[CTC] Attack against Colombian Labor Rights Senator Must Be Widely Condemned

[Gimena Sanchez]

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WOLA Commentary
May 15, 2018




Attack against Colombian Labor Rights Senator Must Be Widely Condemned




By Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli<https://www.wola.org/people/gimena-sanchez-garzoli/>

On Friday May 11, four gunmen shot at Colombian Senator Alexander Lopez Maya’s security detail in Cali, prompting the senator’s bodyguards to return fire. Fortunately, Senator Lopez, a former trade unionist and a champion for labor rights, human rights, and anti-corruption efforts, was unscathed. Although the perpetrators of the crime fled the scene, their message was clear—stop advocating for Colombia’s disenfranchised, ethnic, poor and working class people.

The attack came after Senator Lopez called for accountability and fiscal transparency in the government’s commitments to the Buenaventura Civic Strike Committee<https://www.wola.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/CMGcivicstrikejune15.pdf>. Last year, citizens of Buenaventura, Colombia’s most important port city, held a 22-day protest demanding that the government improve access to potable water, security, infrastructure, and adequate health services. As part of an agreement reached between the government and the protest’s leaders, the Colombian government pledged to create a COP$1.5 billion (US$342 million) autonomous fund to fulfill the commitments it made with the people of Buenaventura.

As of yet, President Santos’ outgoing administration has not obtained an international loan to uphold this project, nor taken other necessary steps to create and regulate the fund. Senator Lopez, who has long fought for the rights of Buenaventura’s Afro-Colombian community and for the port city’s labor unions, organized a session to take stock of the agreement and prevent further irregularities.

The attack against Senator Lopez was vile and cowardly. The assassination attempt follows a series of efforts to discredit the leaders of the Buenaventura Civic Strike, such as falsehoods published on social media targeting Afro-Colombian community leader Victor Vidal. Notably, the attack against Lopez took place the same day that employees at the Buenaventura Ombudsman’s Office received death threats. As evidenced by the recent assassination of Don Temis<https://www.wola.org/2018/01/two-ethnic-leaders-assassinated-within-48-hours-colombia/>, one of the civic strike’s organizers, the threats and attacks against labor and human rights activists could very well escalate to murder.




Read the Full Commentary <https://www.wola.org/analysis/attack-colombian-labor-rights-senator-must-widely-condemned/>



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