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arxiv: 1906.08206 · v1 · pith:PQSUKEE3new · submitted 2019-06-19 · 📊 stat.AP · cs.CY

Killings of social leaders in the Colombian post-conflict: Data analysis for investigative journalism

Maria De-Arteaga , Benedikt Boecking This is my paper

Pith reviewed 2026-05-25 19:50 UTC · model grok-4.3

classification 📊 stat.AP cs.CY
keywords Colombiasocial leaderskillingspost-conflictdata analysiscommunity organizationsinvestigative journalism
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The pith

Official Colombian records show a sharp rise in killings of community leaders after the 2016 peace agreement.

A machine-rendered reading of the paper's core claim, the machinery that carries it, and where it could break.

The paper examines official data on killings of social leaders in Colombia from 2012 to 2017. It identifies a drastic increase in the recorded deaths of elected leaders from community organizations, especially Juntas de Acción Comunal, following the peace deal with FARC. This trend is presented as an important post-conflict challenge. The analysis was used to support a journalistic investigation that challenged the government's position that the killings were not systematic.

Core claim

Analysis of records from the Colombian General Attorney's Office spanning 2012 to 2017 shows a drastic increase in the officially recorded number of killings of democratically elected leaders of community organizations, in particular those belonging to Juntas de Acción Comunal.

What carries the argument

Time-series analysis of official killing records to detect trends in violence against community leaders and to inform journalistic reporting.

If this is right

  • The killings represent a significant post-conflict issue for Colombia.
  • Particular risk falls on leaders of Juntas de Acción Comunal.
  • Data analysis can guide investigations into the systematic nature of such violence.
  • The quantitative trend challenges official denials of systematic patterns.

Where Pith is reading between the lines

These are editorial extensions of the paper, not claims the author makes directly.

  • Similar data-driven approaches could be used in other countries to track violence against activists.
  • The actual number of killings may be higher if underreporting exists in the official data.
  • Longer-term monitoring could reveal whether the trend continues or reverses with policy changes.

Load-bearing premise

The official records from the Attorney General's Office provide a complete and consistent count of killings, without major shifts in reporting practices that would create the observed increase.

What would settle it

Evidence that the way killings are recorded or classified changed substantially after 2016, such as more thorough registration of cases due to increased awareness, would explain the rise without a true increase in killings.

Figures

Figures reproduced from arXiv: 1906.08206 by Benedikt Boecking, Maria De-Arteaga.

Figure 1
Figure 1. Figure 1: Comparison between overall homicides in Colombia and killings of social leaders. [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p004_1.png] view at source ↗
Figure 2
Figure 2. Figure 2: Timeseries of killings of social leaders by type of organization. [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p005_2.png] view at source ↗
Figure 3
Figure 3. Figure 3: Choropleth map of killings of JAC leaders in Colombia between 2012 and 2017, by department. [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p006_3.png] view at source ↗
read the original abstract

After the peace agreement of 2016 with FARC, the killings of social leaders have emerged as an important post-conflict challenge for Colombia. We present a data analysis based on official records obtained from the Colombian General Attorney's Office spanning the time period from 2012 to 2017. The results of the analysis show a drastic increase in the officially recorded number of killings of democratically elected leaders of community organizations, in particular those belonging to Juntas de Acci\'on Comunal [Community Action Boards]. These are important entities that have been part of the Colombian democratic apparatus since 1958, and enable communities to advocate for their needs. We also describe how the data analysis guided a journalistic investigation that was motivated by the Colombian government's denial of the systematic nature of social leaders killings.

Editorial analysis

A structured set of objections, weighed in public.

Desk editor's note, referee report, simulated authors' rebuttal, and a circularity audit. Tearing a paper down is the easy half of reading it; the pith above is the substance, this is the friction.

Referee Report

2 major / 0 minor

Summary. The manuscript presents a descriptive analysis of official records from the Colombian General Attorney's Office spanning 2012 to 2017. It claims a drastic increase in the officially recorded killings of democratically elected leaders of community organizations, particularly those belonging to Juntas de Acción Comunal, after the 2016 peace agreement with FARC. The work also describes how the analysis informed a journalistic investigation prompted by government denial of the systematic nature of these killings.

