Narciso Beleño
Narciso Beleño, president of the Agromining Federation of the South of Bolívar (FEDEAGROMISBOL) and a member of the National Agrarian Coordinator (CNA), was a campesino leader and human rights defender. For more than three decades, he worked to defend the territory and campesino community of the south of Bolívar from the presence of paramilitary groups that isolated and forcibly displaced communities in the region. He was one of the leading advocates of agrarian reform in the country, promoting land restitution and the sustainable use of natural resources in the territory. In all of these roles, he tirelessly worked toward peacebuilding from and for the territories.
HRDs in Colombia work in a violent and unsafe environment. They are subjected to threats, intimidation, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, physical assaults, torture, killings, illegal searches of their homes and offices and stigmatisation as a result of their activities in defence of human rights. The perpetrators of these abuses are frequently paramilitary groups, many of whom have links to the government or security services, or armed opposition groups. The continued frequent and severe threats and attacks against HRDs around the country contradict government claims of paramilitary demobilisation.
