Are Colombias social leaders facing another extermination?
by Stephen Gill February 22, 2018
More than 200 social leaders, peasant representatives and human rights defenders have been murdered since the start of Colombias peace process, according to a report.
The killings are spurring fears that the widespread killing could be a repetition of an extermination campaign in the 1980s and 1990s in which thousands of leftists were murdered, and spurred a wave of retaliatory guerrilla violence.
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The ongoing mass killing of leaders begins to resemble a political extermination campaign carried out by paramilitary groups and state forces after a peace deal with the FARC in 1985.
More than 3,000 members of the leftist political party Patriotic Union, including presidential candidates, were assassinated in the decade after that agreement.
The political extermination of the leftists spurred the most violent and traumatic period in the 50-year history of Colombias armed conflict.
Since 1964, the year groups like the FARC and ELN were founded, more than 265,000 Colombians have been killed. Millions were displaced.
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https://colombiareports.com/more-than-200-social-leaders-assassinated-during-colombia-peace-process-report/