Campo Elías Galindo was a community leader and trade unionist. He was also an academic, a historian, an intellectual and a member of the political movement, Colombia Humana.
For many years Campo Elías was a university teacher and a member of the Frente Amplio por la Paz, (Broad Front for Peace) which tried to build support for the Peace Process among left-wing and progressive groups in Medellín and Antioquia.
On 1 October, 2020, his body was found in his home in Medellín. He had been stabbed multiple times.
According to Cristian Zuluaga who remembers him from the days of his involvement in Colombia Humana “Professor Campo Elías is remembered as a great organiser and a voice of reason. There is a phrase by Bertolt Brecht which states that there are men who fight one day and are good. There are others that fight for a year and are better. But there are those who fight all their lives and they are the people we cannot do without. That phrase makes me think of Campo Elías. In these campaigns there is always a rush: to the next meeting or the next march or the next protest. But he always had time to think things through and to give a proper analysis and political perspective.”
A woman, Lina Marcela Pérez Álvarez, who was known to the victim, has been sentenced to sixteen years in prison for the killing.
