2023-04-21 02:00:35
In a bomb attack by paramilitaries, Colombian activist Daniel Esteban Alvarez lost a leg, an arm and both eyes, but his asylum application was rejected by the IND, writes Thijs Broer. “How much more evidence is needed that people like Daniel Esteban Alvarez are unsure of their lives in Colombia?”
While the asylum debate flared up once more in The Hague – according to the latest estimates, more than 76,000 asylum seekers might come to the Netherlands this year – last Sunday a modest meeting took place in the Amsterdam cinema Cinecenter regarding the sad fate of Daniel Esteban Alvarez, political activist from Colombia, who lost a leg, an arm and both eyes in a 2016 paramilitary bombing.
As a political psychologist, Alvarez devoted years to the rights of NASA, an indigenous community in the mountains of Colombia that has been oppressed for many decades. The peaceful protest cost him dearly. The documentary with the awkward title Bakaçxtepkaçx – ‘goodbye’ in the language of the Nasa – which was shown at Cinecenter in the presence of Alvarez and his family, paints a poignant picture of the sacrifices he made, and the miserable life he led. to lead ever since.
After the attack, Alvarez came to the Netherlands, where his father lives, but following four years of litigation, his asylum application was first rejected by the IND and finally by the Council of State. The argument: since the peace agreement with the FARC in 2016, which was concluded four months following the attack, Colombia would be a “safe country”, and Alvarez would not be personally threatened.
It is a crazy reasoning from a paper reality: the peaceful resistance of the indigenous tribes in the mountains of Colombia once morest the ongoing oppression has nothing to do with the years of guerrilla of the FARC. Moreover, since the peace agreement, violence once morest the indigenous tribes has flared up further. Last year, the United Nations sounded the alarm: actions by paramilitaries in Colombia have killed hundreds of human rights activists in 2021 and 2022 alone. How much more evidence is needed that people like Daniel Esteban Alvarez are unsure of their lives in Colombia? What more needs to happen to you than a bomb attack where you lose a leg, an arm and both eyes to get political asylum in this country?
While the fate of FARC activist Tanja Nijmeijer led to a flood of excited reports in the Dutch media, the staggering history of peaceful activist Daniel Esteban Alvarez has so far gone almost unnoticed, but that is finally starting to change. Early April was an episode of the BNNVARA series Fight or Flight dedicated to him, and now there is also the documentary Bakaçxtepkaçx.
Alvarez’s family has now started a petition to mobilize support for his cause, and with a crowdfunding campaign they are now trying to raise money for a guide dog for the blind and for a new procedure at the IND. It is to be hoped that this time the asylum procedure will work as intended, and lead to political asylum for a man who has been left to his fate by the Dutch government for far too long.
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