And the horror continues .....

Issued on May 02, 2013 at 09:44 AM

Following a series of very successful visits of national representatives from the Patriotica Marcha to Belfast, Dublin and London, we heard of the horror of another murder of one of their activists, local farmer’s leader, Alvaro Queguan.  Mr. Queguan was shot dead by the Colombian Army in the SouthEast of Colombia.  This now brings the total number of their activists murdered to 9, in what is only their first year of operation.

The Patriotica Marcha are Colombia’s largest opposition civil-society movement and are calling for peace in Colombia.  Only a number of weeks ago the Patriotica Marcha organised marches which saw more than a million Colombians take to the streets in support of peace talks between the Colombian Government and the FARC guerillas.  Government forces have been fighting the FARC peasant insurgency since 1965.

The conflict in Colombia has spawned a dirty war in which tens of thousands of civilians were killed by right wing paramilitary death squads, among them over 3000 social activists. Despite peace talks taking place between the Colombian Government and the FARC guerrillas, dangers for opposition and peace activists continue. Last year saw 20 trade union members and 69 human rights activists murdered.

It is crucial that we continue to support the work of the Patriotica Marcha and JFC, to lobby our politicians to speak out about the dangers Colombian activists and trade unionists face and to call on the international community to pressure the Colombian government to guarantee their protection and negotiate an immediate ceasefire.

More information is available on the work of JFC here and in the UK.