Colombia Support Network

A MEMORY:

     NO ONE SHOULD EVER FORGET THAT WE ARE PART OF  YOUR HISTORY
 
              
 
On 23rd January this year we mark the anniversary of a massacre in the year 2000 in   Finca    La Galleta   which lies within     the municipality of Montebello in the department of      A n t i o q u i a  in the   R e p u b l i c    of    C o l o m b i a.  The perpetrators were members of an armoured group, Juan de Corral, part of the Fourth Brigade  of the Colombian Army, whose headquarters were in Medellin..                       
 
 
                                                                                                    CONTENTS:
 
1. The massacre
2. Why we should remember
3. What we demand from the Colombian state
4. What we ask of the international community
5. Poem: ³Hace siete anos².

 THE MASSACRE                                                               
At 6.30 am on Sunday 7th January 2000 a large body of heavily armed troops entered the territory of Finca La Galleta and seized:    J O S E   E V E L I O   G A L L O   G A L L O  and   U B E R N E Y   G I R A L D O   C A S T R O ,  who with seven co-workers were developing the Production  Project in an area of 244 hectares in Finca la Galleta;    W I L F R E D O   C A N A V E R A L, son of the President  of Community Action in the area;   A D O L F O   P A R R A   L O N D O, teacher in the rural school;    J O H N   J A I R O   M U N O Z   Z A P A T A ,;      J A I R O   H E R N A N D O   S A N C H E Z   G I L, son of one of the co-workers.     

A soldier showed Jairo Hernando a list with the names of the seven co-workers and demanded to know where they could be found.  He replied that, since it was Sunday, they would be in Medellin.  He and John Jairo were then freed and told, ³Don¹t leave the region and remember: you¹ve seen nothing.  We¹re going to kill the other four.² In fact, on leaving the Finca the soldiers killed Senor Parra, the schoolteacher, firing three shots into his head after cruelly torturing him.  They took the other three men with them.

On the following day, Monday 24th January, the body of Wilfredo Canaveral was found 120 kilometres away. On the 25th ,  newspapers and television news carried a press release put out by the Fourth Brigade saying that the bodies of two unidentified ELN guerrillas ­ killed trying to blow up a power station ­ had been put in the mortuary  at  Carmen de Viboral. The bodies, in fact, were those of    J O S E   E V E L I O   G A L L O   G A L L O   and    U B E R N E Y   G I R A L D O   C A S T R O .

When this ruse by the Military was discovered by the colleagues of   G a l l o   G a l l o   y   G i r a l d o   C a s t r o , soldiers with two lorries and a dumper truck  raided the mortuary at one o¹clock in the morning of Wednesday 26th January and stole the bodies in a desperate and vain attempt to get rid of the evidence.

However, in their desperate attempt to destroy the evidence by removing the bodies the Military forgot that from 25th January the office of the Attorney General of Antioquia had records of the postmortem examination and photographs of the bodies of G a l l o   G a l l o   y   G i r a l d o   C a s t r o .   To this very day the bodies have not been found again.

Although 40 soldiers carried out the raid on at Finca La Galleta, only two men of junior rank were eventually imprisoned for it, each of them sentenced to 40 years. None of the others who planned or carried out the raid have been sentenced ­ all have total immunity.

Two months later, on 23rd March, soldiers of the Fourth Brigade, this time from the Pedro Nel Ospina battalion, entered  Finca La Galleta, pretending they had had a clash with guerrillas.  They placed long-range weapons, grenades and dynamite in the houses and then claimed that these belonged to the inhabitants.  Then they seized 40 peasants from the region who worked in the Finca,   among them  J A I R O   H E R N A N D O   S A N C H E Z   and   A N T O N I O   S E R N A,  and made them march in single file while abusing and insulting them.  

After these repeated outrages and threats the peasants, headed by   S a n c h e z   G i l   y   A n t o n i o   S e r n a, went to the legal offices of the Municipio of Santa Barbara and asked for protection.  Some days later, in those offices and in front of representatives of the Municipio, an agreement was made between the Military and the peasants in which the Military guaranteed to respect the peasants of the Finca and provide them with protection.  Among those signing the agreement were    J A I R O   H E R N A N D O   S A N C H E Z   G I L  and    A N T O N I O   S E R N A .

Months later,    J A I R O   H E R N A N D O  was forced to flee. On his later return to the Finca, he was detained by heavily armed uniformed men and today the name    J A I R O   H E R N A N D O   S A N C H E Z   G I L  appears on the list of the more than 7000  people in Colombia who have been ³Arrested and Disappeared².

A N T O N I O   S E R N A    and others who signed that agreement have been victims of targeted assassinations, in some of which as many as four and six and nine peasants have died.  Since 23rd January 2000 almost 40 peasants have been killed, including witnesses and their relatives and others who were present when the agreement was signed. All of these cases are covered by the cloak of impunity.

And because of these events, the rest of us who worked there were forced to leave and to this day we have not returned to the Finca.  Faced with threats, we took refuge in other countries and a few suffered the consequences of being uprooted within our own country.

