On 10 September Jani Silva, a defender of land, territory and the environment and the president of ADISPA, an organization managing a peasant reserve zone in the Colombian Amazon (department of Putumayo), received a phone call threatening to “blow you up, car and all”. Jani and ADISPA have protection measures in place, provided by the government’s National Protection Unit (UNP). The threats make direct reference to killing her by attacking the armoured vehicles provided for her protection, possibly using explosives. We call on the Colombian authorities to respond to these threats by conducting robust and effective investigations to identify those responsible and bring them to justice, with due process guarantees, and by providing timely and comprehensive protection to this human rights defender and her community, addressing the structural causes of the violence they face.
What’s the problem?
There is concern for the safety of Jani Silva and other persons who campaign for human rights, land rights and environmental protection in Colombia. Jani Silva is president of the organisation ADISPA (Asociación de Desarrollo Integral Sostenible de La Perla Amazónica), an organisation that manages the La Perla Amazónicain protected area in the municipality of Puerto Asís in the department of Putumayo, which is inhabited by small farmers (campesinos).
Since at least 2017, Amnesty International has been documenting how Jani Silva and other members of ADISPA have been stigmatised and harassed. This has a strong impact on their their work in defence of human rights and their commitment to the protection and monitoring of biodiversity and water in their area. On 13 September 2024, the human rights organisation Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz reported that Jani Silva had received a phone call with a death threat on 10 September. The person on the other end of the line explicitly that Jani Silva would be killed by means of an attack on the UNP vehicles, which are used to protect ADISPA members, members: ‘You will be blown up, car and all’ (‘La vamos’). everything‘ (’La vamos a volar con todo y camioneta”). In the afternoon of the same day, unknown men were arrested near the house of Jani Silva’s house and the ADISPA office in the centre of Puerto Asís.
In the department of Putumayo there are two armed groups and organisations such as ADISPA regularly come under fire due to their role organisations such as ADISPA are regularly caught in the crossfire of the in the conflict.
What you can do to help?
Write an appeal in your own words or use the model letter, which can be found on Amnesty Internationals website (link below).
Link to action (english): Website of Amnesty International
Link to Urgent Action (german): German website of Amnesty International
Additional information
Putumayo is located in the south of Colombia, on the border with Ecuador. It stands on the foothills of the Andes mountain range and extends more than 300 km into the Amazon rainforest, making it rich in water, biodiversity and natural resources. At the same time, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Putumayo (particularly on the border with Ecuador) is a coca leaf growing area, with more than 48,000 hectares dedicated to coca cultivation in 2022, a fifth of all the coca grown in Colombia that year.
In this context, in recent years a fierce dispute for control of the coca economy has broken out between armed groups known as the Comandos de la Frontera and the Carolina Ramírez Front, which are part of larger armed movements known as the Second Marquetalia and the Central General Staff (Estado Mayor Central, EMC) respectively. Both groups are currently in talks with the government of Gustavo Petro as part of its policy of Total Peace. Although the region experienced a period of relative calm in 2023, the confrontation between the two armed groups escalated again at the end of the year, and the pressure on civil society organizations, caught between the two, has returned.
One example of organizations and communities caught in the middle of this conflict is the Association for the Integral Sustainable Development of the Amazonian Pearl (ADISPA), created in the late 2000s to manage the Peasant Reserve Zone of La Perla Amazónica. The Peasant Reserve Zones (ZRC) are territorial entities created in the mid-1990s to recognize the collective rights of peasant communities and their environmentally sustainable production practices. The defence of the peasant community and its sustainable practices in the ZRC territory has brought ADISPA, and Jani Silva as its leader, into conflict with actors interested in other economic uses for the region, including the armed groups present there. This is the context of the attacks that Jani Silva has suffered in recent years.
Amnesty International issued two urgent actions in April and July 2020, and another in February 2021, calling on the Ministry of the Interior and its National Protection Unit (UNP) to take effective measures to protect Jani Silva’s life, following the serious threats made against her. Later that year, more than 415,000 people sent messages of support to Jani Silva as part of the Write for Rights campaign. Today, the UNP provides Jani Silva with a personal protection programme, and ADISPA as a whole with a collective protection programme. However, Amnesty International has found that these programmes are not fully tailored to the context and needs of Jani Silva, ADISPA and their work, and that there are recurrent shortcomings. The threats against Jani Silva have had a serious impact on her life and her working conditions as leader of ADISPA, and on the community of the Peasant Reserve Zone of La Perla Amazónica.
On 13 September, the Inter-Church Commission for Justice and Peace reported the threats made against Jani Silva that week.