SECURITY FORCES There were continued reports of unlawful killings by the security forces, as well as claims of excessive use of force, especially by the ESMAD anti-riot police, during protests.5 On 29 February, soldiers killed peasant farmer Gilberto de Jesús Quintero in the hamlet of Tesorito, Tarazá Municipality, Antioquia Department. The army initially claimed he was an ELN guerrilla killed in combat. However, witnesses stated they saw soldiers attempting to dress the corpse in military fatigues and the army subsequently claimed that the killing had been a military error. Criminal investigations into extrajudicial executions implicating members of the security forces made slow progress. A report from the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, published in November, stated that by July the Office of the Attorney General was investigating 4,190 extrajudicial executions. By February, there had been a total of 961 convictions of which only a few involved high-ranking officers. According to a March report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, by the end of 2015, 7,773 members of the security forces were under investigation for extrajudicial executions. In November a judge convicted more than a dozen members of the army for the unlawful killing of five young men from Soacha, Cundinamarca Department, in 2008. ABUSES BY ARMED GROUPS Guerrilla groups The ELN and the FARC continued to commit human rights abuses, although cases attributable to the FARC fell as the peace process advanced. Indigenous leaders and journalists were the targets of death threats. For example, in June, a man claiming to be from the ELN telephoned María Beatriz Vivas Yacuechime, a leader of the Huila Indigenous Regional Council, and threatened to kill her and her family. In July, journalist Diego D’Pablos and cameraman Carlos Melo received text death Amnesty International Report 2016/17 threats from someone claiming to be from the ELN. Both men and fellow journalist Salud Hernández-Mora had been taken hostage earlier in the year by the ELN in the northern region of Catatumbo.6 On 24 March, two men claiming to be FARC members called at the home of Indigenous leader Andrés Almendras in the hamlet of Laguna-Siberia, Caldono Municipality, Cauca Department. Andrés Almendras was not at home so the men asked his daughter where the “snitch” was as they wanted him to leave the area. Paramilitaries Paramilitary groups continued to operate despite their supposed demobilization a decade earlier. Acting either alone or in collusion with state actors, they were responsible for numerous human rights violations, including killings and death threats.7 In April, local NGOs reported that an armed group of around 150 paramilitaries from the Gaitanista Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AGC) had entered the Afrodescendant community of Teguerré, part of the collective territory of Cacarica, Chocó Department. There were reports of other AGC incursions in the Cacarica area throughout the year. Some community leaders were threatened by the AGC, which declared them “military targets”. There were increasing reports of paramilitary incursions into the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, Antioquia Department, some of whose members were threatened.8 By 30 September, only 180 of the more than 30,000 paramilitaries who supposedly laid down their arms in a governmentsponsored demobilization process had been convicted for human rights-related crimes under the 2005 Justice and Peace Law; most appealed against their convictions. Most paramilitaries did not submit themselves to the Justice and Peace process and received de facto amnesties. 125