Eight young people at a social gathering were killed in Colombia's southern Nariño department when unknown gunmen barged in and opened fire Aug. 15. The victims, between the ages of 17 and 25, were university students who had returned to the village of Samaniego due to the pandemic. They were enjoying a small party at a family farm on the edge of the village when the attack took place. One woman and one minor were among the dead. Nariño Gov. Jhon Rojas said the massacre was probably related to a struggle for control of narcotrafficking networks in the region. He did not name any group as responsible for the attack, but noted the presence in the area of ELN guerillas, "dissident" FARC factions that have remained in arms despite the peace accord, and the Clan del Golfo drug cartel.

A band of armed men in trucks and on motorcycles invaded two veredas (hamlets) in the rural zone of Algeciras municipality, in Colombia's central-south department of Huila, on the night of July 16, terrorizing local residents. The approximately 10 armed men entered various homes in the veredas of La Danta and Quebradón Sur, menacing the families at gunpoint, before finally identifying one family they had apparently marked for death. Four family members were killed, and two more wounded, including an eight-year-old boy. The gunmen fled before they could be identified. However, both "dissident" elements of the FARC guerillas who have remained in arms in defiance of the peace deal and right-wing paramilitary groups are active in the area. Accounts indicate the attack targeted the family of an ex-guerilla of the FARC's demobilized Teófilo Forero Column.

In a rare move, the US Department of Justice issued an indictment against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on March 26. Maduro and 14 current and former Venezuelan officials have been charged with narco-terrorism, corruption, drug trafficking and other crimes. The DoJ alleges that Maduro conspired with the FARC, Colombia's guerrilla army, prior to becoming the president, and continued to do after assuming power. The indictment charges that this nexus has congealed under the name "Cartel of the Suns," and that Maduro continues to collude with dissident factions of the FARC that remain in arms despite the Colombian peace accords. Attorney General William Barr said the aim of the conspiracy is "to flood the United States with cocaine." 

The former commander of Colombia's armed forces, retired general Mario Montoya, was summoned late last month to appear before a trial to take place under the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) concerning the grisly practice of "false positives"—the killing of non-combatants in the guise of military operations against the guerillas. Montoya has been called to testify in Case 03, officially dubbed "muertes ilegítimamente presentadas como bajas en combate por agentes de Estado" (deaths illegitimately presented as fallen in combat by agents of the State). The testimony is scheduled for Feb. 12.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concern in a Jan. 14 statement over the killings of human rights defenders in Colombia last year. The statement said the commission is "deeply troubled by the staggering number of human rights defenders killed in Colombia during 2019." The commission asserted that there were between 107 and 120 killings of rights activists in Colombia over the course of the year. It called on the "Colombian Government to make a strenuous effort to prevent attacks on people defending fundamental rights, to investigate each and every case and to prosecute those responsible for these violations, including instigating or aiding and abetting violations."

The new Bolivian regime's Government Minister Arturo Murillo has announced creation of a special "Anti-Terrorist Group" (GAT), drawn from elite units of the National Police force, to "completely disarticulate all the terrorist cells" operating in the country. Murillo made the announcement at a Dec. 2 meeting of the National Police Special Anti-Crime Struggle Force  (FELCC) in Santa Cruz, where he charged that recent political violence in the country had been instrumented by foreign "terrorist" operatives financed by Venezuela as part of a plan to "destabilize" the countries of South America. He particularly mentioned Martín Serna Ponce, a supposed operative of Peru's defunct Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA), and Facundo Morales Schoenfeld, a veteran of Colombia's FARC. (Aristegui Noticias, Mexico, Dec. 3; La Razón, La Paz, Dec. 2)

As Colombia's major cities exploded into protest amid a national strike on the nigt of Nov. 21, a truck-bomb attack targeted a National Police station in the southern department of Cauca, leaving three officers dead. Authorities blamed the blast in the town of Santander de Quilichao on "dissident" elements of the FARC guerillas who have remained in arms despite the peace accords. President Ivan Duque dispatched Defense Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo and several of his top officials to Cauca after the attack to take stock of the security situation in the department. (El Espectador, Colombia Reports, Nov. 23)

Indigenous leaders in Colombia are raising accusations of "genocide" following the latest massacre, in which five members of the Nasa people were killed in southwestern Cauca department. Cristina Bautista, a Nasa traditional authority, or neehwesx, was killed along with four members of the Indigenous Guard, an unarmed community self-defense patrol, on Oct. 29. The incident took place at the community of La Luz on the Nasa resguardo of Tacueyó, Toribio municipality. The Indigenous Guard tried to stop a car at a checkpoint maintained in the community. The driver refused to cooperate and a stand-off ensued, bringing Bautista and others to the scene. Eventually, the occupants of the car opened fire. In addition to five slain, several were wounded in the attack, and the assailants escaped. They are believed to be members of a "dissident" band of the FARC guerillas, which has refused to honor Colombia's peace accords. The Indigenous Guard carry traditional staffs, but not firearms.