After the peace agreement of 2016 with FARC, the killings of social leaders have emerged as an important post-conflict challenge for Colombia. We present a data analysis based on official records obtained from the Colombian General Attorney's Office spanning the time period from 2012 to 2017. The results of the analysis show a drastic increase in the officially recorded number of killings of democratically elected leaders of community organizations, in particular those belonging to Juntas de Accion Comunal [Community Action Boards]. These are important entities that have been part of the Colombian democratic apparatus since 1958, and enable communities to advocate for their needs. We also describe how the data analysis guided a journalistic investigation that was motivated by the Colombian government's denial of the systematic nature of social leaders killings.
In a working paper, @cite_9 use data from the Colombian nonprofit organization to investigate the killings of social leaders. The authors hypothesise that social leaders were increasingly killed by armed groups excluded from the peace process that wanted to consolidate their power, especially in areas where they took over FARC's illegal activities. In the dataset, @cite_9 also find that the category of social leaders targeted the most since the beginning of the ceasefire are local community council leaders.
@cite_9
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We study the unintended consequences of the recent peace process in Colombia, that ended over five decades of internal armed conflict with the FARC insurgency. Using a triple differences empirical strategy, we show that the permanent ceasefire that started in December 2014 in the context of the peace negotiations was followed by an increase in the killing of social leaders in previously FARC-dominated territories, perpetrated by other armed groups seeking control of these areas. Con- sistent with our interpretation that local social leaders are killed to thwart collective action and mobilization at the municipal level, we show that the targeting of social leaders is not explained by the behavior of the overall homicide rate and that it is exacerbated in municipalities with weaker state capacity and an inefficient local judi- ciary. Our results suggest that partial pacification processes can exacerbate violence by other existing armed groups, aimed at controlling pacified territories. Although it is increasingly recognised that violence, crime, and associated fear are challenging democratic governance in Latin America, less attention has been paid to the ways in which state responses to crime contribute to the problem. By analysing El Salvador as a case study, this article addresses three key interconnected issues in the debate. First, it explores the dynamic of violence. It then locates youth gangs as violent actors within this context. Finally, it addresses the state response to the growing phenomenon of youth gangs. It is argued that current strategies, dubbed Mano Dura – Iron Fist, employed by the Salvadoran government serve to reveal the fragility of the democratic project, exposing the underside of authoritarianism that remains key to Salvadoran political life in the transitional process from civil war to peace. This paper examines the spatio-temporal evolution of homicide across the municipalities of El Salvador. It aims at identifying both temporal trends and spatial clusters that may contribute to the formation of time-stable corridors lying behind a historically (recurrent) high homicide rate. The results from this study reveal the presence of significant clusters of high homicide municipalities in the Western part of the country that have remained stable over time, and a process of formation of high homicide clusters in the Eastern region. The results show an increasing homicide trend from 2002 to 2013 with significant municipality-specific differential trends across the country. The data suggests that links may exist between the dynamics of homicide rates, drug trafficking and organized crime. Objectives. We modeled the spatiotemporal movement of hotspot clusters of homicide by motive in Newark, New Jersey, to investigate whether different homicide types have different patterns of clustering and movement.Methods. We obtained homicide data from the Newark Police Department Homicide Unit’s investigative files from 1997 through 2007 (n = 560). We geocoded the address at which each homicide victim was found and recorded the date of and the motive for the homicide. We used cluster detection software to model the spatiotemporal movement of statistically significant homicide clusters by motive, using census tract and month of occurrence as the spatial and temporal units of analysis.Results. Gang-motivated homicides showed evidence of clustering and diffusion through Newark. Additionally, gang-motivated homicide clusters overlapped to a degree with revenge and drug-motivated homicide clusters. Escalating dispute and nonintimate familial homicides clustered; however, there was no evidence of diffusion. ...