Narciso Beltrán, a member of the Asociación de Trabajadores del Campo (ASOTRACAMPO), a farm workers’ organisation affiliated to the Federación Agraria Nacional (FANAL), which is a CGT affiliate, was murdered on 12 April 2013 in the municipality of Galapa, in Atlántico.
Narciso Beltrán had been forcibly displaced and his work was partly focused on the fight for land restitution. He was allegedly killed by the Anti Land Restitution Army (Ejército Anti Restitución de Tierras), an illegal armed group made up of land owners linked to drug trafficking and paramilitarism. His father is the vice president of ASOTRACAMPO.
The association’s work includes the representation of over 130 families that have been occupying a section of El Tamarindo farm since 2001 and the defence of land rights through fair restitution.
According to Amnesty International, the peasant farmers occupying El Tamarindo have been receiving repeated threats from paramilitary groups. It reports that on 9 April a peasant farmer was told: “You are going to leave this place one way or another, this land has an owner”.