Write to your MP and ask them to #SignEDM1660 (tabled March 2021) 

Please write to your MP. You can find a template letter/email here.  

MPs have public contact details so that you, as their constituents, can get in touch.To see who your MP is, go to https://www.theyworkforyou.com and enter your postcode. 

You can then copy and paste the letter we have drafted into email format, amending as you would like, asking your MP to sign EDM #1660.  

If possible, we would be grateful if you could let us know by email: abcolombia@abcolombia.org.uk once you have written to your MP, so that we can monitor which MPs are more responsive. 

We invite you to spread the word on Twitter and Instragram using the hashtag #SignEDM1660. Thank you in advance! 

Background information 

Colombia will complete an important anniversary in November 2021, that of five years since the signing of the Peace Accord. Unfortunately it has entered into a very fragile state as the country faces increasing violence and threats against rural communities, human rights defenders and former combatants. In 2020, over 50% of the HRDs killed in the world were killed in Colombia. Attacks against HRDs are mainly carried out by neo-paramilitary and other criminal groups. However, state-enacted illegal intelligence activities against human rights defenders, magistrates, journalists, and the political opposition, have also allegedly led to serious crimes, including assassinations.

Rural areas of Colombia have experienced a reconfiguration of the conflict, with armed actors expanding territorial and social control, contributing to an exacerbation of violence as well as the destruction of biodiversity. For example in Alto Baudó, Chocó, Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities are victims of social and territorial control, forced recruitment of children, selective assassinations, confinements, combats and increased use of antipersonnel mines, amongst other violations; all of which are intensifying terror and hunger. Furthermore, increased illegal gold mining in the Rio Quito, protected by illegal armed groups, is exacerbating violence and biodiversity destruction.

Although all illegal armed groups are perpetuating violence, those most responsible are the neo-paramilitary groups, ELN and dissidents of the FARC. We are therefore asking that the UK, who is responsible (holds the pen) on the UN Security Council for the Verification Mission to Colombia, request that the Security Council appoints a group of Experts in organised crime to examine the situation in Colombia. 

Please also see also our most recent briefing document with recommendations to the UN Security Council.