Living space in which the “displaced people” are housed. It shows how government provided housing for those trying to escape abuses are living under conditions that do not meet basic living standards. Buenaventura, Colombia.
Disappearances and dismemberment of the Afro-Colombian population has been wide spread in the city of Buenaventura, Columbia. The worst of these actions include abducting civilian, and taking them to a chop up houses, dismembering them and finally burying them in clandestine grave cites. Forcing human rights watch investigators as well as the attorney to intervene; overall they have concluded that the sources of these actions come from powerful criminal organizations, which are approved by senate from right-wing paramilitary group who work on committing widespread military abuses. Authorities failed completely to hold anyone accountable for the actions committed. Many people have fled their homes and have been territorially displaced in order to not be victims of these atrocities. Although there has been some government intervention to help displaced individuals, conditions are not up to basic living standards. It has only been since March, 2015 that there has been some improvement in reducing the amount of disappearances, an on going crime for the past few years. It is because of the actions of Human Rights Watch investigators and the Attorney General that some justice is being served but killings are still ongoing and rampant.
I got this article from Human Rights Watch, it does a good job bringing awareness to the injustice by the government in Colombia. Much of the time, these abuses go unnoticed because it is being covered up and uninvestigated. Voices who dare speak out and witness who can help during investigation are subjected to harsh punishment, or even death, coercing them to not keep quite. What I like about this article is all the information, statistical background and individual cases it combines to give the reader a real sense of the rampant abuses and information on how one could acquire information to help.
The importance of this article is that it helps link other human rights abuses. For example, topics in this article are very much related to our case study done in Argentina, under the abuses of the Peron Regime. This topic also has similar characteristics to the disappearances described by the caravana in Mexico with the student’s targeted and abducted by their own government. What is essential to understand is that abuses by governments are not often talked about or widely publicized but it is a very real and on going threat that, as we can see is not only relevant in a single city or country but all over the Latin American region; And the most likely contributor is powerful right-wing militant organization as we have examined in the past few case studies. It is essential that we make audiences aware of these human rights abuses so more will be done about them and civilian keeping quite will feel more compelled to contribute if they know action will be taken
Human Rights in Latin America 