'This is a last hold-out': Son of a murdered farmer in Colombia
Jonathan Watts
Sat 21 Jul 2018 01.14 EDT
The bullet-proof 4x4 is speeding through the countryside of western Colombia with two armed bodyguards, reggaeton is blasting out from the speakers, banana trees flit past the reinforced windows and the protected passenger – a threatened, recently bereaved 18-year-old campesino (poor farmer) – is explaining from bitter personal experience why he thinks Netflix’s Narcos TV series is trash.
“It glorifies killers,” says Ramón Bedoya. “Drug dealers and paramilitaries. These are the type of people who murdered my dad.”
The young man speaks with a maturity far beyond his years, perhaps because he has been forced to grow-up fast in the seven months since his father – a leader of the opposition to palm oil plantations – was assassinated by a gang linked to agribusiness and narco-traffickers.
Hernán Bedoya was shot 15 times on 5 December while he was riding his horse to the vet in Pedeguita y Mancilla, Chocó. It was broad daylight when the two gunmen rode up by motorcycle and carried out the hit, but no witnesses dared to come forward.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/21/colombia-land-grab-son-murdered-farmer-defy-paramilitaries