Transcripts For ALJAZ The 20240704

A chance for diplomacy. Sir, youre a new pre are indeed consent to see how the situation is developing. We hope that through dialogue we can resolve this issue. Theres still time to comply with the ultimate template. The deadline is sunday. We still hope the negotiations will prevail, that they will not necessarily be military intervention. Were still hoping that the cooley does who are holding out comrade president mohammed by zoomed release in pakistans, former Prime Minister, inbound cons, been taken to a high security prison near atlanta, but thats up to a judge sentenced him to 3 years in jail on charges of corruption means is likely he may not be able to contest this. He has elections. Cons cool from nationwide. Protests of russia says ukrainian not sooner. We have settled the city of dunn. Yes. Gonna Eastern Ukraine University Building was set on fire. The man, the rushman control cities as customizations were used, but ill just here kind of independently verify that claim. The certainly zombies launch more strikes in around cod to him. Its targeting the Rapids Support forces upon miniature group is trying to capture an army based on the capital. The power struggle between the regular army and the r as f as left 24000000 people in need of a protest as an israel have continued to have demonstrations against government efforts to make changes to the judiciary. Thousands of people rather than tennessee, even other cities. Last month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was ripening convolution fast the 1st part of a package to diminish disappearing, coach power over time, some government decisions, the legislation of terms department in october. Those are the headlines and is continues here on out to 0 after the stream station. Thanks so much and bye of the the hello. Welcome to the stream. Im josh rushing today columbia and the dangerous job of being a human rights activist in that country. Now what youre seeing here, these are the top 5 countries where human rights activist and social leaders were killed last year. Look at columbia, its at the top, a 186. 00 killed. Thats according to the latest report from the rights group, front line defenders. So in todays episode, we look at the reasons why columbia is the worlds deadly as country for those wanting to protect human rights. And whats being done about it. The joining us. Joining us from bogota, laura, but the Deputy Director of the potter has foundation that the latin american think tank specializing and conflict analysis. Also in bogota and ego. Alexander, hes a columbia based journalist covering human rights and social justice. And in dublin, ireland. Sarah to war, global head of protection for the rights group. Frontline defenders. And as always, youre also at the table. If youre watching this on youtube, check it out. We have a live stream producer waiting there to get your comments to me so i can get them to our guest today and you and i will, we can do this thing together, right. All right, lets begin with lar, why is it so dangerous to be a Human Rights Defender in columbia of all places . Well, basically the charge, im sorry, is because our long okay, war history on our long standing arm at conflict a to be a little bit more clear for the audience columbia the half of long term conflict for so many g. S. Age 101520 g. As we try to do a piece process and our last piece process, last sale is the implementation of the ease of ramen. And thats 3 a slide. The sensation on the ceiling in the columbia in his face cannot accomplish the screen with nothing at all. So that creates a lot of frustration in the field, and at the same time, during the past 5 years to fully furnished as was know to really present in the field. And that implies such as many elements groups, any kind of farm as groups are starting to grow up in the, especially into rural areas, especially in certain areas. So for that kind of argument groups they associate and leadership are they n, e, y because of all those are missed because as leaving from the violence they are like a violin producers and they are the same way selling their violence. So associated with either a human slice defenders usually try to stop the actions from a group, try to speak a no, no devoted to reset or control of the violence or certain things. So thats why right now for that type of violence and a decision in columbia, a soldier market for shield my right defenders and also for associated theaters on something that they think that these really part done in the columbia is very generous with the categories ation. So uh for us usually there, so shouldnt be. There is on the Human Rights Defenders. It used to be the same person in the field. Mm hm. So maybe, oh support. Thats the reason we have to know when the condo, thats a, these cases. What, speaking of a 186 cases, theyre actually want to put a, a face on some of those names rather than just being numbers. So sarah, youre part of front line defenders we, weve gone to your website here and, you know, just looking at it, its broken down by country. Youll get colombia and look at these faces. Attempted killing new deaths, right . Thats right. Killed. Lets, lets, lets put, lets, lets go in on this one here to feel a couldnt. Yeah. What can you tell us about him . Why was he killed, you know, think it just full for bringing to flow into this conversation. Then definitely i think when we have a number is more than reporting number of cases, we want to bring the memory of those 4 kids and tell a story of why they would kid. So when the kids are still up to the point, you know, he was actually keeping it together with another defender, george a whole town, but to and they worked in the temporary last year. The 2 of them were a company seen those leaders sometimes in english, not the best for thing because then people use has us left have many thinking on 6 of flights in america. Company seeing those look translates back to the kind of Community Role that they are looking at. So they were to the centers duplicating for land. Right. So the vocation for the rights of somebody seen is to be way to sustain. They will uh to have the conditions to sustain the likelihood. And both of them, i think this is a magic case because they also didnt hold it. They actually came up with public analysis about the Death