By Sara Valentina Quevedo Delgado, EL TIEMPO, November 11, 2024
(Translated by Eunice Gibson, CSN Volunteer Translator)
In a hearing that lasted four days, the JEP considered the relationships between government officials and the paramilitaries, in association with some members of Ecopetrol (Colombian Petroleum Co.).
For four days, and in front of 50 victims, it heard people connected to or responsible for the “paramilitary takeover” of Barrancabermeja. The hearing is part of its investigations in Macrocase 08, investigating crimes committed by Colombia’s Armed Forces or agents of the government in association with paramilitary groups or civilian third parties. All those who appeared revealed a relationship between the massacres and officials of Ecopetrol.
The hearing was held by the JEP’s Recognitions Branch and was presided over by Justice Catalina Díaz Gómez. One of those summoned to appear on the witness stand was Jhon Alexander Vásquez, known as “Pepo”, a paramilitary from the Campesino Self-Defense Forces of Santander and the southern part of César. At that same time, he was connected with the government company, Ecopetrol.
This witness provided testimony about the workings of the connection between the Counterguerrilla Battalion No. 5, responsible for the Barrancabermeja refinery, and the paras. According to his testimony, he was the one who coordinated the incursion of the Self-Defense Forces into the petroleum port on February 28, 1999, which ended up in the massacre of eight people and the forced disappearance of two more.
Vásquez also told how he received payments in exchange for illegally recording the union meetings of the Ecopetrol Laborers Union. The wiretapping was apparently ordered by the company’s Assistant Director of Security, a retired Army captain.
As a result of that wiretapping, the paramilitaries were able to obtain a list that included the names of several union officers in the city, who were declared military objectives. The dots were connected, because the next day, they would be showing “Pepo” his role, which was to kill Rafael Jaimes Torra, one of the threatened leaders.
Retired Major Oswaldo Prado Escobar
Another person who appeared at the hearing was Retired Major Oswaldo Prado Escobar, the Intelligence Chief of the Nueva Granada Artillery Battalion between June, 1997, and July, 1998.
The soldier described the criminal framework agreed upon between his Battalion and the paramilitaries for the planning, execution, and cover-ups of the massacre of May 16, 1998. On that day, 25 people were forcibly disappeared, and seven were murdered. Fourteen of them are still being searched for by their families.
The incursion took place thanks to the coordination with the Armed Forces so that the military checkpoints in the northeastern neighborhoods and the outskirts of the city, allowed the armed men to enter.
One of the leaders of the takeover, in fact, was a demobilized guerrilla who had been protected by the Battalion for days, and by the Retired Major’s order, he was allowed to participate in the massacre.
The military was also responsible for covering up the crime. The witness recounted in detail how the command staff was deaf to the complaints of the families of the victims and of those who were disappeared who came to them that same night, begging for answers. Nor did they give them any information in the next few days to help them undertake their search. That task is the one that the JEP is helping with now.
Magdalena Medio sub-case
Those two pieces of testimony are part of the Magdalena Medio sub-case, in which 200 victims have been accredited by the JEP and have participated in the criminal investigations. Seven entities have also been accredited: The Ecopotrol Labor Union (USO), the Regional Corporation for the Defense of Human Rights, (CREDHOS), the May 16 Collective, the campesino association ACVC, and the campesino communities of Guayabo, Ciénaga del Opón, and Carmen de Chucurí.
As of now, the Recognitions Branch in this investigation has conducted a total of 20 hearings in which sworn testimony was taken.