Proclamation of social organizations defending human rights in the department of Arauca in light of the serious humanitarian crisis. 

Press conference broadcast:

The Araucanian people are living these days in fear and terror due to a new wave of violence between armed groups that are present in this department bordering the brother country of Venezuela, unleashing aggressions against the civilian population and that, with absurd and delirious arguments, have caused the murder of civilians, attacks, kidnappings, displacements, confinement of entire communities and have also intensified the threats, accusations and forced recruitment of minors.

Those responsible for these systematic attacks on the people of Arauca are undoubtedly, in the first place, the intentional abandonment of the state, which has refused to implement the Final Peace Agreement and the disregard for the development of a social investment policy that would allow overcoming the historical abandonment, which generates poverty, exclusion and backwardness of the inhabitants of the region, and on the contrary, the government has sent more troops to an already heavily militarized department, with the dual purpose of guaranteeing the protection of the energy infrastructure and contributing to escalate the tension that exists today in the fragile Colombian-Venezuelan relations, while this exaggerated militarization does not provide any guarantee regarding the defense and protection of human rights and the civilian population that should be protected primarily.

No less responsibility has the National Liberation Army and the self-styled dissidents of the FARC, who develop a confrontation between them, while involving the civilian population in their war actions, which has been taken to the most absurd degradation.

The existing confrontations in Arauca and in other regions of the country, only evidence the failure of the peace with legality promoted by the current government of Iván Duque Márquez and it is not some vacuum of the peace agreement, as President Duque and his Presidential Advisor for Stabilization and Consolidation Emilio José Archila have stated in their different speeches.

It is clear that the more civil society is militarized, the more violence increases in these territories, given that the focus of violence is deepened in those militarized territories, thus building, intentionally and wrongly, the internal enemy in social organizations and human rights defenders who have a presence in the department of Arauca.

The Colombian government is the only one responsible for the serious situation of violence and neglect of the State that the Auracanian people are going through. In fact, no one is surprised that what is happening in the territory is a surreptitious strategy, extending paramilitarism in different parts of the Colombian territory. The objective is to deepen this strategy during the election time, waging war to sell security, as governments of the last 20 years have usually done, and at the same time to provoke the Venezuelan government in the interest of the United States government.

Trade union, social, and human rights organizations from various regions of the country, as well as various international NGOs, join the Araucanian people in a solidarity and sorority embrace to demand with them the end of the war and the declaration of a humanitarian agreement to protect the life and property of the civilian population in that territory.

Based on our commitment, we are working on an articulated aenda with human rights and social organizations in Arauca with the following objectives: 

• To the different regular and irregular armed actors, be they ELN, FARC dissidents, Armed Forces and Police, to fully respect human rights, to fully comply with IHL, excluding the civilian population, social organizations and protected civilian assets from their war.
• That a State of Humanitarian Emergency be declared for the department of Arauca, which would lead to focus resources and attention on the affected civilian population, and not on the militarization of civil society.
• Request the government of Iván Duque to convene a session of the National Commission for Security Guarantees, point 3.4. of the Peace Accord, which, by listening to the problems of the community, will allow the development of actions in favor of the community and social leaders.
• Immediately establish a proposal for dialogue with both the National Liberation Army and the armed groups, including the one that are acting there, in order to generate the respective commitments to de-escalate the conflict in that region of the country, and the development of a policy of dialogue for peace, which the country has been demanding for a long time.
• A call to the different religious and faith expressions to intercede through their authorities, among them Pope Francis, to appeal to the armed groups without distinction and to the Colombian government to declare an immediate ceasefire.
• The immediate departure of the imposed military governor, because, as well as the organizations of the region, we consider that his actions deepen the violence and do not lead to the search for peace, which is so necessary in the territory.
• We demand that the Government guarantee the session of the Peace Commission of the Senate and House of the Congress of the Republic in the territory, with the participation of the communities and social leaders.
• The State cannot renounce the duty to guarantee life and human rights enshrined in Articles 2, 5 and 7 of the National Constitution.
• A fraternal and sisterly call is made to the Araucanian population, as well as to the social leaders, to maintain the unity of the communities and organizations in the territory, in a state of struggle demanding from the Colombian government guarantees for life and social investment in the territory.

We are preparing the development of an accompaniment agenda in the territory of Arauca with the participation of delegations from the international community and the diplomatic corps.

We are working on the preparation and realization of a regional human rights forum in the department of Arauca that will allow us to learn about the complaints presented by the communities regarding human rights violations and breaches of international humanitarian law, from which a proposal for a humanitarian agreement based on IHL and human rights will emerge.

Bogotá, January 25, 2022.