{"id":15271,"date":"2022-07-04T06:08:48","date_gmt":"2022-07-04T06:08:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/justiceandpeace.nl\/?post_type=story&p=15271"},"modified":"2023-03-15T09:27:36","modified_gmt":"2023-03-15T09:27:36","slug":"jhon-colombia","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/justiceandpeace.nl\/en\/stories\/jhon-colombia\/","title":{"rendered":"Jhon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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04-07-2022<\/em><\/p>\n

Written by Diane Lemieux<\/em><\/h5>\n

Jhon Le\u00f3n is 31 years old, a graduate of Universidad Nacional de Colombia with a degree in political science. He lives in the capital, Bogota, with his partner and their cat. He works for the Unit for the Search of Persons Presumed Disappeared, which is part of the organisation established to implement the 2016 peace accords that ended Colombia\u2019s more than five decades of armed conflict.<\/p>\n

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Jhon in 2010 in front of the facilities of the Ministry of Justice while participating in the campaign against the non-extradition of Colombians to the United States.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

The Colombian angle<\/h3>\n

In 1964, fighting broke out between the government of Colombia, far-right paramilitary groups, and far-left guerrilla groups such as FARC. It is estimated by the National Center for Historic Memory, that more than 220,000 people were killed during the conflict, over 80 percent of them civilians. Around 120,000 people are still registered as missing. In 2016, an internationally acclaimed peace accord was signed between the Colombian government and FARC guerrillas that addressed the issues of poverty and inequality that had fuelled the war.<\/p>\n

Jhon is part of a team that searches for those who are listed as disappeared in order to bring some level of justice and closure in a ravaged and polarised country.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we do is document where the remains of the disappeared\/missing persons possibly are. In coordination with the institutional structures of the state, we search the terrain and, if possible, identify the victims and give the bodies a proper burial.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Jhon in Palestine in 2014, during a visit by a delegation of human rights defenders to the relatives of people detained and affected by the Israeli occupation. One of the children of the woman in the photo was killed and others were arrested.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Life-threatening risks<\/h3>\n

Five years into the implementation of the accord, tensions between rich and poor, rural and urban, drug traffickers, independent farmers and powerful landowners have increased: violence is often seen as a quicker solution to a problem than public debate and dialogue. In 2020, Front Line Defenders estimated that more than half of all the world\u2019s murders of human rights defenders occurred in Colombia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 2021, Jhon received several written death threats and was shot at while travelling with his team in a van clearly marked with the organisation\u2019s official logo. Thankfully, no one was hurt. In bringing these incidents to the attention of the proper authorities, he discovered that he was the victim of identity theft where he was made to look like member of an illegal right-wing paramilitary group. What complicates his ability to protect himself from these threats is the fact that he doesn\u2019t know who is behind them.<\/p>\n

According to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights the perpetrators of past murders of human rights defenders were attributed to:<\/p>\n