“PBI-Colombia visits Buenaventura following attack on social leader Carlos Tobar”, 11^th August 2019

…Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project tweeted that Lars Bredal, Deputy Head of the Delegation of the European Union to Colombia, visited the Isla de la Paz neighbourhood in Buenaventura to learn about the serious risks experienced by ethnic communities and members of the Comité del Paro Cívico…Semana reported that just hours before the “marches for life and the defence of social leaders” in Colombia, several armed men entered the home of Civic Unemployment Committee coordinator Carlos Tobar and shot him several times. PBI-Colombia’s tweet notes that the visit to Isla de la Paz by the Deputy Head also involved the Black Communities Process (PCN) and the Association for Social Research and Action (NOMADESC)…PCN and NOMADESC have noted, “Isla de la Paz is mostly composed of people who were forcibly displaced from rural areas by the political violence of the late 1990’s and early 2000s, primarily from the Naya, Raposo and Yurumangui river communities, after the occurrence of barbaric acts such as the massacre of the Naya.”…PSAC reminds us that despite the signing of the peace accord in 2017, “violence, land grabs and dislocation” have not stopped in Colombia and that “regrettably some of these violent incidents are also associated with Canadian companies that have been emboldened by the 2008 Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement.”