Category Archives: Colombia

Colombia under fire for backing Cuba protests while stifling dissent at home

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Government calls for freedom of expression in Cuba as police mount brutal response to local activists

Colombia’s government has been accused of hypocrisy after calling for solidarity with protesters in Cuba even as it cracks down harshly on mass demonstrations against economic inequity and human rights abuses.

Colombia is bracing for another round of anti-poverty demonstrations and unrest, with large marches planned for Tuesday 20 July, Colombia’s independence day, after taking a monthlong hiatus during a surge in Covid-19 cases.

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Marcus Rashford mural and Cuba protests: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Turkey to Colombia

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The assassination of Haiti’s leader remains shrouded in mystery: ‘We may never know’

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Authorities are still struggling to understand the motives and masterminds behind the first killing of a Haitian president since 1915

Giovanna Romero remembers her husband, Mauricio, as a caring father who called home every night when he was out of the country on work. He did so as usual on the night of 6 July – from where, exactly, she isn’t sure – to remind her and their children he loved them and tell them to take care.

“I’ll call again soon,” the retired Colombian soldier promised – a pledge he would be unable to keep.

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Haiti police say murder suspect is middleman living in Florida

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Items found at Christian Emmanuel Sanon’s house include bullets, gun parts and US drug agency hat

Police in Haiti say the latest suspect arrested in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse is a Haitian living in Florida who acted as a middleman between the alleged hitmen and the plot’s unnamed masterminds.

The suspect was identified by police as Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a Haitian in his 60s living in Florida who describes himself as a doctor and has accused his homeland’s leaders of corruption.

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Doubts raised about who was behind the assassination of Haiti’s president

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Police claims that Jovenel Moïse was killed by a mainly Colombian hit squad thrown into doubt

Questions have been raised over Haiti’s official narrative for the assassination of its president, Jovenel Moïse, who was gunned down at his mansion in Port-au-Prince last Wednesday.

Haitian police and the politicians who stepped into the political vacuum created by Moïse’s killing have claimed he was shot at about 1am by members of a predominantly Colombian hit squad who had stormed the president’s hillside residence. “Foreigners came to our country to kill the president,” police chief Léon Charles alleged after the shooting.

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Why were Colombian guns for hire allegedly key to Haiti assassination plot?

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The hit squad that killed President Jovenel Moïse is alleged to be largely drawn from veterans of Colombia’s civil conflicts

When Manuel Antonio Grosso Guarín jetted into Punta Cana’s tourist-clogged airport early last month on Avianca Flight 252, immigration officials are unlikely to have given the 41-year-old Colombian a second glance. Visitors from around the globe flock to this Dominican resort town each week in search of sun, sea and Caribbean sands.

Grosso appears to have had rather different plans, though: to sneak over the border into neighbouring Haiti and help assassinate that country’s president.

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‘A world problem’: immigrant families hit by Covid jab gap

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Families spread across rich and poor countries are acutely aware of relatives’ lack of access to vaccine

For months she had been dreaming of it and finally Susheela Moonsamy was able to do it: get together with her relatives and give them a big hug. Throughout the pandemic she had only seen her siblings, nieces and nephews fully “masked up” at socially distanced gatherings. But a few weeks ago, as their home state of California pressed on with its efficient vaccination rollout, they could have a proper reunion.

“It was such an emotional experience, we all hugged each other; and with tears in our eyes, we thanked God for being with us and giving us the opportunity to see each other close up again and actually touch each other,” she says. “We never valued a hug from our family members that much before.”

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Climate crisis ‘may put 8bn at risk of malaria and dengue’

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Reducing global heating could save millions of people from mosquito-borne diseases, study finds

More than 8 billion people could be at risk of malaria and dengue fever by 2080 if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise unabated, a new study says.

Malaria and dengue fever will spread to reach billions of people, according to new projections.

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‘I just need my son’: the people who disappeared amid Colombia’s protests

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Seventy-seven people have vanished since the start of the unrest in late April – some protesters, others not linked to the demonstrations

Before 17-year-old Duvan Barros left his home in a downtrodden neighbourhood in Bogotá to attend an anti-poverty demonstration, he asked his mother, Dolores Barros, to make him a fruit juice. She said no, but there would be one waiting when he got back.

That was 5 June, and Barros hasn’t seen him since.

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Colombian court accuses soldiers of murdering at least 120 civilians

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Military also accused of disappearing 24 people and presenting them as guerrilla fighters as part of false positives scandal

A Colombian court has accused 10 members of the military and a civilian of forcibly disappearing 24 people and murdering at least 120 civilians and falsely presenting them as guerrilla fighters who had been killed in combat.

