Colombian community leader allegedly murdered for standing up to palm oil
▻https://news.mongabay.com/2017/12/colombian-community-leader-allegedly-murdered-for-standing-up-to-palm
Colombian community leader Hernan Bedoya, who defended collective land rights for Afro-Colombian farmers as well as local biodiversity in the face of palm oil and industrial agriculture expansion, was allegedly assassinated by a neo-paramilitary group on Friday, Dec. 5.
Part of a rise in targeted assassinations of social leaders across the country, Bedoya was the second Afro-Colombian leader to be killed in the Bajo Atrato river basin region in less than 10 days after Mario Castaño was killed in late November. Overall, there have been three social leaders killed in the region over the course of the year.
According to the Intercelestial Commission for Justice and Peace in Colombia (CIJP), a Colombian human rights group, Bedoya was heading home on horseback when two members of the neo-paramilitary Gaitánista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AGC) intercepted him on a bridge and shot him 14 times, immediately killing him.
Bedoya was owner of the “Mi Tierra” Biodiversity Zone, located in the collective Afro-Colombian territory of Pedeguita-Mancilla. The land rights activist stood up to palm oil, banana and ranching companies who are accused of engaging in illegal land grabbing and deforestation in his Afro-Colombian community’s collective territory in Riosucio, Chocó.
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