By R. Renee Yaworsky
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BOGOTA, Colombia—The top-ranking leader of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) has announced that the paramilitary group will become more persistent in the year ahead, increasing its activities.  The FARC is known for guerrilla-style violence throughout Colombia, and many Colombians live in fear of the organization’s notorious operations.

Alfonso Cano, the FARC’s number one man, released a New Year’s video on Friday containing statements about the group’s activities.  The video was uploaded on YouTube and also the website of a Swedish news agency called Anncol.  Anncol has been known as a conduit for FARC messages in the past.

Cano’s video included an ominous promise:  “In 2011, we’ll redouble our activities in every sense, [drawing on] our convictions, the care that comes with experience and the valor of all our fallen fighters.”  In the 12-minute long video, Cano went on to ask legislators to focus on laws that would return land stolen from farmers by paramilitaries and pay reparations to those who have suffered under Colombia’s numerous internal clashes.  Cano is seen in front of the camera reading his words off an out-of-date Macbook Pro laptop.  The FARC leader opined that if issues like these were taken “seriously” by lawmakers, it would be a step towards “solving the conflict” that has been rampant in Colombia.

Cano inherited the top position in 2008 when the FARC’s founder, Manuel “Sureshot” Marulanda, died of natural causes.  In Friday’s video, Cano vowed to “fight for a political solution to the conflict,” but that until such a solution is found, the FARC will “develop the guerrilla war.”

Already in the new year, the FARC is thought to have been responsible for three attacks in Neiva, the capital of Huila province.  At least one person has been injured in these events; homes have sustained damages and electricity has been suspended in some areas.

On Friday, members of the FARC descended on San Vicente del Caguan, a town in the south of the country, planning to capture and occupy a police station.  Five guerrillas, three soldiers and one bystander, an 11-year-old girl, died in the incident.

The FARC has been waging war against the Colombian government since 1964 and includes between 7,000 and 11,000 paramilitary soldiers in its ranks.  At least 19 soldiers and police officers are currently being held hostage by the FARC.

For more information, please see:

Latin American Herald Tribune-Colombia’s FARC to Step Up Activities in 2011-8 January 2011

Colombia Reports-FARC to ‘redouble actions’ in 2011-8 January 2011

AFP-Colombia rebel attack leaves nine dead-7 January 2011

By R. Renee Yaworsky
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BRASILIA, Brazil—On Monday, 88 more private firms were accused by the Brazilian government of engaging in slave labor, or forcing laborers to live and work in conditions equivalent to slavery.  The Labor Ministry now lists 220 such firms on Brazil’s registry of worker exploitation.

The accused companies will be punished by steep fines and will be unable to obtain credit at public banks or sell their products to government entities.  The firms will be blacklisted this way for at least two years until they demonstrate that they have brought their practices up to code.

Agricultural firms listed on the registry are believed to have forced workers to live and work in dangerous conditions, threatening their safety, hygiene and health.  There have also been allegations that the agricultural workers have been made to work illegally long hours and receive less than adequate pay.

The majority of the workers who have been trapped in slave labor were recruited from the poorest areas of Brazil.  After the laborers agreed to be relocated in promise of a job, they became imprisoned by employers who demanded money for food, rent, and previously unmentioned services.  The workers become imprisoned in debt bondage and have little choice but to do as their employers order.

The recent influx in slave labor in Brazil is the most severe since records on the matter emerged in 2003.  The 220 firms on the updated list include plantations, sugar mills, coal yards, timber businesses, construction companies and textile factories.

The government blacklist is updated every six months and 14 firms were recently dropped because they improved their operations to meet government standards.

Last year, a government task force rescued almost 5,000 slave laborers after conducting 133 raids on suspected farms in Brazil.  According to the United Nations International Labor Organization, there are roughly 12.3 million workers suffering from similar situations throughout the world.

For more information, please see:

EIN News-Brazil Cracks Down on Farm Slave Labor; 88 Firms Accused-5 January 2011

Sify News-Over 200 Brazil firms found treating workers as slaves-5 January 2011

Fox News-Brazil accuses 220 firms of using slave labor-4 January 2011

By Patrick Vanderpool
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BOGOTA, Colombia – Five soldiers, including an Army major and four former soldiers, were charged with murdering three farm laborers and presenting them as rebels killed in combat.  The murders, which occurred in 2002, are just a few of the approximately 2,000 that investigators have uncovered and pinned on Colombian Security Forces.

The murderous scandal, which is known as the “false positives” scandal, has been blamed on a system that offered soldiers and officers the hope of promotions and extra leave time for increasing body counts in the conflict with leftist guerrillas.

According to the Colombian Attorney General’s office, the current case occurred on Dec. 11, 2002, in a rural part of the municipality of Campamento, a northwestern province of Antioquia. On that day, troops under the command of then-Lt. Juan Carlos del Rio Crespo “removed from the cane field where they were going about their daily tasks laborers Alejandro Agudelo Agudelo, Angel Ramiro Agudelo and Gonzalo Agudelo Perez.”

