Ex-FARC Combatant Killed Ahead of Regional Elections

Dago Hernán Galíndez Chicangana, an ex-FARC combatant who had laid down arms has been killed. His body was found on Tuesday with mulitple bullet wounds. His killing adds to the growing violence in the run up to Colombia’s regional elections on October 27th. 

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He was killed in the municipality of El Patia, south of the Cauca.

Carlos Alberto Lozada, a Senator for the FARC party condemned the killing saying, “In Patia, south of Cauca, our comrade, Dago Hernán, who we knew as Eduard, former member of the José María Carbonell company, who accompanied me for several years was murdered. Peace be on his grave. President Ivan Duque, you are killing the peace before your eyes yet you say nothing.”

The FARC party in Cauca say that the ex-combatant had been in a reincorporation camp for ex-combatants to adapt to civilian life as per the 2016 peace deal. He was in the department of Tolima and then moved to work in the municipality of Sucre in Cauca where he was to work in coffee cultivation.

Since the beginning of the electoral campaign, between July 27 and September 16, two candidates have been kidnapped, five have been victims of assault and seven have been killed, according to the EOM, an independent platform of social organizations that promotes the exercise of civil and political rights.

Dago Hernan’s murder adds the growing political violence which has left Over 160 FARC members and at least 627 social activists killed since the 2016 peace accords were signed. The FARC have repeatedly accused the government and right-wing paramilitaries of violating the peace agreement and continuing to wage violence.