Related: The ‘false positives’ scandal that felled Colombia’s military hero

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‘I didn’t eat for days’: hunger stalks Venezuelan refugees

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Colombian health workers struggling to cope as malnutrition and dirty water ravage new arrivals in Maicao’s swelling shanty towns

A seemingly endless lake of cardboard and tin shacks surrounds the perimeter of a former airport runway in Colombia’s desert-like city of Maicao. Known locally as La Pista, the area is home to more than 2,000 families, and is one of 44 informal settlements to have emerged around the city in the past two years.

The old airport has become a landing strip for desperate migrants and bi-national indigenous Wayuu people fleeing the economic and political crisis in Venezuela, where the basic essentials of life are hard to come by.

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Offsets being used in Colombia to dodge carbon taxes – report

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Fossil fuel levy can be avoided by buying carbon offsets that may have no benefit for climate

Forest protection carbon offsets that may have no benefit to the climate have been used by polluters to avoid paying carbon taxes in Colombia, according to a report.

In 2016, a levy of about $5 (£3.60) was introduced in the South American country to cover the use of some fossil fuels. However, companies that emit carbon dioxide can avoid paying the tax by buying carbon offsets from Colombian emission reduction projects, including those that conserve threatened natural carbon banks such as peatlands, forests and mangrove swamps.

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Helicopter carrying Colombian president and senior officials hit by gunfire

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Iván Duque says ‘cowardly’ attack will not stop him tackling drug trafficking, terrorism and organised crime

Colombia’s president, Iván Duque, said a helicopter carrying him and several senior officials came under fire in the southern Catatumbo region bordering Venezuela, in a rare instance of a direct attack on a presidential aircraft.

Duque said everyone on board the helicopter was safe, including the defense minister, Diego Molano; the interior minister, Daniel Palacios and the governor of Norte de Santander state, Silvano Serrano.

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‘Everything is collapsing’: Colombia battles third Covid wave amid unrest

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Protest leaders have agreed to pause mass marches as hospital ICUs struggle to cope with surging coronavirus cases

Related: ‘This is a revolution’: the faces of Colombia’s protests

Marisol Bejarano, an intensive care unit doctor at El Tunal hospital in the Colombian capital, Bogotá, has watched people die – slowly and far from family – since the pandemic began.

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Hungary’s LGBT protests and Juneteenth Day: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms from China to Colombia

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Why brutal protests have been sweeping across Colombia – video explainer

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From the Amazon to the Caribbean coast, several weeks of protests have swept Colombia – dozens have died as demonstrators have faced sometimes deadly retaliation from police. 

The catalyst was a proposed tax hike, since withdrawn, in response to the coronavirus crisis. Demands expanded to calls to end inequality, economic disparity and police violence in Colombia – in almost two months, demonstrations have caused food and goods shortages.

Protest leaders have temporarily suspended in-person demonstrations due to a rise in Covid cases, but Joe Parkin Daniels, reporting for the Guardian, explains why this widespread discontent is unlikely to end


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What’s behind the mass protests in Colombia?

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A demonstration against tax rises has morphed into a mass movement against the government, says Joe Parkin Daniels in Bogotá

An attempt by the Colombian government to introduce sweeping tax changes in response to the coronavirus crisis was met earlier this year by angry protests. Thousands of people flooded on to the streets throughout the country for four consecutive days. It was enough to prompt President Iván Duque to withdraw his tax plans, but by then it was too late to stop the protests.

Ever since, more and more Colombians have been coming out to protest. Joe Parkin Daniels, who has been reporting on the demonstrations for the Guardian for weeks, tells Rachel Humphreys that they now encompass people from all sections of Colombian society, with a multitude of causes. One thing ever present is a fury at the growing inequality that has been exacerbated by the Covid crisis. As police have cracked down hard on the protesters, more than 50 people have died, with no end to the protests in sight.

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‘This is a revolution’: the faces of Colombia’s protests

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Fifty-eight people have died in six weeks of unrest, but demonstrators say they are more determined than ever to fight for change

Protests in Colombia that began in late April over a proposed tax hike have morphed into a generational outcry over the country’s deep-rooted inequalities.

Related: ‘They can’t take it any more’: pandemic and poverty brew violent storm in Colombia

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Myanmar school strikes and a plane diverted to Minsk: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Colombia to China

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Further unrest in Colombia as talks stall between government and protesters

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Anti-poverty demonstrators battle with police across the country as protests enter second month

Violent unrest continues to roil Colombia as anti-poverty demonstrations enter their second month and talks between protesters and the government stall.

A fresh spate of violence swept the South American nation on Friday night, with protesters battling police who attempted to lift roadblocks across the country.

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