The soldiers later reported that “the deaths of those people as casualties in combat with members of the 26th Front of the FARC,” according to the statement by the Attorney General’s office.  An investigation established that the laborers “were executed when they were totally defenseless” and that the troops planted guns next to their bodies to bolster their argument that the laborers were rebels.

Four of the charged men are currently being held in a military prison while authorities search for the fifth soldier. Since 2008, when the scandal first broke, 272 soldiers have been convicted and 58 have been absolved in similar cases.

For more information, please see:

Latin American Herald Tribune – Five Colombia Soldiers Charged with Murdering Civilians – 3 January 2011

Latin American News Dispatch – Colombian Major and Four Soldiers Accused in “False Positive” Murders – 3 January 2011

Miami Herald – Colombian Soldiers Accused of Killing 3 Civilians – 1 January 2011

By R. Renee Yaworsky
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BOGOTA, Colombia—On Wednesday, Colombian officials confirmed the death of an infamous drug lord who had a 2.5 million dollar bounty on his head.  He has been described as responsible for 3,000 deaths and smuggling illegal drugs across the U.S. border.

The 40-year-old Pedro Oliverio Guerrero was nicknamed “The Knife” or “El Cuchillo” and was among the most wanted criminals in Colombia.  He was at first believed to have been killed in a police operation.  Now it has been revealed that he drowned in a river as he was attempting to escape from the invading police forces.

On December 24, about 300 police commandos and 23 police aircrafts stormed Guerrero’s secret compound (codenamed “Diamond”) in a rural town called Puerto Alvira.  The town is located in Meta province, about 200 miles (320 kilometers) southeast of Bogota.

Thirty-four of Guerrero’s associates were occupying the compound at the time and two police officers were wounded in the raid.  Government forces captured seven of Guerrero’s comrades but were unable to find Guerrero himself at first.  Late Tuesday, his body finally surfaced, but with no evidence of any injuries from the Christmas Eve clash.

General Carlos Mena from the judicial police explained:  “Cuchillo was drunk, and when he noticed our helicopters hovering over the house where he was celebrating Christmas he escaped with two of his bodyguards.  [Then he] jumped in the river, which is four metres deep, but due to the weight of his weapons, his communications equipment, and his boots, he sank.”  Mena has surmised that plants in the river dragged him down and that he may have even suffered a heart attack during the escape.

Guerrero has been blamed for at least 3,000 deaths connected to a time when he led a division of the paramilitary group called the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).  Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has called the drug lord’s demise “the most powerful blow we have delivered to the narco-paramilitary gangs.”

Authorities found two pistols and a knife on Guerrero’s body, testaments to the violent life he led.  “That knife is a silent witness to at least 3,000 killings, ordered or executed, by this Colombian criminal who has finally fallen,” President Santos reported during Wednesday’s press conference.  “The killer of killers has fallen.”

For more information, please see:

Herald Sun-Colombian drug lord drowned-30 December 2010

Hispanically Speaking News-Colombian Drug Lord “el Cuchillo” is Confirmed Dead-30 December 2010

AP-Brutal drug lord dies in clashes in Colombia-29 December 2010

By Patrick Vanderpool
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BOGOTA, Colombia – A recent report published by Swiss-based Press Emblem Campaign calls Latin America the most dangerous region in the world for journalists.  In 2010, there were a reported 105 murders of journalists worldwide, 35 of which occurred in Latin America.

While Mexico and Honduras were among the most dangerous countries on Press Emblem Campaign’s list, Colombia was named the seventh most dangerous area, with four murders of journalists in 2010 alone.  According to the Swiss NGO, Colombia’s numbers are on par with other South American countries, such as Brazil.

Fewer fatalities have been reported this year compared to 2009, when 122 journalists died, but the toll is higher than the 91 deaths recorded in 2008.

Blaise Lempen, Press Emblem Campaign’s Secretary-General, said that “the killing of journalists has become an epidemic with no cure.” “The international community has not found solutions to it, or put in place effective mechanisms for bringing the perpetrators of those crimes against journalists to trial.”  Since the NGO began keeping statistics five years ago, 529 journalists have been murdered performing their professional duties.

The media watchdog’s president, Hedayat Abdel Nabi, pressed for action to better protect journalists.  PEC campaign promotes the adoption of international legislation to protect journalists in carrying out their mission.  Nabi also stated “let’s move together in 2011 to achieve a well deserved bold step for journalists, 2011 could be the target date, then or never.”

For more information, please see:

Examiner – Latin America Considered the Most Dangerous Region for Journalists – 27 December 2010

Hindustan Times – Journalists’ Death Toll Reaches 105 in 2010 – 27 December 2010

Latin American Herald Tribune – Latin America Most Dangerous Region for Journalists in 2010 – 27 December 2010