More than 1,200 members of the Association of Peasant Workers of Carare (ATCC), a Right Livelihood Laureate organisation, gathered last weekend to express their rejection of the recent incursion of illegal armed groups into their territory. Days before, the peasant association had denounced that a group called “new generation self-defence forces” entered the community of La India, in the department of Santander in central Colombia, to control micro-drug trafficking in the area. After denying collaboration, ATCC authorities received death threats.
“This is not only about leaders, we are all organised to defend each other,” said Luis Fernando Serna, the current president of the workers’ association, which has a 37-year history of conducting peace processes in the region.
Back in 1990, three ATCC leaders were shot dead by Colombian paramilitaries aiming to dismantle the community-based peace process peasants had started three years earlier to end human rights violations by illegal armed actors. Showing their determination to end violence, the local organisation elected new leaders the day after the murders and continued the peace process. That same year, ATCC received the Right Livelihood Award for its outstanding commitment to peace, family and community amid the most extreme violence.
More than 30 years later, ATCC encompasses around 8,000 people, who are earning their living from small agriculture. In recognition of the damage the internal armed conflict caused over these years, the Colombian state has implemented a reparation process for victims, including measures of restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition. ATCC is entitled to collective reparation in six municipalities of the department of Santander. However, the current threats from illegal armed groups threaten to re-victimize communities and subject their members to experience a repeat of the past.
“We have managed to maintain the peace process for many years,” said Serna in an interview with Right Livelihood. “[That is,] until April 2, when a group of armed men arrived saying that from that moment on they would take over the region to control the micro-trafficking business.”
Micro-trafficking refers to the distribution and commerce of illegal drugs on a small scale, while promoting their consumption and instrumentalising local youth for sale within the communities.
ATCC’s reaction was immediate. Within days, 500 people met to assess the situation and agree on the next steps. The decision was to call a large rally to make clear the population’s rejection of coexistence with criminal structures. The massive assembly took place on April 15 and included a symbolic release of white balloons to maintain peace in the region.
“The arrival of [President] Gustavo Petro to power in 2022 has logically been a threat to his opponents,” Serna explained. “Colombia’s right-wing sectors don’t want the continuity of this government. So, these criminal movements are attempts to take over the territories to have persuasive power over the communities. They want to set the country on fire to make this government look inept – like the challenge is too big for it.”
Serna recognises that ATCC’s area of influence in the department of Santander is only one of many places where these incursions occur.
“They are getting involved everywhere,” he said. “But here, they know the history. They have an image of us as our community, which has always stood firm. Furthermore, the recognition Right Livelihood gave us is truly significant.”
ATCC has been fighting human rights violations since its inception in 1987. Starting in the 1970s, the Carare region has been plagued by selective homicides, massacres, torture, forced disappearances, illegal recruitment of minors, and persecution and threats carried out by armed groups against the local population. These actors also destroyed private and communal property and restricted movement through checkpoints.
“We do not want to repeat a story as tragic and sad as the one we have experienced because the dead are going to be ours again,” Serna said.
He noted that ATCC had also involved the police and the judiciary and held meetings with local authorities “to warn them not to repeat what has always happened: that certain sectors of the state are colluding with these groups to obtain advantages and benefits.”
The ATCC leader added, “The only thing we have left is the community and trying to do what we have always done: organise and keep the peace.”
