Who we protect

In Colombia, PBI protects a number of groups and individuals who are working on specific issues. These are some examples:

Protecting lawyers working on emblematic impunity cases

PBI accompanies a number of lawyers’ associations across the country who are bringing to court Colombia’s most emblematic cases of massacres, extra-judicial killings and disappearances.  Such lawyers, whose work benefits not only the people directly involved but also the wider human rights movement, are some of the country’s most at-risk human rights workers.

• Lawyers Collective José Alvear Restrepo (CCAJAR), Bogotá, whose directive member Soraya Gutierrez has received death threats.
• Judicial Liberty Corporation (CJL), Medellín, advising displaced communities attempting to return to their lands.
• Luis Carlos Perez collective, Bucaramanga, Santander (a new area for PBI), a group of young female lawyers carrying out a broad range of human rights work with urban Internally Displaced People, the gay community and indigenous communities.

Empowering women in their campaigns against militarisation of society

PBI protects the grassroots Organizacion Femmina Popular (Popular Women’s Organization) in Barracabermeja, Magdalena Medio, an area controlled by paramilitaries.  Organizacion Femmina Popular carries out essential work to raise awareness of the impact of militarisation on society and empower poor women to denounce any violations of their human rights.  PBI continues to be extremely concerned about frequent intimidation of President Yolanda Becerra by paramilitaries.

Resisting displacement: access to economic, social and cultural rights

PBI supports the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission in their work providing vital humanitarian, legal and psychological support to the internationally renowned San José de Apartadó Peace Community, founded by forcibly displaced people in 1997 with the aim of resisting the conflict in non-violent ways.  Their resistance strategy is based on the creation of ‘humanitarian zones’ and calls for respect on the UN principle of distinction.

Strengthening the rights of Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities exposing environmental abuses in Medio Atrato and Catatumbo

PBI accompanies the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission, which is playing a major advisory and advocacy role in denouncing the illegal cultivation of African Palm in collective territories in the Chocó region (Medio Atrato river).

The industrial cultivation of this cash crop is threatening to cause displacement for the largely Afro-Colombian communities and jeopardise environmental protection in the region, the second largest natural reserve in the world.

Orlando Valencia, a renowned community leader who had publicly denounced the plantations, was found dead on 15 October 2005 after local witnesses saw him being taken away by paramilitaries.

PBI also undertakes periodic accompaniment with the Luis Carlos Perez lawyers collective to the Catatumbo region (Northeast Colombia), where they advise indigenous and campesino communities about their rights and possibilities to protect their land and economic survival against mega projects exploiting carbon resources.