Threats they, they were being subjected to me and only 2 days before they were killed. They was again, a public, denounce on the Death Threats that they were being subjected to. Because of the denalis they were making, i guess the role of the municipality and the local police. So the 2 of them were actually show us that i think front of the front of the unknown and you today, we dont have the response of hor actually responsible for that particular case. I think it, this is the name of the martha case because show that those individuals are not on the isolated individuals, but they represent collect to the struggles as a lot of was a lot, i would say in the context of columbia how important it is as part of the community to the fast as part of the community organized. And i think the kids are still new again, it also shows the voucher or the criminalization of Human Rights Defenders in the case of a little bit. So they often who was actually detained in 2020 and that shows a story like he was the say here was stupid that spread and then find that it was due, which i think for us, this is a good is ation. Thats the last Cost Effective protection for human rights, the sensors that trees in that context. And then another case that we want it to look into an ego. Can you tell us about this 14 year old boy who was killed in calcutta to yeah, that case was one that really struck a chord in particular last year. Its a base 30 on a year in january. Right of the start of the year. Hes one of the 1st few of human rights fighters and in those particular case and by mental defender to who was murdered and the strong thing about the cases, his age was just 14 men shot dead in the region. If theyll go to the south, south west of the country and he was murdered when he was taking part in, instead of the traditional patrol of the indigenous territories, which he lived in. A used part of the indigent discard, which is but a, and a national organization. Its a known on group and a task themselves with trying to protect their own territories and trying to defend the, their community and the causes from a potential stress and risk cause of of those images which is 2 different areas of the country which are a heavy presence of on groups and as a consequence for quite a lot of sides invitation violence and she was unfortunately killed when they were ambushed. His patrol was ambushed to him and he was going on with his father, who lovely survived that. Another member of gold was also killed and they just, they just faced an open fire in the small room, larry of, of go to when they would just try to control and, and provide a minimum the degree of protection and security to fundable communities. Theyve heard that there was a legit presence of on groups and their community. The patrol went down to try and see what was going on and just try and see if they could come down situation or at least provide some degree of protection to the communities. And as a result they, they just showed us and the young, painted, unfortunate, got killed. Lets just go show a lot of the, a lot of the kids are there just on, you know, and brandon thomas, the tax on that just take lives of innocent people like like dana, who is this 14 year old and who was just taking part of his you know, hes you patrol and trying to defend his community and trying to force as well to send to the environment and as a result of being part of that control and that community, he wasnt pushy my there so that that was the case. I didnt particularly distract the court and the last year. Yeah, the, the, i just want to make clear cuz were talking about him patrolling to defend his community. I wonder audience to understand. They were not armed. It was just basically there for us. Okay, there. Right. Yeah, yeah, exactly. The dog this is for frontier. So really cool. So yes, i will just send the Business Card as is as processing not. Not good. Um. Yeah, hold on Pacific Group and they just patrolled the areas just provides. Uh, so the minimum level of safety and security from those threats, which as i mentioned before and loved the indigenous areas on groups have quite a heavy cause. Right, right. So it just depends of on sort of an on draw the images patrols. Hey guys, i want to to that. Yeah, i want to bring in a some reporting. This is done by my friend and colleague alessandro or a b i. D, whos down in bogota, reports from columbia for out to 0 english on our new side. And he interviewed oscar some patio who was an environmental activist from there and i want to share this piece, the video they told us that hes been tricked into by criminals. The claims are responsible for dumping toxic wasting that we cultural or protected areas near the city of about lack of better mesa. The government thats provided him with the daytime body guards a flat jackets and a panic button. But he says the security measures are no match for the arm groups who operate with impunity, such as a folder. We escape the government institutions. They should be re course about the regional attorney general Inspector General them, but some and from that the other way because they have been co opted by the criminal breed missing are lot or theres a couple things i want to touch on there. I, i initially, when i moved to infinity, which just brought up the idea of that. But even before that, i think it was in your pre interview. You told us something along the lines that the violence is the economy. Yes. Can you, can you swap the height of the seats . Yes. So many people especially, you know, i used to work with a Swedish Organization for so many g as a most of the people outside columbia. Believe that this is a new show. Well, you know, a lot of schools or the, for any legal economies and the solution to all of that is just the, you know, and or 5, they lead and economies of the cream and all economies they find here at the start. Or we dont call this same conflict that another comb please with and not of course, with their own armies may be in the past. But right now we have the not, of course in one place we have out of met groups, sally, the bio and services. So basically all the groups go really as far, many tardies, private army groups are sally and like a started piece of bio list and protection. So i, i personally know that some projects my colleague and i am from the same region. So what is the point