You are herePuerto Rico Update Archives
Puerto Rico Update Archives
Back to Archive Listing
Colombia Update: War by Any Other Name
The harvest of Congressional approval of $1.3 billion in military aid to Colombia was quick in coming. On Saturday, July 8, while U.S.-made helicopters of the Colombian armed forces flew overhead, 20 hooded men entered La Union, a hamlet of San José de Apartadó in northern Colombia, and massacred at least six men from the community.
Military and paramilitary personnel jointly carried out several atrocities in the week following US Congressional of the military package, including the violent invasion of the mining town of Micoahumado and the massacre in Apartadó.
Army troops were seen in La Unión, San José de Apartadó during the day on July 8. At 3:00 p.m., the hooded men entered by the same path as the military had done and cut off the hamlet's one phone in the Catholic mission house. They then went house to house and brought out everyone into the soccer field.
There they asked for the leaders, and the community responded that they were all leaders and explained that they maintained neutrality as a community. A nun began to confirm the community's neutrality, when they grabbed her and threw her to the side. They told the women and children to move to one side, or they would be killed. The hooded men then opened fire on the men with machine guns. Then they threatened the whole community saying: "you have 20 days to leave the area, because we're going to finish this off." They set fire to the mission house and left.
At least six men were killed, among them several leaders: Rigoberto Guzman, Elodino Rivera, Diofanor Correa, Humberto Sepulveda, Pedro Zapata, and Jaime Guzman. The whereabouts of other men is not known.
The community of San José de Apartadó is made up of around 1,000 people forcibly displaced from their homes in the Urabá region of north-western Colombia in 1996 and 1997 by massacres committed by paramilitary groups and guerrilla organizations. In March 1997 they declared themselves a Peace Community, in an attempt to persuade the warring factions to respect their neutrality and right to life. More than 70 members have been killed or disappeared. The Fellowship of Reconciliation awarded the Pfeffer Peace Prize to the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó in 1998 for its commitment to nonviolence in the midst of a war zone.
On the same day as the massacre, Army troops threatened two peasants they had detained nearby, saying "we're going together and we're going to end it all." The military unit included a civilian member of paramilitary groups. Two days before, army troops left two fragmentation grenades in a grove of cocoa trees belonging to the Peace Community of San José. When peasants asked for an explanation, troops responded: "the Peace Community is a community of guerrillas. We are going in with the paramilitaries."
Faced with this violence, the 63 families from La Unión hamlet must begin another forced exodus to the town center of San José. At this writing there is a terrible fear for the other two Peace Community settlements, which have no phones.
The $1.3 billion military aid package for Colombia signed by President Clinton on July 1 included what was called a human rights provision. But Rep. David Obey said the provision is "no protection at all for human rights. It is simply protection for politicians."
To the amazement of many human rights advocates, Colombian President Andrés Pastrana on July 10 signed a law that officially outlaws genocide and forced disappearances. The law puts the crimes on the books, sets sentences as high as 45 years, and creates a commission to investigate the fate of an estimated 3,000 missing people.
Gloria Herney, president of the Association of the Families of the Disappeared called it "a very important step." However, she said laws are often promulgated in Colombia and then not enforced. This in fact is a version of the same law that Pastrana vetoed last December.
"The acquiescence, complicity and omissions of the 17th Brigade confirm our profound belief that (the death squads) are a parastate structure," the Inter-denominational Commission for Justice and Peace, based in Bogotá, said in a statement.
RECOMMENDED ACTIONS
Call, fax or write to members of Congress (both Senate and House) to urge that the recently approved Colombia "aid" package be rescinded. U.S. Capitol switchboard: 202-224-3121
Stay informed of events and U.S. involvement in Colombia.
U.S./Colombia Coordinating Office OR Amnesty International USA; Tel: 202-232-8090; www.amnestyusa.org/countries/colombia
Sources: Intercongregational Commission for Justice and Peace, 7/8/00; AP, 7/10/00.
Ask the staff of your Congressional Representatives and Senators:
- When will the collaboration between the armed forces and paramilitary squads in killings of innocent people and in the displacement of many more begin to bother the Congress?
- When will that lead to a fundamental reexamination by their office of Washington's Colombia policy?
