For more than twenty years, the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission (CIJP) has defended human rights and accompanied victims of human rights violations in Colombia.

CIJP cites international human rights law and the gospel of human dignity as its reasons for existing. It is made up of 50 members with Catholic, Presbyterian and humanist backgrounds, who support communities or organisations nonviolently affirming their rights in areas of armed conflict. CIJP also supports the search for truth, justice and reparation, as well as negotiated political resolutions to the internal armed conflict.

CIJP has frequently spoken out against grave human rights violations implicating high-ranking army officers. Its work supporting displaced communities in their efforts to return to their lands also affects the interests of influential economic sectors, such as the oil palm industry in the Curbaradó River Basin.

“Since 2002 to date, members of our Justice and Peace Commission have been the targets of surveillance, harassment, telephone death threats, kidnapping, attempted forced disappearance, attempted murder, forced displacement, temporary exile, unfounded legal proceedings, and media campaigns to discredit and stigmatise [the Commission].”

PBI has accompanied CIJP since 1994. We principally accompany its operations in Bogotá, the Cacarica, Curbaradó and Jiguamiandó River Basins (Urabá).