The following account is based on a series of diary entries, interviews and personal recollections about the events of February 2005 in the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, Colombia.
It is the end of another sweltering February day for two North Americans and one Brit providing international human rights accompaniment in a conflict zone in northwest Colombia. The deck on the back of our house faces the mountainous jungle of Urabá, one of Colombia’s most beautiful and conflicted regions. The Fifth Front of Colombia’s oldest left-wing insurgency, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), has a historical presence in the mountains above us. The Banana and Elmer Cardenas blocs of the right-wing paramilitaries, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), control the city of Apartadó below. The only way out is a horrible mess of a bumpy dirt road monitored by a checkpoint of the 17th Brigade of the Colombian army. We are smack in the middle of the two zones, within the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, a population targeted by all armed actors since 1997 when it took a neutral stance in Colombia’s brutal civil war. Once it decided not to take up arms, collaborate or share information with any armed group, the community became suspect to all.
The Peace Community, which is located in the municipality of Apartadó but over an hour away from the city proper, occupies a strategic geographic location in Colombia’s unfolding war. It sits in the heart of Urabá, which spans from the Panamanian border to the Abibe Mountains, and stretches from the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean Sea in the country’s northwestern-most tip. Despite the leafy green expanse of banana plantations, the Peace Community also occupies virgin land—agriculturally unexploited and politically ungoverned—making it an optimal area for the transport of arms, soldiers and drugs into and out of Colombia.
According to a city official, the rows of businesses in downtown Apartadó that sell electronics—at prices out of reach for the average worker—actually survive on drug money, even though Urabá is not known for illicit cultivation. As another city official explained, laughing, “The guerrillas move in the mountains up there, but the paramilitaries are right outside my office on the sidewalk.” While there is sporadic combat between guerrillas, paramilitaries and the Colombian army, each group regularly terrorizes civilians.
As accompaniers with the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), a U.S.-based interfaith NGO committed to nonviolence, we act as the eyes and ears of the international community with the goal of dissuading armed groups from attacking civilians. But in February 2005, the limits of our protective accompaniment soon became painfully clear.
On sunday, february 20, 2005, as we ate our favorite fresh-picked oranges atop a nearby hill, we spotted helicopters flying overhead. The local radio station, Radio Caracol, announced the killing of a FARC militiaman by the military in Las Nieves, two hours walking distance from us. Something—we couldn’t tell exactly what—was clearly happening nearby.
Three days later on Wednesday—incidentally, the day I am to end my accompaniment term—a trio of campesinos arrives at our house. They are representatives of the Peace Community.
The look on their faces is grim. “We have bad news,” one announces.
“We have received information that there was a massacre of eight people in La Resbaloza and we think that Peace Community leader Luis Eduardo, his 11-year-old son Deiner and Rigo’s sister Bellanira are dead.”
Rigo (not his real name) stands on our deck, facing the mountains.
“A survivor says it was the military. We request accompaniment down the mountain into the village center for an emergency meeting with the community. We can only be certain if we go find the bodies ourselves. If the community is in accordance, we will be requesting accompaniment for that too.”
Two of us pack overnight bags, grab a satellite telephone and leave with the three men. One of us stays behind to send an emergency report to our main office in the United States. We make the one-and-a-half-hour hike down the mountain in silence.
When we reach the village of San José, people are already gathered under a wood and coconut leaf kiosk. The leaders speak.
“We need a show of hands of those who will help look for the bodies of our loved ones,” one of them says.
Hands go up, one by one—women, men, even little children throw their hands up.
“Then we will leave Friday morning as the verification commission to find the bodies. Pack food and water. We don’t know how long we will be searching.”
I begin to keep a log the day we depart.
Friday, February 25, 2005
Early morning, it was still dark out. The thought of what we might find out there in the now quiet and rested mountains was making me nauseous. Community members set out into the green jungle with only a banner identifying them as the Peace Community. We were a caravan of over 100 community members and five internationals trudging through mud and wild plant life.
We hiked seven hours, most of it uphill. Somehow my burning legs kept moving. We finally arrived at the house of Alfonzo Bolívar Tuberquia. Bolívar, as they called him, was one of the men presumably killed in the massacre along with his wife, 18-month-old son, 6-year-old daughter and a young work companion.
We walked to the front of his open wooden house. Inside, shoes and clothing were strewn throughout, and there were clear signs of a violent encounter. In the main room and in the kitchen, there were big pools of dried blood and little bloody footprints. It was obvious that something dreadful had happened.
On the back wall of the house, bullet holes allowed a few rays of light to seep into the otherwise dark and gloomy room. A sign written in charcoal across the side of the house read, “Murder by POKE AUC.” I didn’t know what POKE stood for, but I knew well that the AUC were the paramilitaries.
Army soldiers arrived. My teammate and I accompanied a Peace Community leader to talk with Commander Gordillo of the Vélez Battalion, 17th Brigade. I introduced myself and informed him that following behind me were more than 100 Peace Community members and five internationals from three different NGOs representing the United States, Britain, Canada, Spain and France. We went to the site of what looked like graves in a cocao field about 40 yards from Bolívar’s house. An investigative and forensics unit of the government’s Attorney General, Prosecutor General and Ombudsman’s offices arrived and began the exhumation. One of the investigators picked up a machete from the ground. My teammate pointed out that he was handling evidence without gloves. He responded, enraged: “You made me contaminate the site because you are seated so close to the evidence. I thought the machete was yours!” His demeanor shocked us.
