Colombia government asks forgiveness for 1988 paramilitary massacre
Colombia government asks forgiveness for 1988 paramilitary massacre
Posted by Adriaan Alsema on Dec 21, 2015
In a ceremony similar to one held by FARC rebels in western Colombia, government officials formally admitted responsibility and asked forgiveness to the town of Segovia where paramilitaries massacred 44 in 1988.
The ceremony is the first of many acts of repentance that seeks the healing of deep wounds caused by Colombia’s 51-year-long conflict the government and the FARC are trying to end.
The president’s Human Rights adviser, Guillermo Rivera, formally asked forgiveness for the massacre ordered by a Liberal Party politician that sought the extermination of local supporters of the communist Patriotic Union party.
The massacre was the first of many carried out by paramilitary forces paid at the order of former House Representative Cesar Perez who saw the leftists threatening his political ambitions.
More:
http://colombiareports.com/160585-2/
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http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141294092
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While the FARC voluntarily plead for forgiveness for the 2002 massacre in Bojaya, the government was forced to do the same by the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights, something not forgotten by the locals.
“The state came to ask for forgiveness because the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered them. This chapter will never close… I do not forgive. God, our Lord, forgives,” Virgilio Gomez, whose son was murdered in the massacre, told Caracol Radio.
The massacre occurred in the evening of November 11, 1988 when paramilitary group ‘Death to Northeastern Revolutionaries’ (MRD) entered the town of 20,000 and committed the massacre, leaving “rivers of blood running down the street,” according to a survivor.
[center]~ ~ ~
Vicente and Carlos Castaño, two of three brothers (Fidel, the other) who ran the narco-trafficking death squad, A.U.C.
which was tied directly to right-wing politicians in the Colombian government and did tandem massacres with the Army.
Commonly believed Vicente had his
brother, Carlos, murdered by his own
body guards.
Carlos
Fidel, Carlos, Vicente, Teresa [/center]
