[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 35 (Wednesday, February 24, 2021)]
[House]
[Page H592]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            COLOMBIA FAILS TO PROTECT HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, over the past two decades, I have traveled 
to Colombia more than a dozen times. On each trip, I have had the 
privilege of meeting human rights defenders and social leaders.
  In cities, towns, and remote rural areas, these brave men, women, and 
young people have confronted violence all their lives, and they and 
their communities are targeted by illegal armed groups--paramilitaries, 
guerrillas, and criminal organizations. They have been targets of the 
Colombian military and too often harassed and under illegal 
surveillance by the state. Simply for speaking on behalf of others, 
organizing to meet basic needs, or carrying out the duties of their 
profession--teacher, doctor, farmer, lawyer, journalist, and pastor--
they are threatened, assaulted, and murdered.
  During my last trip to Colombia, I spent a few days in the mountains 
of northern Cauca. I met with indigenous leaders defending their right 
to ancestral lands. I met with Afro-Colombian leaders creating small 
enterprises to support their families and their children. I met with 
demobilized FARC soldiers hoping to build a new life and future. I met 
with campesino farmers determined to stop growing coca and move into 
the legal economy.
  We sat together, and we ate together. They shared their plans and 
they shared their dreams with me. They dream of a Colombia at peace and 
a Colombia that values all of its people, including those who have 
struggled to survive in Colombia's most violent rural areas.
  Brave, generous, intelligent, creative, vulnerable, and humble, these 
leaders literally have bet their lives on the peace accord being fully 
implemented. They are counting on the peace accord to deliver the 
protection, economic development, truth, and justice it promised.
  But the Colombian state has abandoned them, just as it has throughout 
all Colombia's history. The state has failed to put in place the 
individual and community-based protections demanded by the peace 
accord. The state has failed to dismantle the criminal networks and 
armed actors who daily threaten the lives of social leaders. The state 
has failed to identify and prosecute those who finance, profit by, and 
order the murders and violence aimed at human rights defenders and 
social leaders. Even worse, the Colombian state has chosen to remain 
absent from large parts of the country, failing to establish state 
presence, basic services, and leaving local leaders defenseless.
  Since the peace accord was signed, over 500 rights defenders have 
been murdered, according to the United Nations human rights 
representative. Colombia's own ombudsman reports even higher numbers, 
documenting more than 700 murders during that same period, and 
nongovernmental organizations place the total even higher.
  Rather than seeing this grim reality as a call to action, the 
government of President Ivan Duque has tried to obscure the number of 
murder victims. His government defends all the promises it has made on 
paper without changing by one iota the reality on the ground. It acts 
as if these murders and threats were some kind of public relations 
crisis, a battle over statistics and optics.
  But it is not a PR problem. It is lives on the line. Economists have 
written books on the importance of human capital in the development of 
a prosperous economy. Lack of political will to prevent these murders 
and protect these local leaders is literally bleeding Colombia of the 
very human capital it needs to consolidate peace and create a more 
prosperous and dynamic future.

  Two weeks ago, Human Rights Watch issued a report on the murders of 
Colombia's social leaders and human rights defenders. It outlines 
practical actions and reforms the Colombian federal, state, and 
municipal governments could take to prevent, reduce, and even stop the 
murders and violence. Sadly, these recommendations were met with 
indifference, by hostility, or rejected out of hand. They were treated 
more like bad press than a serious attempt to offer help and provide a 
road map to interrupt the spiral of violence.
  That is why I am calling on the Biden administration to make the 
protection of human rights defenders and social leaders one of 
America's highest priorities in its relationship with Colombia. The 
Biden administration and Congress should review the Human Rights Watch 
report and determine how U.S. policy and aid can advance the full 
implementation of the peace accord, support its protective and justice 
mechanisms, and help fulfill its promises of economic development in 
neglected areas.
  I call upon my colleagues to stand up for peace, for human rights, 
and for an end to the violence against human rights defenders and 
social leaders in Colombia. These courageous social leaders deserve 
nothing less than America's full and unconditional support.

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