As they dug deeper into the damp earth, a pungent stench wafted out and grew stronger. I had never smelled anything like it. The first thing the officials pulled out of the grave was an adult torso, dismembered and disemboweled. After a second adult torso, came the body of a young child, the 6-year-old girl. Soldiers of the 17th Brigade, sitting behind me, were laughing.
They informed us that there were only five bodies in the graves, so the Peace Community asked for accompaniment to find the others. We walked another hour back toward a nearby hamlet and finally found three bodies on a path inland, off a river. They were out in the open. There he was, Luis Eduardo, Peace Community leader, face down in the earth. Alongside him was his partner, Rigo’s sister Bellanira, and sprawled next to her was Deiner, Luis Eduardo’s son. Their bodies were too brutalized for words.
Those who had remained at the exhumation site finally arrived. I spoke with my fellow accompaniers from Peace Brigades International and Concern America. They told me that as they left the first site after the exhumation was complete, military soldiers of the 17th Brigade were taking pictures of themselves making victory signs outside of Bolívar’s house. The investigative unit had also neglected important evidence at the house like bullet shells and bloody boots. We sat in disbelief. An eerie sensation filled the air as we found ourselves in the middle of the now pitch-dark jungle, preparing to sleep.
Saturday, February 26, 2005
Peace Community members, their legal counsel Corporación Jurídica Libertad and Colombian journalist Jesús Abad Colorado remained near the body of Luis Eduardo. Some military and police soldiers arrived and did the unthinkable. A soldier picked up a blood-covered machete and washed it off in the river with water and sand, saying that the knife had been used to slit throats. He then walked off with the evidence as people stood watching, helpless. The community members immediately notified the commanders.
Sunday, February 27, 2005
A group of community members and Jesús, the journalist, went out to look for other members of Luis Eduardo’s family who had not accompanied him to work the day of the massacre. When they arrived at their home, they found the house surrounded by soldiers of the 17th Brigade’s 33rd battalion with three family members—two women and an infant—inside, along with a male neighbor. There was graffiti on the walls that read, “33rd Battalion: your worst nightmare.” Jesús asked a soldier on what day they had arrived at the house, to which he replied Monday, February 21. In the frightening six days the family was being held, the soldiers of the 17th Brigade admitted to the killings of Luis Eduardo, Bellanira, Deiner and Bolivar, never thinking that a group of Peace Community members and a journalist would show up looking for them in the middle of the jungle. The Peace Community’s commission collected all the families in the area to walk down to San José. As they were leaving, they noticed that the soldiers had already wiped the graffiti off the walls.
Monday, February 28, 2005
Everybody was back in San José. The community buried the bodies. Hundreds of people gathered. Men, women and children stood like zombies, others screamed and cried. One woman cried in such agonizing despair that it was unbearable to watch; another looked possessed as she jabbed at the earth with her machete in a hypnotizing sway. I remembered once seeing a nine-page document listing over 500 attacks against the community in the last 10 years. Under the column titled “responsible,” it read “Military. Military. Paramilitary. Military and paramilitary. Military. Guerrilla. Military. Military.”
Tuesday, March 1, 2005
Another commission was set up by the community to look for families in the neighboring hamlets of La Esperanza and Las Nieves. My teammates provided accompaniment. Five people emerged in Las Nieves who had been in hiding since Saturday, February 19. They said that military soldiers and two hooded men had come to their house ordering them to come out. They ran out through a back door, down a trail, then up into the mountains. As they ran, they heard a soldier tell the others not to shoot because it would “spoil the plan.” When my teammates found them, they had been in hiding for 11 days and had almost reached the point of starvation. They knew nothing of the massacre.
Peace community leaders left san José with one of Luis Eduardo’s relatives who had been held by army soldiers for six days. They traveled to Bogotá and spoke to representatives of various international embassies about what happened. I caught up with them there and spoke with the family member:
“Can you tell me when and how all of this started?” I ask.
“The operation started on February 19 … they passed from Las Nieves and arrived to El Barro [near the location of Luis Eduardo’s body] on Monday [February 21] at 2 p.m.”
“Who arrived?” I ask.
“The military.”
“How do you know they were military?”
“Because my daughter reads and she read that they were military,” she said touching her shirt where the military insignia is written. “There were also others with rubber boots on for the mud. Eduardo went to work that Monday at 8 a.m. and he never returned. One of the soldiers asked me if I knew who Luis Eduardo was, and I said yes…. The soldier said that he was going to tell me what happened to him, but not to tell anyone. I said okay. The soldier told me that they had killed Luis Eduardo.”
“That they had killed him?”
“Yes. He said, ‘We killed him over there heading towards Cantarrana. We killed him.’”
“Who said this?” I ask again to clarify.
