Reality & Rhetoric in Colombia

President Ivan Duque on Colombian security:

“Our goal is to keep deepening our security agenda in rural areas,” Duque said. “Our responsibility is first to dissuade and at the same time break up, confront and make an example of these criminal structures via sentencing.” 

... 

“I think we are on a good path - I don’t want to be triumphalist or euphoric. We are on a good path, we have been able to take very important steps in these 17 months.”

The United Nations on Colombian security:

 "We are deeply troubled by the staggering number of human rights defenders killed in Colombia during 2019," agency spokeswoman Maria Hurtado said Tuesday. 

There were 107 activists killed in Colombia last year, she said, with 13 other cases under investigation that could bring the total to 120. The year before, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights confirmed 115 killings of human rights activists. 

"This terrible trend is showing no let-up in 2020, with at least 10 human rights defenders already reportedly killed during the first 13 days of January," Hurtado said at a briefing in Geneva, Switzerland. 

"The vicious and endemic cycle of violence and impunity must stop," she said. "Victims and their families have a right to justice, truth and reparations."

Not exactly the same message. The Colombian government's "good path" is not working terribly well. As the Washington Office on Latin America pointed out in December with regard to the peace accords:

President Iván Duque’s administration has defunded and, in some cases, derailed key aspects of the accords, such as the transitional justice mechanisms that are key to guaranteeing justice and non-repetition of war crimes. Demobilized fighters have not received the promised support and resources to help them reintegrate into mainstream society; nor has the government followed through on promises to support small farmers and provide viable alternatives to growing illicit-use crops. 

Most concerningly, violence is on the rise, with human rights defenders, environmental activists, and land rights claimants facing threats, attacks, and killings. Many of those targeted are from Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities; impunity for these threats and killings remains the norm. 

People in cities can feel safer but not in the countryside. This is the eternal problem if "security" is defined entirely in militarized terms.