Urgent Action: Protest Disappearance of Diana Salamanca

10 November 1999
Justicia y Paz

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What you should do

  • Call and/or fax the armed actors who have a presence in the zone, so that those who have Diana in their power recognize this fact, respect her physical integrity and immediately release her.
  • Ask Colombian authorities to begin immediate search actions in the perimeter where DIANA was last seen, and encourage American authorities to request that the same be done in Colombia.
  • Ask Colombian and American authorities to investigate the reasons why the municipal administration did not fulfill its promise to pick up the peasants at agreed place and time.

Contacts

Madeleine Albright
Secretary of State
+1 (202) 647 1533

William Cohen
Department of Defense
+1 (703) 697 9080

Ambassador Curtis Kamman
+57 1 315 2163

Colonel Diego Gutierrez
XVII Brigade of the National Army Telephone:
  +57 4 823 6844
  +57 4 823-9527
  +57 4 823-9526

General Herrera Verbel
IV Brigade of the National Army
Telephone:
  +57 4 230-4411
  +57 4 230-5127

Gustavo Bell Lemus
Vice-President of the Republic
Fax:
  +57 1 286-3589

Andres Pastrana
President of the Republic
Fax:
  +57 1-5616580

Jaime Bernal Cuellar
Prosecutor General of the Nation
Fax:
  +57 1-2827614

Alfonso Gomez Mendez
Attorney General of the Nation
Fax:
  +57 1-5700200

Fernando Castro Caycedo
Defender of the People
Fax:
  +57 1-345-2300

Brigadier General Gabriel Eduardo Contreras
I Division of the National Army
Telephone:
  +57 5 423-1802
  +57 5 421-0996
  +57 5 421-0482

The Intercongregational Commission of Justice and Peace is making known to national and international human rights organisms the disappearance of DIANA SALAMANCA MARTINEZ, which occurred yesterday, November 10, in the municipality of Dabeiba, Antioquia.

Acts:

  1. DIANA SALAMANCA MARTINEZ, 22, a student of social work at the National University who, as part of her internship work, works as a volunteer with our Intercongregational Commission of Justice and Peace, accompanying forcibly displaced women and children of the village of La Balsita, provisionally settled in the municipality of Dabeiba (Antioquia), has been missing since 2:00 p.m. yesterday, November 10, 1999.
  2. At 8:00 a.m. on that day, a group of 11 members of the displaced community of the village of La Balsita, settled in the municipality of Dabeiba (Antioquia), left in the dump truck of the municipal goverment, accompanied by Diana, in search of wood for cooking. They headed toward the site known as ALTO BONITO, located approximately ‡ hour from the city, between kilometer markings 49 and 50, on the highway that leads to MUTATA.
  3. It is important to note that, before leaving the city, municipal administration officials promised the displaced community to pick them up in the afternoon, in order to guarantee their return. The officials did not fulfill this agreement.
  4. Around 2:00 p.m., DIANA, accompanied by a member of the community, left the group that was cutting wood, as they were 20 meters away from the main highway. The peasant who accompanied her returned to the site where the other persons were, leaving DIANA seated along the side of the road on a bridge marked by a red inscription that reads "209 + 719". From that moment, the peasants lost contact with DIANA.
  5. Around 3:30 p.m., an hour and a half after DIANA, the accompanier, separated from the group, when the peasants had finished their work and went to meet up with DIANA, they observed a truck with a white cab with men inside, dressed as civilians and with backpacks on their backs. An armed man dressed in blue jeans and a white shirt and carrying a backpack on his back, ran near the truck and boarded the vehicle.
  6. The group of peasants went to the bridge where she had been. When they did not see her, they initiated a search without finding her. Given this and the fact that the dump truck that the municipal administration had promised to send never returned, a peasant returned to the city of Dabeiba to inform the missionary team of our Commission about the DIANA's disappearance, while the rest of the group remained in the place trying in vain to locate her.
  7. Around 5:00 p.m., a commission comprised of members of religious communities and the displaced community left for Alto Bonito, looking for her in and around that site for over an hour, but the search for DIANA was unsuccessful. At this moment, she remains disappeared.

At this time, the following questions arise: How does one explain the municipal administration's failure to fulfill its promise about the dump truck, which should have picked up the peasants in the afternoon and did not arrive? How does one explain the presence of armed actors at the site, when the Coyara Battalion of the XVII Brigade is located 30 minutes away?

Antecedents:

  1. The Intercongregational Commission of Justice and Peace has been accompanying the displaced communities of the Village of La Balsita since the month of December 1997, one month after this population was the object of an atrocious action by paramilitary groups who, in complicity - by action or omission - with the Public Forces, obligated them to leave their land and to settle in the municipality of Dabeiba.
  2. Our Commission has denounced more than 250 assassinations and disappearances that the paramilitary groups have perpetrated, in the most absolute impunity, in the municipality of Dabeiba, during the period from mid-1996 to early 1999.
  3. Following the paramilitary actions that caused bloodshed among the civilian population in the zone, Dabeiba has been the scene of confrontation since August 1998 between the insurgency and the Army-paramilitaries, a confrontation during which the FARC have invaded the municipality on two occasions, once during the month of September 1998 and again during the month of May 1999, also leaving behind victims among the civilian population.

Requested Action:

We make a call to our fellow friends of life, asking them to:

  1. Exert pressure on the armed actors who have a presence in the zone, so that those who have DIANA in their power recognize this fact, respect her physical integrity and immediately release her.
  2. Ask Colombian authorities to begin immediate search actions in the perimeter where DIANA was last seen.
  3. Ask Colombian authorities to investigate the reasons why the municipal administration did not fulfill its promise to pick up the peasants at agreed place and time.

Intercongregational Commission of Justice and Peace

Santafe de Bogota, November 10, 1999