would that this is a pretty good case to explain that they still shouldnt be theirs, and environmental leaders against, you know, some kind of contamination. So people for come to me, they think they are not taking, you know, direct shows like games, believe those they hired some group or day. Hes morning to some group on that group. So for instance, in the region, this is a petroleum region thats group doesnt need to move and thats called fixing any place of the concert or to solve the country for them is more you, she, 8 to goal today. Legal economy of petroleum only got a calling on me all for any kind of oil and energy and try to extract that resources for the calling them. And if you just finish to not put there are frequently right now, we are in the high crises and the height, economic price is not the traffic, its no, not, its not now a Good Business in columbia. So people are suffering in the field. So no, they dont have anything to buy the whole cups cups. So why are still the file is because theres certain groups that could be, you know, that before of these crisis, they were buying things and they were buying the coca ellipse and done this thing. Groups are trying to increase the rents, you know, using the extortion a that explains right why for these groups are just the 33 i was concerned that we 3 was concerned if the key of these new conflict in columbia, i mean janet, i mean left in america, well, want to bring in some voices from youtube for watching the show right now. This is from youtube for man, says drugs is the most important problem in columbia. And then um, okay, whatever does that, thats their name. Not mine says im wondering, to what extent do people there know about the idea of human rights. It seems at least they know theres a concept of human rights before. Therefore they have somebody active as standing up. And then there was one about impunity. And oh is this because there are no effective state institutions thats from brian filter. Now were going to answer these questions. But 1st i want to bring in one more video comment from our community. This is from andrew miller. He is the advocacy director at amazon watch the Petro Administration has placed Human Rights Defenders in very important positions of influence. For example, the Vice President , frontier marquez also the peace commissioner, neither of the way that among others. Those individuals, however, are facing and trench systems of impunity. For example, the scholarship at all colombia is attorney general Francisco Barbosa has not demonstrated the political will to investigate and hold Accountable Government officials responsible for human rights violations. One example is the altura months of massacre from last year in which columbia and tunnel narcotics, the units killed, 11 people, including Community Leaders and a key truck. Indigenous governor to date and investigation has not been carried out. And officials have not been held accountable. Amigo, why are people being held to account for these murders a yeah, thats a long standing issue that columbus had the drunken impunity and the state deficient in the state and efficiency. So in this regard, a lot of is down to the fact that police, i believe the on a con groups that are often times kind of these things, they know they can get a good state. They know they can get away with them. They know that theyre operating in areas where they are basically the defective government. And they can do as a kid, especially in terms of dealing with the opposition voices for any resistance 20th there. And i said to call anyways, so there has been a long history of the state and community. And i just want to bring up a point that i understand that im getting mentioned in the video, which is the, the state protection system. They have the National Protection unit as part of the ministry of interior here in columbia, which provide protection to people into threats. People overseas no longer on the perceived hub, but thats basically the so the go to mechanism and its not the effective one. Last year was given a budget of just over a 1000000. 00, at least, which in the grand scheme of things is not a lot. And its also a very inefficient and very slow process. Ive spoken to a number of defenders who are allegedly protected under that program. But avoids for months and months and months and months to receive that protection. And the protection is a fairly minimal pendigraphs kind of things. Again, like i mentioned in a video, maybe a service that proves that maybe a driver when he might know the desk of beauty on what you have of this we have. I have dealt with cases in which people were stressed and by those were supposed to be protecting them in the program. So it means the program has a number of limitations. And i think in the context of columbia, its really important to think to then to find exactly who are those the centers when being kit, when we look at this number of a 108 to 6 cases are the cases has been collected to verify that in the case of put it on the important stuff, the witness ation went to some of the sensors come up with the numbers in the breakdown. So when we opened those numbers, when were looking at, were looking at 4 to 2 percent of them are indigenous peoples. And we are looking at 7. 00 to 2. 00 out of those a 108. 00 to 6. 00 cases where people were involved with the school. Were not these, which means people who actually took up a leadership role in the very, very local level. So people who are involved onto it, we need to organizing on the lands rice, which is a better thing. The fact that those protection mechanisms dont tweaks those most isolated convenience, which means the production make any is, are not accessible where they are most needed to know you can still access it, but its not everywhere. Its not consistent across the country. So i think youve looked flight as correctly, and im sure a lot also has a being like when youre talking about the effectiveness of this protection system. I want you to know we, we reached out for video comments from colombia and some of the people were really too scared to put their face on camera. So we had this comment, this is from one who is that goodman is a Climate Justice act. The best in new york city i can forward to you on behalf of the community. Im very fond of in northern columbia. That chosen not to