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.