WOLA: Advocacy for Human Rights in the Americas
9 Jan 2009 | | News

Being Black in Colombia: Jose Santos on Forced Internal Displacement, Assasinations, and Aerial Fumigation’s Impact on Afro-Colombian Communities

Jose Santos Cabezas Caicedo, of the National Coordinating Committee of the Black Communities Process (PCN) in Colombia,  was in Washington last fall presenting on racial discrimination against Afro-Colombians before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.  While in DC, he also gave a presentation at WOLA on the wave of assassinations, forced displacements, and threats faced by Afro-Colombian leaders and communities in Buenaventura port city (Valle del Cauca), Guapí and Timbiquí Cauca and Tumaco (Nariño). The blog "Peruanista " recently posted an interview with Jose, discussing these topics.  Click here to watch.  

Founded in 1993, the PCN is an umbrella organization of grassroots Afro-Colombian organizations that seek to defend the territorial, cultural and human rights of Afro-Colombians. PCN is a prominent Afro-Colombian organization whose founders helped with the formulation and passage of Law 70 in 1993, the law of the Black Communities, which granted collective land titles to Afro-Colombians.