In San José de Apartadó, they are not waiting. They are fleeing. But we, U.S. constituents of Congress, do await a response.
We also request that you to use this information to remind your senators and representatives that this is what they voted for, and that it is not an acceptable way to spend our tax dollars. Insist they use the human rights clauses in the appropriation to STOP THE MILITARY AID PACKAGE. If you live the state of a Senator who stood up against funding the Colombian military, please contact him and update him on the situation in San José de Apartadó and elsewhere in Colombia. These four senators were Thomas (WY), Feingold (WI), Smith (NH), and Wellstone (MN).
The Peace Community of San José de Apartadó breaks the logic of violence in Colombia by declaring that collectively and individually its members will not support any armed side in the conflict. It opens a tiny space of non-war in the midst of war. For this, 72 people in San José have been killed or disappeared, nearly all by paramilitary groups.
Write to the Colombian President urging that:
-
The government vigorously and quickly bring to justice the perpetrators of the latest massacre in San José;
-
The peace communities' wishes for complete neutrality and to stay completely outside Colombia's armed conflict be respected.
Address:
Señor Presidente Andrés Pastrana
Presidente de la República
Palacio de Nariño, Carrera 8 No. 7-26
Santafé de Bogotá, Colombia
Fax: (571) 286-7434/ 284-2186/ 337-1351
A provision to track ammunition provided to the Colombian armed forces, for example, sponsored by Sen. Diane Feinstein, does nothing to stop this kind of massacre. Bullets are easily available and inexpensive. What is not cheap, and what the Colombian military relies on the United States for, are helicopters and the kind of operational training used in a killing of this kind.
In the week following US Congressional approval of $1.3 billion in military aid for Colombia, military and paramilitary personnel have jointly carried out several atrocities, including the violent invasion of the mining town of Micoahumado and the massacre in Apartadó.
Today at the hand of paramilitary gunmen and members of the 17th Brigade, another irreparable damage has been done against the lives and liberty of the members of Peace Community of San José de Apartadó who 40 months ago decided to be neutral among warring parties. Again we enter into the historical record our moral outrage at the intimidation, terror and murders in the Peace Community San José de Apartadó.
On July 8 several soldiers of the Colombian Armed Forces 17thBrigade were loitering near the hamlet La Unión, Peace Community of San José de Apartadó. At 3:00 PM with a 17th Brigade helicopter flying overhead about 20 hooded men came into the little town from their group. First they went into the Mission House and destroyed the community telephone. They then intruded each house and took everybody to the center of the settlement.
The thugs repeatedly demanded the names of "the leaders." The prisoners insisted they were all leaders that the Peace Community's foundation is unarmed neutrality and that neutrality is their defense. The hooded men argued that it was a "community of guerrillas not a peace community." Then one of the Catholic nuns spoke up testifying to the neutrality of the community; some of the hooded men grabbed her and threw her down to one side. The gunmen then ordered the women and children to the side "or we'll kill you," and proceeded to shoot the men with their AK rifles.
Before leaving, they set fire to the Mission House and threatened, "You've got 20 days to get out of here or we'll finish you off." The six residents of La Union, members of the Peace Community, who were murdered are DIOFANOR CORREA, JAIME GUZMAN, RIGOBERTO GUZMAN, ELODINO RIVERA, HUMBERTO SEPULVEDA, PEDRO ZAPATA. Other farmers are still missing.
On the same day there were several other documented incidents of vicious threats, accusations by soldiers and paramilitaries operating together in San José de Apartadó.
In the face of this new agony besetting the Peace Community of San José deApartadó,
"Twenty hooded men entered the hamlet by a route on which members of the armed forces were present while a helicopter of the 17th Brigade flew overhead"
The troops in the town center of San José de Apartadó said several times on Saturday afternoon that there were guerrillas in the area.
"How many times do killings committed by the security forces or their paramilitary allies have to be denounced before the Colombian government brings the perpetrators to justice?" London-based Amnesty International asked.
Reuters 7/11/00
Fellowship of Reconciliation
Puerto Rico Campaign
Produced by the Fellowship of Reconciliation Task Force on Latin America and the Caribbean
2017 Mission St. #305, San Francisco, CA 94110
Tel: (415) 495-6334, Fax: (415) 495-5628,E-mail: forlatam@igc.apc.org
