Santos apologizes to peace community over unjust treatment
Santos apologizes to peace community over unjust treatment
posted by Philipp Zwehl
Dec 11, 2013
President Santos formally apologized to the San Jose de Apartado peace community on Tuesday, recognizing that the battered community in northern Colombia had been unjustly stigmatized by the state.
The president had been obligated to apologize by the Constitutional Court over comments made by his predecessor, former President Alvaro Uribe, who had accused members of the peace community to obstruct justice.
The San Apartado peace community declared itself neutral in the conflict and has since been victim to violent actions by guerrillas, paramilitary groups and the military alike. Its efforts to remove itself from the armed conflict have been hailed by international government and non-government organizations alike.
Santos said that he recognizes the “brave” efforts of the peace community to defend human rights after it declared its neutrality in the country’s armed conflict about 16 years ago.
More:
http://colombiareports.co/colombias-president-santos-officially-recognizes-peace-community-human-rights-defender/
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Feb 17, 2011
Peace community: Govt ignores threats, violence
posted by Hannah Aronowitz
The San Jose de Apartado Peace Community claims the Colombian government is failing to defend them against ongoing threats and violence on the part of “paramilitaries” and members of the military.
In a petition sent to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos dated February 13, the peace community outlines several acts of aggression against community members that have occurred in 2011 and requests that the president takes measures to prevent further crimes.
“What we are doing with the right to petition is to leave a record with the government of the human rights violations that continue in this area,” Peace Community Leader Arley Puberquia told Colombia Reports.
The petition describes a group of what it calls paramilitaries telling a local family that they would “not rest until the guerrilla community was finished” on January 30. On February 2, David William de Jesus Hernandez was murdered by “man in a dark suit” after apparently being mistaken for a member of the peace community. On the same day, according to the petition, armed men in dark suits went to the home of a community member, demanded to see him, and threatened his family before leaving.
On February 6, the peace community claims that a group of 20 paramilitaries in camouflage clothing carrying large guns arrived to the community and brandishing a list of people that they were planning to assassinate, which included several prominent figures in the community. The group said that the local agriculture is developed for guerrillas and that they planned to “end the guerrilla community.”
More:
http://colombiareports.co/peace-community-govt-ignores-threat-violence/
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Luis Eduardo Guerra
"We have always said, and in that we are clear, that until this very day we are resisting. And our work is to continue resisting and defending our rights. We don't know until when, because the truth we've lived in our story is this: today we are here talking; tomorrow we may be dead. Today we are here in San Jose de Apartado; tomorrow the majority of people here could be displaced because of a massacre." -- Luis Eduardo Guerra, in an interview on January 15 of this year, 37 days before he was assassinated by the Colombian military.
On February 21-22, 2005, eight members of the San Jose de Apartado Peace Community in Uraba, Colombia -including three young children, were brutally massacred. Witnesses identified the killers as members of the Colombian military, and peace community members saw the army's 17th and 11th Brigades in the area around the time of the murders.
Among those killed was Luis Eduardo Guerra, an internationally recognized peace activist and a co-founder of the Peace Community. In November 2002, Luis travelled from Colombia to Fort Benning, Georgia to speak out against the School of the Americas and to give a first hand testimony about the brutal impact that SOA training and US foreign policy have on the dire situation in Colombia.
General Hector Jaime Fandino Rincon is the commander of the 17th Brigade of the Colombian army. Like Luis Eduardo, Fandino Rincon also travelled to the School of the Americas -- not to speak out for justice and peace like Luis, but to attend the "Small-Unit Infantry Tactics" course in order to become "familiar with small-unit operational concepts and principles at the squad and platoon level, [to] receive training in planning and conducting small-unit tactical operations." Fandino Rincon is a 1976 graduate of the notorious School of the Americas. In December of 2004 he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General.
Since the massacre, the Colombian administration of Alvaro Uribe has done little to investigate the murders. No investigation into the military or the 17th or 11th Brigade has begun. All the focus now of the government agencies intervening in the situation is to force the community members to testify at risk of their lives' instead of focusing on the military that was in the area at the time of the murders.
More:
http://soaw.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1024
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Earlier:
March 27, 2008
Eight persons died in the massacre.
Photo: Jesús Abad Colorado _ Archive / ELTIEMPO
For the Office of the Attorney General (the “Fiscalía”) it is clear that the action at San José de Apartadó sought to impose fear and terror in the civilians of that community.
The decision was provoked by the testimony of Jorge Luis Salgado, a former paramilitary who accused the soldiers of assassinating, in association with the AUC, the three children and eight adults.
"The children were under the bed. The girl was very nice, 5 or 6 years old, and the little boy was also a curious little one.... We proposed to the commanders to leave them in a neighboring home, but they said that they were a threat, that they would become guerrillas in the future.... 'Cobra' grabbed the girl by the hair and ran the machete through her throat,” Salgado, a native of Carepa (Antioquia), told the authorities last January 30.
The massacre in the peace community occurred on February 21, 2005.That day, the mutilated and decapitated bodies were left in the middle of the jungle and in have-covered graves.
All the victims were members of a group that declared itself neutral in the Colombian armed conflict, and who had been zealously requesting special protection.
Though at first testimony indicated that the persons responsible for these deeds were members of the 17th Army Brigade and men under the command of Diego Murillo, 'Don Berna,' this is the first time that someone who was in the ranks of the executioners has told the story.
More:
http://www.iacenter.org/colombia/apartado040108/