Challenging impunity for genocide in Colombia – A briefing paper by FPP and the Cañamomo Lomaprieta Indigenous Reserve

Impunity has for years been a mechanism that permits repeated cycles of violence in Colombia. Taking measures to end impunity can be an effective approach for tackling the root causes of attacks against communities and their human rights defenders. Impunity has also benefited companies that have resorted to violent attacks against communities and their defenders. Those unpunished attacks include hate speech, threats, forced displacement and other forms of abuse that guarantee the social and judicial impunity of the lethal attacks.

Read the briefing (available in Spanish only)

These grave matters are being investigated this week  by The Permanent Peoples' Tribunal in its 48th session, which will take place in Colombia between 25 and 27 March 2021. The Tribunal will judge the Colombian State based on the claims and testimonies of social and ethnic victims, and evidence presented by human rights and political organisations with regard to (i) continuing and prolonged genocidal practices, and in general the political genocide, suffered by residents, citizens and collectives throughout its existence; (ii) the crimes against peace that have occurred after the signing of the 2016 Peace Agreement, and (iii) the impunity and absence of justice in the face of all these events".  Click here for details. 

This FPP-RCMLP briefing paper identifies some of the mechanisms that enable impunity, with an emphasis on elements that have ended up benefiting companies and commercial interests that resort to violence to acquire land and impose a development model. The paper focuses on several cases where this model seeks to impose development on indigenous and Afro-descendant territories. The document and its analysis of the different cases aim to contribute to the efforts and deliberations of the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal in its session 48 "Political Genocide in Colombia 2021."