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Defending the biodiversity and the lives of thousands of people on the planet, in some cases, can be deadly. Murders of people environmentalists reached the record number of 227 dead in 2020, as reported on Monday, September 13 by the NGO Global witness in its annual report on these attacks.
“Almost three out of four attacks took place” in Central and South America, according to the document presented. Colombia, with nearly a third of murders (65), was, for the second year in a row, the deadliest country for environmentalists. Mexico (30), the Philippines (29), Brazil (20), Honduras (17) and a dozen other nations follow on the list. Also on the tragic list are Guatemala (13), Nicaragua (12), Costa Rica (1) and Argentina (1).
In 2020, producer from the province of Tucumán Juan Carlos “Cheta” González was shot dead by retired policeman Carlos Flores, in a territorial dispute. “On Tuesday September 15, 2020, González took his animals, like every morning, to the field where he was born and raised. From the shotgun of retired policeman Carlos Flores came the three bullets that ended his life. The shooter said it was in self-defense, but “Don Cheta” (as he was called) was unarmed and was shot in the back while riding his horse. It all happened in El Cevilar, municipality of El Bracho, department of Cruz Alta (Tucumán): on the same land that once belonged to Juan José González and that his legitimate heirs cultivated all their lives, ”explains the agency. Tierra Viva press release.
Cheta lived with Lidia, his wife, and with Luis, one of their three children. He was a member of the Land Workers Union (UTT). Almost 80 days later, Carlos Flores was sentenced to eleven years in prison in an abbreviated trial. The crime was classified as homicide aggravated by the use of a firearm. By decision of judge Javier Tomas, the convicted person is now under house arrest, with an electronic device, in the house of a relative in Horco Molle, a distant town about 40 kilometers from the place of the facts.
A year with record numbers
LONG Global witness It has been reporting statistics since 2012 and has recorded a sustained increase in these crimes over the past three years (167 in 2018 and 212 in 2019). This year it focuses on “the industries that are behind the climate crisis and attacks on human rights defenders. environmental“, as the report is called.
Among the victims, there are several coincidences. 70% of them worked to stop deforestation and all but one lived in developing countries, 23 people who wanted to stop timber extraction died, 20 who opposed the construction of dams, 17 against l agribusiness and 17 against mining.
“The requirement to have the highest profits (…) at the lowest possible cost ultimately seems to translate into the idea that those who hinder the project must disappear,” notes the document in the environmentalist American Bill Mckibben.
“In a year in which the countries of Latin America have suffered unprecedented crises, one constant has remained: violence against defenders. Latin America has always been the region most affected and, too often, those who defend their land and our planet have to face the criminalization of governments, intimidation in their communities and murder ”, says Marina Commandulli, of Global Witness and adds: “This systemic violence is the result of decades of impunity for perpetrators and corporations that place extraction and profit above human life and our lives. environment”.
The report also notes that many governments “fail to protect human rights defenders. environmental: in many cases, they directly commit violence against them and in others, they can be accomplices of companies “interested in silencing the militants.”
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