WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS
ISSUE #442, JULY 19, 1998
NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339 
LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499 


*2. COLOMBIA: ARMY PARTICIPATION IN MASSACRES CONFIRMED

According to a report in the Bogota daily El Espectador, evidence
of Colombian army participation in paramilitary massacres of
civilians has emerged as part of an investigation by the attorney
general's office into massacres in Mapiripan, Puerto Asis,
Antioquia, Barrancabermeja and Puerto Alvira. At least 12 lower
ranking officers and soldiers have been arrested in connection
with the massacres; more officers are expected to be arrested
soon.

According to El Espectador, the national attorney general's
office made its first in-depth decisions on July 11 in the
Mapiripan case, ordering the army to arrest Sgt. Juan Carlos
Gamarra and Sgt. Jose Miller Urena Diaz, both of the Joaquin
Paris Battalion, for participation in the massacre, in which an
estimated 30 civilians were killed over a five-day period in mid-
July 1997 in the municipality of Mapiripan, Meta department.
(Only four of the Mapiripan victims have been identified; all
four had been decapitated.) The two sergeants have been
transferred to Bogota and are being held in Military Police
Battalion No. 13; they must appear before the National Human
Rights Unit to answer to charges of homicide and participation in
a paramilitary group. The two have reportedly already given
information about the massacres, and say they will implicate
other soldiers and commanders in the massacres.

Investigations have also revealed that two years ago the military
high commands ordered joint training of counterinsurgency
soldiers together with members of groups headed by paramilitary
leader Carlos Castano. [Agencia de Noticias Nueva Colombia
(ANNCOL) 7/12/98]

On June 18, police arrested Rene Cardenas, a paramilitary leader
considered to be close to Castano. Police believe Cardenas is one
of the possible intellectual authors of the Mapiripan massacre.
[El Colombiano (Medellin) 6/19/98]

Antioquia department governor Alberto Builes Ortega reported on
July 13 that paramilitary groups had attacked two small rural
communities in Antioquia's Sabanalarga municipality, killing nine
civilians. The remaining residents fled their homes and headed
for the municipal center. An estimated 1,500 campesinos are
believed to have been killed by paramilitaries in Colombia in the
past 18 months. [El Diario-La Prensa 7/14/98 from combined
services]

*3. COLOMBIA: REBELS AND "CIVIL SOCIETY" SIGN ACCORD IN 
GERMANY

On July 15, after three days of talks in Mainz, Germany, rebels
of the National Liberation Army (ELN) and delegates of Colombian
civil society announced the "Door of Heaven Accord," in which
they committed to hold a "National Convention" toward seeking a
permanent peace in Colombia. The 21-page document covers
military, political, economic and social aspects of the conflict
in four parts: participation of civil society; humanization of
the war; natural resources; and the National Convention. [CNN en
Espanol 7/15/98, with information from Reuter; Correo del
Magdalena (published by the ELN) II Epoca #85, 7/12-18/98]

The 40 signers of the accord represented trade union, religious,
business, government, media, civic and political sectors; they
ranged from General Prosecutor Jaime Bernal Cuellar and
Constitutional Court justice Carlos Gaviria to Aida Abella,
president of the Communist Party-affiliated Patriotic Union, and
oil workers union (USO) president Hernando Hernandez. Other
signers included El Colombiano director Ana Mercedes Gomez;
government peace adviser Jose Noe Rios; National University
rector Victor Moncayo and vice-rector Alejo Vargas; and Senator
Samuel Moreno. The country's largest leftist rebel group, the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), was not present at
the talks, but it has been explicitly invited to be part of the
National Convention.

The signers of the accord agreed to work toward a broad forum as
part of the National Convention in order to discuss the
sovereignty of natural resources, including oil, and make
recommendations to Congress and the government on the issue. The
forum is to be carried out in an area demilitarized by the
government for this purpose. "While this event is under way, the
ELN will cease its sabotage actions against oil pipelines, which
the organization admits it has been solely responsible for
carrying out," reads the accord. [Correo del Magdalena II Epoca
#85, 7/12-18/98] [The government has charged 18 USO members with
conspiring with rebels to blow up pipelines; see Update #430.]

Army commander Gen. Hugo Mario Galan said that Air Force and Army
troops killed between 20 and 25 rebels during the week of July 6
in an attack on several FARC camps in a rural zone of
Vistahermosa municipality, Meta department. The army claims only
three of its troops were injured, and said three of its
helicopters were hit by rebel fire. None of the rebels' bodies
were recovered by the army. [El Diario-La Prensa 7/14/98 from
combined services]

The guerrillas also appear to be continuing military operations.
On July 16, the FARC ambushed a police patrol in the northern
town of Manaure; one police agent and one rebel were reportedly
killed, and six agents were wounded. Also on July 16, FARC rebels
set off a bomb at the mayor's office in the central town of
Sasaima, leaving four people injured; and kidnapped nine people
at a roadblock in Yarumal in northwestern Colombia. In Hispania,
Antioquia department, the ELN dynamited the farm of Senator Mario
Uribe Escobar because he refused to pay protection fees. [Diario
Expreso (Ecuador) 7/18/98 from EFE, Reuter]

On July 18 several hundred people, most of them Colombians
resident in the New York City area, took part in an "Act of Love
for Peace in Colombia," a non-partisan march and rally in Queens,
organized by a group calling itself the Comite de Solidaridad con
la Paz (Committee of Solidarity with Peace). Participants ranged
from conservative businesspeople to leftist activists to members
of evangelical Christian churches to Boy Scouts; they carried
Colombian flags (the Boy Scout contingent also carried a US
flag), banners, signs (including some signs protesting US
involvement in Colombia's counterinsurgency war) and balloons
down 34th Avenue, a quiet residential street in the Queens
neighborhood of Jackson Heights, home to many Colombian
immigrants. Participants signed a letter calling for peace which
was to be sent to Colombia, and children at the rally painted a
giant paper mural for peace. The event was unusual because it was
the first non-partisan action in years to successfully draw
participants from a diverse representation of the Colombian
community in New York. [Eyewitness report 7/19/98]