Kolumbien

Colombia’s authorities on Wednesday struggled to announce progress in the implementation of a 2016 peace deal with demobilized FARC guerrillas days amid growing pressure. President Ivan Duque met with the United Nations’ mission chief, Carlos Ruiz, and asked the UN to extend its verification mission of the peace process until after he leaves office in 2022.

Colombia’s former National Army commander General Mario Montoya, an alleged mastermind of the mass murder of civilians to fake military successes, has been called to trial. Montoya’s first day at the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) may be a breaking point in the investigation of thousands of executions of civilians who were falsely presented as combat kills.

Colombia’s war crimes tribunal has discovered a military mass grave in which more than 50 victims of extrajudicial executions could be buried, weekly Semana reported on Saturday.

Trade unions, student and indigenous groups are marching in Colombia's major cities to increase the pressure on the government of President Iván Duque. … The committee representing the protesters has handed President Duque a list of 13 demands. Among them are that the government fully meet its obligations under the terms of the peace process signed with the left-wing rebels of the Farc in 2016, and that it do more to prevent the killings of social activists and former rebels.

The vice-president of Colombia’s senate said he would ask the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate President Ivan Duque over the bombing of a FARC dissident camp that killed at least eight children.

[…] The number of indigenous people killed in the area has risen sharply as armed groups seek to seize control of the power vacuum left by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) after they demobilised as part of the 2016 peace deal. … The UN has documented 52 murders of indigenous people in the northern part of Cauca this year alone.

An indigenous leader, Cristina Bautista, and four volunteer community guards have been killed in south-west Colombia. The security forces say that members of a dissident rebel group are behind the attack in Cauca province. … Dozens of Nasa, many of them members of the guard, have been killed this year. The United Nations has urged the Colombian government to do more to protect its indigenous people.

[…] Election violence is again on the rise after dropping to an all-time low, according to independent monitoring groups. In all, seven candidates have been killed and dozens more threatened in the lead-up to Sunday's vote in a worrying sign that old patterns of violence are persisting even without rebels targeting polling sites.

Seven candidates have been killed and more than 60 others have been attacked in the lead up to the October 27 election.