WOLA, USOC and the RFK Center express their concern in a letter to Carolina Barco, Ambassador of Colombia to the U.S., regarding the disproportionate use of force on the part of Colombia’s public forces to peaceful protests in Valle del Cauca and Cauca in recent weeks, reports of increase paramilitary activity throughout the country, and the alarmingly high rates of internal displacement. They call on the Colombian government to take immediate actions to prevent further killings of human rights defenders and Afro-Colombian and Indigenous community leaders from taking place, investigate the recent murders of ethnic minority leaders and peacefully resolve the sugarcane cutters and indigenous protests in a manner that results in improving the labor and human rights of these two sectors of Colombian society.
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