RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – NGOs have warned that armed groups are taking advantage of the global Coronavirus crisis to carry out the murders of community and rural activists in Colombia while media and government attention are focused on combating the pandemic. Since lockdown measures were introduced, four social leaders and two indigenous leaders have been murdered.
On Saturday reports of four murders appeared in Colombian media: Alexis Vergara, a trade union representative, was shot dead in Cauca. Municipal Councillor Ivo Humberto Bracamonte was killed near the border with Venezuela. Ángel Ovidio Quintero, who also worked for his local municipality, was killed in Antioquia. Finally, Marco Rivadeneira, a well-known defender of human rights, was kidnapped and murdered in the southern Putumayo province.
Then on Tuesday the National Indigenous Organisation of Colombia (ONIC) reported that the previous night two indigenous Embera leaders had been murdered. In the attack two other people were injured. All the victims were apparently following quarantine orders.
This brings up another difficulty of the Covid-19 crisis and shutdown. As well as distracting attention from such attacks, quarantine and stay-at-home orders make targets sitting ducks as their attackers know they will be confined at home. The armed groups that attack local leaders sometimes have political affiliations, sometimes do not, but they see activists as a problems to be eliminated so they can continue their lucrative criminal businesses, such as drug-trafficking and extortion.
Carlos Paez, a land activist in northern Colombia, said that the threats have increased since the worldwide outbreak of Coronavirus began to gain more and more attention. Other leaders have had their government protection affected by the virus outbreak, which puts them in far greater danger, especially as those who wish to target them know they may never get another opportunity to find them as defenceless.
Colombia had its first case of Covid-19 on March 6th and now has several hundred cases. And, as elsewhere over the world, this is only set to increase. As a result, many of the dangers associated with this situation for activists will not go away for the near future. Hopefully, however, if greater attention is paid to this issue the safety of local leaders can be increased.
Colombia already had a dire problem of social leaders being killed and the Colombian government has been criticised for not doing enough to protect community leaders. But this bad situation is much more dangerous now that Covid-19 has been added to the mix.
These cases highlight the potential dangers of the Coronavirus pandemic hiding other important international issues, and it being exploited by unscrupulous individuals and organisations to do things that they would otherwise not get away with.