AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT 2016/17

SECURITY FORCES
There were continued reports of unlawful
killings by the security forces, as well as
claims of excessive use of force, especially by
the ESMAD anti-riot police, during protests. 5
On 29 February, soldiers killed peasant
farmer Gilberto de Jesús Quintero in the
hamlet of Tesorito, Tarazá Municipality,
Antioquia Department. The army initially
claimed he was an ELN guerrilla killed in
combat. However, witnesses stated they saw
soldiers attempting to dress the corpse in
military fatigues and the army subsequently
claimed that the killing had been a
military error.
Criminal investigations into extrajudicial
executions implicating members of the
security forces made slow progress. A report
from the Office of the Prosecutor of the
International Criminal Court, published in
November, stated that by July the Office of
the Attorney General was investigating 4,190
extrajudicial executions. By February, there
had been a total of 961 convictions of which
only a few involved high-ranking officers.
According to a March report by the Office of
the UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights, by the end of 2015, 7,773 members
of the security forces were under
investigation for extrajudicial executions. In
November a judge convicted more than a
dozen members of the army for the unlawful
killing of five young men from Soacha,
Cundinamarca Department, in 2008.
ABUSES BY ARMED GROUPS
Guerrilla groups
The ELN and the FARC continued to commit
human rights abuses, although cases
attributable to the FARC fell as the peace
process advanced.
Indigenous leaders and journalists were
the targets of death threats. For example, in
June, a man claiming to be from the ELN
telephoned María Beatriz Vivas Yacuechime,
a leader of the Huila Indigenous Regional
Council, and threatened to kill her and her
family. In July, journalist Diego D’Pablos and
cameraman Carlos Melo received text death
threats from someone claiming to be from the
ELN. Both men and fellow journalist Salud
Hernández-Mora had been taken hostage
earlier in the year by the ELN in the northern
region of Catatumbo. 6
On 24 March, two men claiming to be
FARC members called at the home of
Indigenous leader Andrés Almendras in the
hamlet of Laguna-Siberia, Caldono
Municipality, Cauca Department. Andrés
Almendras was not at home so the men
asked his daughter where the “snitch” was
as they wanted him to leave the area.
Paramilitaries
Paramilitary groups continued to operate
despite their supposed demobilization a
decade earlier. Acting either alone or in
collusion with state actors, they were
responsible for numerous human rights
violations, including killings and death
threats. 7
In April, local NGOs reported that an
armed group of around 150 paramilitaries
from the Gaitanista Self-Defence Forces of
Colombia (AGC) had entered the Afrodescendant
community of Teguerré, part of
the collective territory of Cacarica, Chocó
Department. There were reports of other AGC
incursions in the Cacarica area throughout
the year. Some community leaders were
threatened by the AGC, which declared them
“military targets”.
There were increasing reports of
paramilitary incursions into the Peace
Community of San José de Apartadó,
Antioquia Department, some of whose
members were threatened. 8
By 30 September, only 180 of the more
than 30,000 paramilitaries who supposedly
laid down their arms in a governmentsponsored
demobilization process had been
convicted for human rights-related crimes
under the 2005 Justice and Peace Law; most
appealed against their convictions. Most
paramilitaries did not submit themselves to
the Justice and Peace process and received
de facto amnesties.
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