2. The reason why we have to remember what happened on 23rd January and in the following months is so that our comrades who were murdered and disappeared live always in our minds and are never forgotten and such deeds must never be repeated in our country.

3. Given its direct and clearly established  responsibility for the massacre carried out by its military forces, we demand from the Colombian state that the truth of what happened at Finca La Galleta be revealed, that the names of all those who planned and perpetrated it be made known, that those responsible be punished, and that the bodies of  J O S E   E V E L I O   G A L L O     G A L L O ,   U B E R N E Y   G I R A L D O   C A S T R O   and    J A I R O   H E R N A N D O   S A N C H E Z   G I L  be returned to us for Christian burial.

We demand also that the    S u p e r i o r      T r i b u n a l   of   A n t i o q u i a  speed up the Administrative actions  against the Colombian state in favour of those who were killed or disappeared and in favour of those from the Finca who were forcibly displaced and of their legitimate and natural heirs.

4. Of the international community and in particular of  those countries who were guarantors of the agreements signed on 9 April 1994 between the Republic of Colombia and the CRS, we make the following request: that they press the Colombian authorities to comply with our demands and to answer for the violation of those agreements, now that it is clear that the authorities were directly responsible for the massacre and  for a breach of good faith, and must acknowledge responsibility for them.

5 .    P O E M  :
                                                                                         H A C E   S I E T E   A ‹ O S
                                                                                        ( P o e t :     A l i c i a   S a l i n a s )
 
                                                                                         H a c e   s i e t e   a no s   q u e   e s t a m o s
                                                                                           s i n t i e n d o   e s t o
                                                                                        q u e   h o y   n o s   i n v a d e .
                                                                                        H a c e   s i e t e   a no s   q u e   a   l a   v i d a   l a
                                                                                        r e v i s a m o s
                                                                                         L a   i n c r e p a m o s
                                                                                         L a   a m a m o s .
                                                                                         H a c e   s i e t e   a n o s   q u e   n o   p i s a n   l a s
                                                                                          b a l d o s a s
                                                                                        D e   e s t a s   c a s a s
                                                                                         e s o s   h o m b r e s   o b l i g a d o s   a   p a r t i r
                                                                                         s i n   e l   c o n s e n t i m i e n t o   d e   a q u e l
                                                                                          p a is  q u e   h a b i t a b a m o s   t o d o s .
   

                                                                                      
                                                                                        H a c e   s i e t e   a n o s   q u e   m u c h o s
                                                                                        n o   l l e g a n   a   s u s   c a s a s
                                                                                        n o   g o l p e a n   l a s   p u e r t a s   d e   s u s
                                                                                         c a s a s
                                                                                         n o   b e s a n   a   s u s   h i j o s .

 
                                                                                       H i j o s   e   h i j a s   q u e   h a n   v i v i d o   p o r
                                                                                        s i e t e   a n o s
                                                                                      h u e f a n o s   d e   a b r a z o s .
                                                                                       S i n   e m b a r g o   e n   e s t o s   s i e t e   a no s   h a
                                                                                       p a s a d o   t a n t o

 
                                                                                     H e m o s   p a r i d o
                                                                                     h e m o s   a m a d o   c a d a   s e g u n d o
                                                                                     n o s   h a   d o l i d o   c a d a   m i n u t o .
                                                                                     C a d a   a l m a   q u e   n o   e s t ·
                                                                                     h a   t a p i z a d o   n u e s t r a   m e m o r i a .
                                                                                   Y   a q u Ì   e s t a m o s
                                                                                   d e s p u e s   d e   e s t o s   a n o s
                                                                                   c o n   l o s   o j o s   m o j a d o s
                                                                                   v i e n d o   c r e c e r   a   l o s   n u e s t r o s   y   a   l a s
                                                                                   n u e s t r a s .

 TRANSLATION                                                                           

 SEVEN YEARS AGO
For seven years we¹ve felt this way,
The feeling which fills us today.
For seven  years we¹ve been
Going over what¹s happened,
Angry at life, loving life.
For seven years they haven¹t  walked the floors
Of their  houses, those men forced unwillingly
To leave the land where we lived.

For seven years, there have been many
Who don¹t come home, don¹t knock their doors
Don¹t kiss their children.

For seven years
Sons and daughters have lived
Orphaned from the arms of their fathers.
Yet in those seven years
So much has happened.

We¹ve given birth,
We¹ve loved every second,
We¹ve hated every minute.
Every absent soul has filled our memory.
And here we are now:
After all those years,
With tear-filled eyes,
We watch our children grow.

SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED,
SEVEN YEARS HAVE GONE BY
– AND YET SO LITTLE HAS HAPPENED.
 
 
22nd January l   2 0 0 7
 
Fraternally :
 
L e o n e l   S a n c h e z   R i v e r a
Companion  and    father     of   J a i r o   H e r n a n d o   S an c h e z   G i l
Arrested and disappeared in   F i nca   L a   G a l l e t a .