Colombia: Colombian Community Leader Allegedly Murdered for Standing up to Palm Oil

Dec 15, 2017 | Taran Volckhausen, Mongabay
View Original

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.