José Albino Cañas Ramírez, a defender of Indigenous lands, has been assassinated, aged 44
Guest blog by Rhett Ayers Butler Founder and CEO of Mongabay, a nonprofit organization that delivers news and inspiration from Nature’s frontline via a global network of reporters. José Albino Cañas Ramírez did not die in a war zone, though war had shaped the place where he lived. On the evening of February 16th, two men came to the shop he ran from his home in Portachuelo, in Colombia’s Caldas department, opened fire, and disappeared along footpaths threading the Indigenous reserve. Cañas Ramírez was a cabildante — a member of the governing council — of the Resguardo of Colonial Origin Cañamomo Lomaprieta, an Emberá Chamí territory of more than 23,000 people. Leaders said the killing struck at Indigenous self-government itself. The Emberá Chamí, “people of the mountains,” inhabit steep, biodiverse lands long contested by guerrillas, paramilitaries, criminal groups, miners, and state interests. Activists describe a double pressure: illegal armed actors on one side, developm...
