This year is particularly worrying, since it has been observed that during local elections is when this violence increases. The historical trend was maintained, according to which the more local leaders are, the more lethal violence they are subjected to.
The annual report on violence against political, social and community leaders in 2022, prepared by the MOE’s Electoral Political Observatory of Democracy, analyzes the political violence that occurred during the past year. The panorama of this political violence did not generate anything other than concern, because an upward trend was observed with 589 acts of violence against leaders. 2022 ranked as the year with the most attacks since the signing of the Peace Agreement with the FARC.
2022 was a year of special relevance in electoral terms for the country. Not only was it the setting for the elections for the Congress of the Republic and the Presidency of the Republic, but for the first time, the 16 Representatives were elected to the Chamber for the Special Transitory Circumscriptions of Peace (Citrep), an electoral panorama that has implications for violence against the different leaderships of the country.
The figures carefully
Threats were positioned as the most recurring aggression with a total of 225 records, 84.4% more than in 2018. Regarding lethal violence, 176 events were recorded (104 murders and 72 attacks), of which 35.2% were directed to leaderships of a social nature and 31.3% to communal ones.
Because of “leftist politics,” 48 leaders were threatened through pamphlets that do not disclose the reason for it, 16 being classified as “responsible for the murder of social leaders,” 12 being accused of ‘false social leaders’, 5 for supporting the Total Peace policy, 5 for hindering the actions of illegal armed groups, 5 for not supporting the candidacy of Gustavo Petro, 4 for being accused of ‘mismanagement of resources’, 3 for promote the eradication of illicit crops and 3 for opposing a political party in the municipal council.
The work of leaders is essential for communities far from government centers.Comparative for Risaralda
Based on the fact that Cauca, among 30 departments, is the one that occupies the first place in this type of violence: 73 threats, 2 kidnappings, 9 attacks and 13 murders. Risaralda, with 6 threats and one attack, ranks 22nd in the country and is below Caldas, which appears in 20th, while Quindío ranked 26th, with the difference that there and in Caldas, murders did materialize. .
The report also emphasizes the specific context of the country’s rurality, since it presents differential violence. Unlike the national generality where the political leaders were the most vulnerable, followed by the social and finally the communal ones, in rural areas the opposite occurred.
Thus, in August 2022, after it became known that several leaders in Risaralda had received threats and that approximately half of these were victims of harassment, Eisenhower Zapata made it clear that the official figures did not include the leaders. who do not report for fear of reprisals from the gangs that are dedicated to micro-trafficking and drop-by-drop loans.
Given
In the face of any act of violence, the local authorities are the ones who must guarantee the protection of the lives of the leaders, according to decree 2252 of 2017.
Violence by type of leadership
Due to political leadership, there were 46 threats during 2022, according to this report. 27 threats by social leadership and 6 by community leadership, and 4 murders materialized due to the last two.
against women
- The most affected political leaders correspond to elected congressmen with a total of 20 attacks, including 2 attacks, elected councilors with 14, candidates for the Congress of the Republic with 8 and former officials or ex-candidates with 7 events. Regarding the geographic location of the acts of violence against the leaders, they took place in 48 municipalities in 20 departments of the country.
- It must be specified that social leaders have different roles and do not always perform a specific leadership, their activity can be directed at different objectives, so it was possible to identify that among the leaders there were 9 indigenous victims, 6 Afro victims and 3 peasant victims. These groups concentrated 75% of the attacks against social leaders.
Cipher
51.6% of the cases of violence registered in the country targeted leaders.