“A soldier. He arrived again Tuesday [February 22] in the morning around 7 a.m. and said that they had killed him alongside his woman and a boy … he asked me if I knew who Alfonso [Bolívar] Tuberquia was and I said yes, and he told me that they killed him in La Resbaloza…. I didn’t say anything to him. Then they started writing on the walls and there they put the name of the military, 33…. On Sunday the community came to get us.”
“You said that there were military soldiers there and that there were also others who had rubber boots. You don’t think that they were military?”
“No, they were paramilitary.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because one is accustomed to them working together. They said that they were going to finish off the San José community family by family … that they are going to do a cleansing family by family.”
Only days after the massacre and before an official investigation had even begun, Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos said that his government had proof that the FARC committed the massacre. Not one word of sympathy was uttered for the surviving Peace Community members. A few weeks later, President Álvaro Uribe declared that the community of San José and its defenders (meaning people like me) were FARC supporters, a statement that put the community in direct danger of being attacked by the paramilitaries.
I continue to have thoughts of the late Luis Eduardo, a man whom I first started accompanying six months earlier. Though from a humble campesino upbringing, he was an extremely articulate and learned man. He always encouraged our teammates to speak confidently through our frequent Spanish mispronunciations. He was the community’s representative when meeting with Colombian government officials. Since he had met with Vice President Santos on several occasions, I was even more shocked at the Administration’s hostility toward the community.
The Colombian Ministry of Defense published a statement on its Web site declaring that no military unit was in the region at the time of the massacre, which it states occurred Tuesday, February 22, 2005. The site includes a map claiming that the only units in the area were more than two days walking distance from the site of the murders.
In fact, the soldiers were clearly all over the region at no more than a few hours walking distance on the days before, during and after the massacre. Witnesses’ testimonies corroborate that the massacre occurred on February 21. What’s more, it was just a day before the massacre that Radio Caracol announced the killing by military units of the FARC militiaman in Las Nieves—no more than four hours from Bolívar’s house—the same day we noticed the helicopters fly overhead while we ate the fresh-picked oranges. Las Nieves was also the hamlet where my teammates found the people in hiding whom had fled from the military. And according to the military soldier who spoke with Jesús, Luis Eduardo’s family members had been held in their house since February 21. The Defense Ministry’s maps say the troops were supposedly more than two days walking distance from the massacres, but I was even farther away from the massacre sites, and when I set out with the verification commission to find the bodies, we arrived only seven hours later.
Soon after the government’s denials, an article appeared in the daily El Tiempo headlined, “More than One Contradiction in the Versions of the San José Slaughter.” In reference to the killing of the FARC militiaman in Las Nieves, the author notes that while the military denies being in the area, the hospital in Apartadó confirmed that a soldier of the 33rd Battalion of the 17th Brigade and a 4-year-old girl were brought in wounded the day before the massacre, along with the corpse of a man who was the dead FARC militiaman. Curiously, the same soldier appears on a list of soldiers wounded and killed in combat on Saturday, February 19 in a totally different region of Colombia.
I remembered watching the helicopters going back and forth into Apartadó that Sunday and suddenly recalled that I had it recorded on videotape. I took the tape to be examined by a military expert, who said the helicopter was undoubtedly a UH-60 Blackhawk, a U.S.-manufactured helicopter used by the Colombian military.
My teammates in Colombia then met with U.S. Embassy officials and asked about the helicopters. They got no response. Days later, a military official called to say that such information was classified.
In the weeks and months that followed, I visited dozens of offices of members of the U.S. Congress, the Department of State and international embassies. Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy’s aide Tim Rieser pursued the story and convinced me to attend a meeting with Colombian Vice President Santos in Washington, D.C.
Since witnesses are too scared to testify before the Colombian government, FOR agreed that it was important for Santos to hear what I had observed and what had been told to me by other witnesses. At the meeting, Santos listened to every word. And while he had initially blamed the FARC, this time he backtracked.
“I am now more confused than I was before. We are not totally blocking out the possibility that it was the Colombian military. I hope it wasn’t the military. We will do everything we can to make the kind of environment necessary for witnesses to come forward.” It was April 26, 2005.
I later learned that President Uribe, against the will of the Peace Community and in disregard of its stance against an armed presence, sent the National Police to establish a post in San José de Apartadó. Soon, I began hearing of policemen threatening Peace Community members, and as the community predicted, the police post was attacked by the FARC and civilians were forced to endure a five-hour shootout. A few weeks later an old man was found dead. The community members feel no safer with the police post than they did before.
A year has passed since the brutal February 21 massacre of eight Peace Community members, yet the Attorney General’s office has not issued a report. The commander of the 17th Brigade at the time of the massacre, General Héctor Fandiño, was relieved of duty, though for reasons unrelated to the events in San José. He was then promoted into the Army’s High Command. The Colombian army continues to blame the FARC.
The small community of about 1,500 campesinos has lost over 160 people to killings and disappearances in the past eight years. The Colombian government has never found one person guilty of any of these crimes. Despite the community’s sense of betrayal, anger and fear, they continue to resist Colombia’s war, unarmed.
About the Author
Renata Rendón, a former human rights accompanier in Colombia, is an intern in the Americas division of Amnesty International.
