CPT Colombia asks for prayers for the communities of Northeast Antioquia, who again fear violent escalations by several armed groups in their territory. The peace agreements signed between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP guerrilla group in 2016 have not guaranteed the establishment of a comprehensive and lasting peace.
Small farming communities ask for the implementation of a comprehensive rural reform (RRI for its abbreviation in Spanish), included in the first point of the peace agreement. At the same time, they also demand reform as a historical debt that the Colombian state owes the rural communities. It is also necessary that the government grant constitutional recognition of small farmers as subjects with rights.
In the national press, academic Rodrigo Uprimny points out that “the Duque Government, just as it has massively failed to comply with other aspects of the Agreement including the protection of reinserted ex-combatants, the Constitutional Court has just declared that the government practically froze this RRI.”
Faced with the panorama of abandonment, the communities in resistance who are accompanied by our partner organization CAHUCOPANA weave their own alternatives to war and build paths to move towards peace with social justice.
We pray that all of their day-to-day efforts achieve their objectives, that the lives and autonomy of the small farming communities may continue to bear fruits of hope for a country with equity and without impunity.
Through social media networks, CAHUCOPANA has expressed concern “about the violence and the constant reports of cases of murders in the urban area and villages near the municipality of Remedios. […] We call for the armed actors to respect and abide by International Humanitarian Law.”
