José Albino Cañas Ramírez, a defender of Indigenous territories, aged 44

José Albino Cañas Ramírez did not die in a war zone, though war had shaped the landscape where he lived. He was shot at his home in the community of Portachuelo, in Colombia’s Caldas department, on the evening of February 16. Two men came to the shop he ran from his house, opened fire, and fled along the footpaths that lace the Indigenous reserve. He was 44.

His killing was treated not merely as a private tragedy, but as a public matter of governance. 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 spread across dozens of communities. His death, leaders said, struck at the very structure of Indigenous self-government.

The Emberá Chamí, whose name means “people of the mountains,” inhabit the central and western Andes. Their lands are biodiverse, steep, and contested. For decades, they have lived at the intersection of armed conflict and extractive ambition. Guerrilla groups, paramilitaries, criminal networks, miners, and state interests have all sought to control territory that the Emberá consider ancestral. The result has been what activists call a form of “double victimization”: pressure from illegal armed actors on one side, and development projects and resource exploitation on the other.

Within this landscape, leaders bear unusual risk. The Resguardo Cañamomo Lomaprieta has faced threats linked to illegal gold mining and the armed presence for years. In 2002, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights granted precautionary measures recognizing the grave danger to its authorities and communities. These protections remain in force—an acknowledgment that the threat never receded.

An Indigenous authority

Cañas Ramírez stepped into leadership early. According to the Resguardo’s statement, he spent his youth organizing around territorial rights and cultural survival. His work included conflict resolution, the strengthening of community institutions, and the promotion of identity within the reserve. He was repeatedly elected to positions of responsibility, suggesting a reputation for reliability rather than flamboyance.

He also held practical roles that bound him to daily life: directing local aqueduct committees and community associations, coordinating projects, and helping administer services that rural populations cannot expect the state to provide. These were not glamorous posts. They required patience, negotiation, and the ability to sit through meetings where outcomes were uncertain and tempers were occasionally short.

Leadership in such places often means defending land without the physical means to enforce that defense. The Resguardo maintains its own Indigenous Guard, an unarmed community force intended to provide protection through presence rather than coercion.

Threats to territorial defenders

Violence against leaders in Cañamomo Lomaprieta predates the death of Cañas Ramírez. In 2015, another authority, Fernando Salazar Calvo, was killed after monitoring compliance with rules on artisanal mining; the intellectual authors of that crime were never identified.

Death threats against current leaders remain common, and many live under formal protection schemes that cannot guarantee safety in remote terrain. To his colleagues, the latest killing was not a random act, but part of a historical pattern of attacks on those defending territory, autonomy, and cultural survival—violence that, in their view, persists because the Colombian state has failed to provide effective protection despite international obligations.

The Resguardo responded to Cañas Ramírez’s death with the formal language of petitions. It demanded investigations, security guarantees for remaining leaders, the reinforcement of Indigenous Guard structures, and renewed oversight from international bodies. The tone was legalistic, almost bureaucratic, as though grief had been forced into the vocabulary of procedure.

Cañas Ramírez was one among many. At least 21 social leaders have already been killed in Colombia in the first weeks of 2026—a statistic that risks normalizing these deaths even as communities insist each one is an attack on collective life.

This violence mirrors a long-standing national crisis. According to Global Witness, Colombia is consistently one of the world’s most dangerous countries for environmental defenders. In 2024, at least 48 people were killed or disappeared while defending land, water, and forests in the country; in 2023, the organization tallied 79.

Aftermath

Obituaries often seek defining anecdotes. None presents itself here. What emerges instead is a portrait of a man embedded in communal structures, elected repeatedly because others trusted him to keep showing up. His work was less about public speech than it was about maintaining the machinery of self-rule in a place where that machinery is fragile.

After his death, the authorities of Cañamomo Lomaprieta declared that they would not allow fear to halt the defense of their territory. It was not a promise of victory; it was closer to a statement of necessity.

An earlier version of this piece was published here.

Credits

Rhett Butler Editor

This story first appeared on Mongabay

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