show their faces because they feel threatened by our groups and the region. These are groups are establishing new territorial control over disputed lands between peasants, indigenous communities, and truest developments in northern columbia. These are groups on rolling, enticing violence, but seek to control this land to be able to carry weapons to traffic drugs and to be able to exploit the actual resources such as land, wood and mines. Local communities have gotten, have come forward to the government asking for support and for help. Local authorities fear these are groups and the central Colonial Government has so far remain silent. Laura, what can be done . What should be done . Yeah, well, and this will be maybe this will sound simple, but its not simple to do that with no 1st name. Do anything have a lot to do with the our sent on these. So people that jerry can not use, the last color was started to protect themselves, so they have to call to go with that, they have to look for a deals, they have to look for another institutions to help them to get protection that they need in the 2nd place, people, for instance, do, are talking about the color. The color guide is the most dramatic situation right now for indigenous people, especially for women. So we met Indigenous Women in cosca. If they want to implement the collect the road, the protection they need to go for with that because the local, the state dont have the capacity or the interest to do something really effective. And that could take a lot of time because our broadcast fee and also because our corruption corruption is close, connected with violence in columbia. And this is really important because is like with a, okay, these 2 issues. But recently they, you know, you know, they used to be one of the most, you know, but for the key on the institution, be a big threat against to the fact that, sorry about that, against the director. So the director try to console the corruption with things petition i hear receive a bit of back. Wow. So this is the level of dental but actually compared to her from very, really about Human Rights Defenders. But the government needs to understand that if we dont be a local capacity for Civil Society, for the low kind of state, were not doing something really less sexy. Im the 2nd one of the unity of course, of course, and do anything, something does increase the dominance of the situation. But if a lot of the groups 12233, i was control, it will be very difficult to call another than a solution for sort of running low on time. And i also wanna look at maybe whats International Community should be aware of in this situation. So i want to bring in a video comment. This is from rudy. So rush said land and environment Defenders Campaign should lead for global witness. The colombian government must now to and commitments into action little bit this analysis has found that columbia is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for environmental defenders are in g o box know, so most defense sort of has this week reported that the families of over 1300 defenders killers in the country are still waiting for justice. The need urgent action from the government and the sculpture of impunity, which is fueling photo violence against defenders. We also need the u. S. U in other countries in the global not to ensure that their private sector businesses in columbia did not contribute to human rights abuses faced by defenders. So sarah, i also want to bring in a comment from youtube here. This is from kyle marsden, says whatever age United States provides needs to stop involving handing out munitions and fire arms. And i noticed that last video comment, she talked about the global north needs to be aware of contributing to the situation. Can you talk from an International Perspective of what the International Community needs to do here to support columbia . So definitely say ive seen that there is a difference in aspect to engage with. Thats the role of to be so send a private sector is might, they may not be directly engaged on the 5, the slides. But the true face they, they are business are being benefits of by the fact that defenders are those are spending on the ways for the implementation of this truck type of largest truck to the big projects in columbia. So those be those have benefits for the fact that those a friend that have been taking out of the way of being forced this place and from the communities. I think in the case of columbia is that we use a Civil Society who has developed deep knowledge and deep political understanding of the issues of protection is the same as the sites in columbia. So i dont think we have knowledge to offer what we have to offer. Its so the direct t is supports to sustain the livelihoods of those communities. Because ultimately those Human Rights Defenders are a duplicate and being kill it for the fun thing. The ways of lead things for different committed to so i think what thinks and actually can we, that has to do in the end of the day is to support se livelihoods of those communities. And of course, a duplicate and supports they and thats where so forth. Better for better protection, and i think if we can, if you need to use that, since we must have issue on the challenge of protection, we have to add the absence of the state in the different parts of the country. And also the Critical Role that Human Rights Defenders are play still in the absence of the country that the state for the implementation of the peace agreement. The fact that the state of the south end of the product line of the disagreement, the fact that the Human Rights Defenders in 2 minutes are taking up the road. So you click meant to be thats so important for them means that they have been taken care of as priest. Sarah, this is, this is the final seconds of the show. Thank you so much for those final words on this. Well keep watching this story here at al jazeera english. You can always find a stream that out. Is there a. Com . Thanks for what to the african narratives from african perspectives. Embark on the shore documentary from an african filmmakers from nigeria, south africa, and cameron rule 5 property propane space, and turn it into a flood for us as stone prussia song, get really gone. And modern p. Next calls camera, africa direct on just 0. 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