This year, in the U.S., the coronavirus has made of death a daily and even more horrific immediate reality, part of the so-called “new normal.”

Horrible as this “new normal” is, it pales next to Colombia, where death, violent death, has been an unavoidable presence for as far back as memory can reach. 

 To this day the carnage in the South American nation goes on unabated: At least 160 social and community leaders have been assassinated with total impunity this year. You could say it is kind of abhorrent normality, but there is nothing new about it.

“Life is worth nothing in this country,” said a Colombian activist in a Facebook posting. 

The silence of the Organization of American States (OAS) with regard to the killing of those working to protect and organize the poor and the powerless in Colombia is deafening. 

The regional organization and its hypocritical Secretary-General, Luis Almagro, always eager to condemn Venezuela and Cuba, have not uttered a peep about such a flagrant violation of human rights. Almagro has gone as far as asking for a military invasion of Venezuela, forgetting that his position calls for him to be the main peacekeeper in the region.

Ironically, president Iván Duque shamelessly talks about his preoccupation with Venezuela’s democracy. Yet, he has allowed US troops into Colombia’s territory with the pretext of fighting drugs, when in reality they are part of a plan to attack its neighbor.

The late Venezuela President Hugo Chávez put it this way: “Unfortunately, Colombia is, strategically, the beachhead for Yankee strivings in South America, their base of operations. [They] send elite troops under a drug-war façade. So, Colombia is a country occupied by foreign troops that has yet to stop the production and trafficking of drugs.”

Yet, not a word from the hypocritical Almagro or the OAS, always happy to obey US orders, about the terrible violence in Colombia. 

The hypocrisy is sickening.