-violent?”
We start the year with the arrival of six new people who will become members of our three different field teams. They have come from Italy, France, Spain and Canada to volunteer with PBI Colombia. Below, they introduce themselves: Continue reading “If a person can be non-violent, why can’t the world be non-violent?”
Operation Dragon, 14 Years Later: A historic ruling and starting the path to achieve justice and truth
In August 2004, the Attorney General’s Office and the Technical Investigation Unit (CTI, in Spanish) discovered a series of official documents that detailed aspects of Operation Dragon, an illegal surveillance plan carried out against 170 people, with the alleged aim to assassinate human rights defenders, union leaders, and members of the political opposition in Colombia who opposed the privatization of the Empresas Públicas de Cali, EmCali[1]. After a long court case, on 22 January, 2019, the Fourth Specialized Court of Cali convicted three retired military members of simple and aggravated criminal conspiracy in the framework of this Operation[2]. Continue reading Operation Dragon, 14 Years Later: A historic ruling and starting the path to achieve justice and truth
The need to implement collective protection measures: ACVC
Prevention, Protection, and Security for Human Rights Defenders,[1] is a program financed by the Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation (ACCD) and jointly coordinated by International Action for Peace (IAP) and the Peasant Association of the Cimitarra River Valley (ACVC). In the framework of this program the ACVC, and three partner organizations (Cahucopana, Aheramigua, and Ascamcat), met with state institutions and national and international organizations in Bogotá. Continue reading The need to implement collective protection measures: ACVC
“We don’t do this work because of an ideology, we do it out of love, a love that is politicised and has a social conscience”: Yanette Bautista
It was a Saturday morning when the first person arrived at the office of the Nydia Erika Bautista Foundation (Fundación Nydia Erika Bautista – FNEB) and found the glass from the windows smashed into pieces all over the floor. That morning, Continue reading “We don’t do this work because of an ideology, we do it out of love, a love that is politicised and has a social conscience”: Yanette Bautista