On November 15, the Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project posted: “Last Saturday we joined COSPACC for a memorial event in Yopal, Casanare. Armed conflict in the area was talked about and how it dignifies the fight of the victims.”

Earlier this year, Contagio Radio reported:

“On the morning of February 25, the community of the corregimiento of El Morro, in Yopal, Casanare, found several threatening pamphlets issued by the paramilitary group Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia (AGC), which have sown terror and anxiety in the communities before the territorial domination that this action supposes.

It was reported that several of the pamphlets were found in the sector known as La Aguatoca a few kilometers from Yopal and in the vicinity of a military base.

The Social Corporation for Community Counseling and Training [COSPACC] issued an alert in which it stated that it is worrying that, after the president visited the department of Casanare, the Prosecutor’s Office arrested the human rights defender and peasant leader Miguel Yesid Daza and a day later the threatening pamphlets issued by the AGC appeared.

COSPACC, issued a statement in which it denounced that the communities and social organizations of Casanare are in a serious security situation.

They assured that it is worrying that “in an area of oil influence, highly militarized, judicial prosecution is being pursued and threatening pamphlets of the AGC appear.”

Fabián Laverde Doncel, human rights defender and spokesman for Cumbre Agraria, said that the installation of a Territorial Table of Guarantees in Casanare is urgent.”

We also recall at this time that COSPACC accompanies the case of eight social leaders criminalized by Toronto-based Frontera Energy in San Luis de Palenque, Casanare.

Laverde has commented: “Casanare has been an extremely victimized zone mostly because of the business that engages in the extraction of natural resources, especially petroleum.”

PBI-Colombia has accompanied COSPACC since 2009.

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