Colombia: Peace community members return home three years after massacre

Colombia: Peace community members return home three years after massacre
Posted: 20 February 2008

Amnesty International today urged the Colombian government and armed groups involved in the country's internal conflict to respect the right of members of the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó to return to the Mulatos hamlet in safety, three years after a massacre on 21 February 2005 forced some of them off their land.

Amnesty International's Americas Programme Director, Susan Lee said:
'People across Colombia are being forced into a conflict that has killed or forcibly disappeared tens of thousands of civilians and displaced millions more. The Colombian government must ensure that the right of the civilian population not to be involved in this deadly conflict is protected.'

'We are extremely worried about the safety of the men, women and children going back to Mulatos particularly because of the abuses committed precisely when the community has in the past tried to resettle abandoned areas of land.'

The hamlet of Mulatos is part of the San José de Apartadó Peace Community, located in the department of Antioquia, northwest Colombia. Over the last decade, the Peace Community has urged all combatants to respect their right not to be drawn into the conflict. Since its creation in 1997, more than 160 of its members have been killed or forcibly disappeared, most at the hands of army-backed paramilitaries and the security forces, but also the guerrilla.

On 21 February 2005, eight members of the Peace Community, including a prominent leader, Luis Eduardo Guerra, three children aged 2, 6 and 11, and a 17 year-old woman, were killed and their bodies mutilated. Some of the killings took place in the Mulatos area.

Judicial investigations suggest the killings were carried out by the security forces in coordination with paramilitaries, despite efforts by the Colombian authorities to attribute the massacre to the guerrilla.

More:
http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=17662

Massacre in Colombian Peace Community


Once again, the trail of blood leads to the SOA:
SOA graduate commands accused brigade

"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, 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.
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The Peace Community writes:

"In this context, it is important to understand the Army-paramilitary strategy to clear villages and take control of the land. First come the indiscriminate bombings and then the operations in which they eliminate everything they come across: animals, crops, homes and, as the most recent events show, entire families. But there is no doubt that the strategy is working: just two weeks ago we pointed out that as a result of these operations in Mulatos and Resbalosa, only 10 families remained, and now nine of them have been displaced to San Jose."

Many of the Colombian officers cited as responsible for massacres and other human rights abuses graduated from the SOA, and the strategy of using paramilitary groups for the military's dirty work is nothing new for SOA/ WHINSEC students. Roberto D'Aubussoin established the Death Squads that were responsible for much of the violence in El Salvador in the 1980's, and Benedicto Lucas Garcia masterminded the creation of the Civil Defense Patrols in Guatemala. Mexico's Jose Ruben Rivas Pena, who took the SOA's elite Command and Staff Course, called for the "training and support for self-defence forces or other paramilitary organizations in Chiapas."
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The Colombian conflict is rooted in social inequalities. Between 60 and 68 percent of the population are currently living at or below the poverty line. The Bush administration's military approach has remained at the forefront of their failing strategy to "solve" the problem. The SOA-style repression that is killing thousands every year is supposed to maintain the status quo - to keep the rich powerful and the poor silent.

More:
http://www.soaw.org/article.php?id=1024