Violence in Colombia: Update Share This /

This post was written by CIP intern Sarah Kinosian On Sunday, June 13th the Colombian army rescued three police officers and an army sergeant who had been held hostage by the FARC guerillas for over a decade. ‘Operation Chameleon,’ as the mission was called, was the Colombian military’s hardest blow to the FARC since the 2008 rescue of Ingrid Betancourt and 13 other guerrilla hostages. The mission occurred a week before Sunday’s run-off presidential election between Juan Manuel Santos and Antanas Mockus, in which policy toward Colombia’s illegal armed groups has been a central theme. The first half of June has witnessed much other activity in the conflict, however.

• Tuesday June 1st, in Nechí in the Antioquia department, a family of three was killed on their farm in the early morning. Police have yet to identify the attackers. In another part of Antioquia a group of armed men shot a bus driver in front of passengers. Also, Tuesday, the bodies of nine ELN and FARC members were found in Arauca, where combat between the two rebel groups has been frequent. That week violent clashes left 20 dead, 11 of which were civilians. There have since been reports that the FARC’s chief military leader in the region, Germán Briceño Suárez, alias ‘Grannobles’, has declared “total war” against ELN forces, signaling a violent revival of confrontations which date back to 2006 in Arauca.
• On Wednesday June 2nd, in Cauca department, the FARC attacked police as they moved through a rural area, leaving one dead and two wounded. A combination of army and police reportedly intercepted and killed the assailants shortly thereafter.
• In Nariño department on Thursday June 3rd, the FARC kidnapped seven people. According to witnesses, the group stopped and overtook the victims’ vehicles between Junín and El Diviso, on the highway between Nariño’s main cities, Pasto and Tumaco. Over the weekend, army and police forces rescued all of those captured.
• Tensions between gangs, many residuals of the officially demobilized AUC paramilitary group, have heightened all over the country. In Medellín on Friday June 4th, a violent outbreak between two gangs is believed to have sparked a fire which lasted four hours and consumed more than 80 homes in the city’s notoriously violent Comuna 13 neighborhood. According to residents “every night there are confrontations between the two groups.” This is not the first time that fires in the neighborhood have been attributed to gang wars. The following Monday, in Norte de Santander, along the Venezuelan border, four Colombians were found dead. Although the events were isolated, residents reported an existing confrontation between gangs fighting for control of the area.
• On Sunday June 6th, the army attacked and occupied a FARC camp in Caquetá department, killing six guerrillas. Also in Caquetá on Tuesday of the following week, June 8th, Colombian special forces were wounded in a minefield while carrying out an operation in pursuit of FARC leader Alfonso Cano.
• On Friday June 11, The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) received a new death-threat for its work in Colombia. An email, which claimed to come from the Colombian paramilitary group known as the ‘Black Eagles,’ named WOLA and 70 Colombian organizations as “military targets.” The e-mail threatens to “kill and disappear without a trace” human rights defenders and activists for displaced communities. This is the second death threat directed at WOLA and a number of its partners in Colombia since May.