Significance. If the data-generating process remained stable, the descriptive finding would document an important post-conflict phenomenon and illustrate the value of official records for guiding investigative journalism. The paper's use of external government data without fitted models or invented parameters is a methodological strength that avoids circularity risks.

major comments (2)
  1. [Abstract and data analysis description] The manuscript supplies no information on data cleaning, statistical methods, error bars, or controls for changes in recording practices (abstract). This omission is load-bearing: the claim of a 'drastic increase' as a post-agreement phenomenon cannot be evaluated without evidence that classification rules, case-registration thresholds, and reporting intensity for 'social leaders' and JAC members remained constant across the 2016 breakpoint.
  2. [Data analysis and results sections] No consistency audit, cross-check against pre-2016 coding manuals, or sensitivity analysis for possible reclassification of incidents is reported. Without such checks, the step-change in counts could be an artifact of altered measurement rather than incidence, directly affecting the interpretation advanced in the introduction and results.

Simulated Author's Rebuttal

2 responses · 1 unresolved

We thank the referee for these comments on transparency and potential measurement artifacts. The manuscript is a descriptive report of official records to support journalism; we address each point below and will revise where feasible without altering the core descriptive approach.

read point-by-point responses

  1. Referee: [Abstract and data analysis description] The manuscript supplies no information on data cleaning, statistical methods, error bars, or controls for changes in recording practices (abstract). This omission is load-bearing: the claim of a 'drastic increase' as a post-agreement phenomenon cannot be evaluated without evidence that classification rules, case-registration thresholds, and reporting intensity for 'social leaders' and JAC members remained constant across the 2016 breakpoint.

    Authors: The work is intentionally descriptive and reports raw counts from the single official database provided by the Attorney's Office, with no fitted models, error bars, or statistical adjustments. We will revise the abstract and add an explicit Data and Methods section describing the data source, any basic cleaning (e.g., removal of duplicates), and the absence of controls for recording-practice changes. We will also add a limitations paragraph noting that the observed step-change is in officially recorded killings and that stability of classification rules cannot be verified from the data alone. revision: yes

  2. Referee: [Data analysis and results sections] No consistency audit, cross-check against pre-2016 coding manuals, or sensitivity analysis for possible reclassification of incidents is reported. Without such checks, the step-change in counts could be an artifact of altered measurement rather than incidence, directly affecting the interpretation advanced in the introduction and results.

    Authors: No such audit or cross-check was performed because the data arrived as one consistent extract spanning 2012–2017; internal pre-2016 coding manuals and reclassification logs are not publicly available and were not provided. We will add a limitations section that explicitly flags the possibility of measurement change and states that the paper documents trends in official records rather than claiming to isolate changes in underlying incidence. revision: partial

standing simulated objections not resolved
  • We lack access to internal government coding manuals or reclassification records and therefore cannot conduct the requested consistency audit or sensitivity analysis for classification changes.

Circularity Check

0 steps flagged

No circularity: purely descriptive analysis of external records

full rationale

The manuscript is a descriptive statistical summary of counts drawn from Colombian government records (Attorney General's Office) for 2012-2017. It contains no equations, fitted parameters, predictive models, uniqueness theorems, or self-citations that serve as load-bearing premises. The central observation—an increase in recorded killings—is obtained directly by tabulating the supplied external data; no step reduces to a prior result by construction or by renaming. The reader's assessment of score 0.0 is therefore confirmed by the absence of any derivation chain.

Axiom & Free-Parameter Ledger

0 free parameters · 0 axioms · 0 invented entities

The paper is a descriptive data analysis of external records and introduces no free parameters, mathematical axioms, or invented entities.

pith-pipeline@v0.9.0 · 5666 in / 1072 out tokens · 22745 ms · 2026-05-25T19:50:27.716965+00:00 · methodology

discussion (0)

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Reference graph

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