Are Colombias social leaders facing another extermination?

[Judi Lynn]

by Stephen Gill February 22, 2018

More than 200 social leaders, peasant representatives and human rights defenders have been murdered since the start of Colombia’s peace process, according to a report.

The killings are spurring fears that the widespread killing could be a repetition of an extermination campaign in the 1980s and 1990s in which thousands of leftists were murdered, and spurred a wave of retaliatory guerrilla violence.

. . .

The ongoing mass killing of leaders begins to resemble a political extermination campaign carried out by paramilitary groups and state forces after a peace deal with the FARC in 1985.

More than 3,000 members of the leftist political party Patriotic Union, including presidential candidates, were assassinated in the decade after that agreement.

The political extermination of the leftists spurred the most violent and traumatic period in the 50-year history of Colombia’s armed conflict.

Since 1964, the year groups like the FARC and ELN were founded, more than 265,000 Colombians have been killed. Millions were displaced.

. . .

https://colombiareports.com/more-than-200-social-leaders-assassinated-during-colombia-peace-process-report/

[GatoGordo]

1. Once-feared FARC guerrillas pelted with rocks and eggs on Colombia campaign trail

"...The FARC is hoping that a pro rural-development platform will win support in long neglected farming communities. On the campaign trail, however, Londoño has had to flee stops amid hails of debris. At one rally, the tires of his car were slashed as people screamed “murderer!” Social media have also been swamped with venomous anti-FARC posts.

More ominously, a former FARC member was assassinated on Feb. 6, presumably by guerrillas from the rival ELN, or National Liberation Army. The murder comes amid a wave of assassinations of community leaders and human rights advocates..."

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/colombia/article199330619.html

I suggest the FARC concern themselves with the people who they claim to represent... the poor rural people that FARC tortured and murdered for over 50 years. According to reliable reporting, FARC gets about 2% of the votes in Colombia. Reliable reports also suggest that these assassinations are the handiwork of former FARC guerrillas who refused to disarm and joined the ELN.