By Jorge Espinosa, CAMBIOColombia, December 29, 2024
https://cambiocolombia.com/puntos-de-vista/detalles-desconocidos-de-la-escombrera
(Translated by Eunice Gibson, CSN Volunteer Translator)
“The JEP and the Unit Searching for Disappeared Persons have found the first bony remains at La Escombrera in Medellín’s 3rd Ward,” reads the headline in the press conference by the Special Jurisdiction for Peace last December 18. Next, emphasizing the essential role of the victims, they reminded us that “for decades, mothers, fathers, wives, and children have been insisting on the necessity of taking action at a location that is very complicated to search. Today their petitions have found a concrete answer.” As the days went by, we have been learning not just about the complicated forensic technology behind the discoveries, but also some other details about the context that are making clear the horror that was experienced there. Justice Gustavo Salazar of the JEP, one of those in charge of the search for the disappeared, explains that the bones are those of persons who died between 2002 and 2004. We already know what happened in those years in Antioquia and, specifically, in Medellín.
Right now, this columnist can confirm that testimony from persons that are appearing before the JEP has indicated that the guides to Operation Orion were part of paramilitary organizations, and that they came from the 4th Brigade in Medellín. That fact, unrecognized up till now, not only demonstrates the complicity of members of Colombia’s Armed Forces with paramilitary groups to advance a military operation that ex-President Álvaro Uribe Vélez continues to defend, but also demonstrates the importance of the persistence of the families that were searching. They had spent years begging for someone to take them seriously. At that time, in October of 2002, the leaders of Operation Orion were General Mario Montoya, the Commander of the 4th Brigade, and Commander of Medellín’s Metropolitan Police, General Leonardo Gallego Castrellón.
Both of them, who have been summoned by the JEP to testify in this case, have said repeatedly that Orion was directed against “the guerrillas, the illegal Self-Defense Forces, and common criminals.” If that’s the way it was, if it was about combating the “illegal Self-Defense Forces”, how do the generals explain that after Operation Orion, they created a paramilitary base in the area of La Escombrera and that it was active for nearly a year? Not only that, this paramilitary base was located some 150 meters from the location of the human remains that were just discovered and reported by the JEP and the Unit for the Search for Disappeared Persons this last December 18. Let’s not forget that in 2020, several human rights organizations turned over to the JEP a report titled “The ‘most effective’ Brigade; the crimes by the 4th Brigade under Democratic Security and Plan Colombia, (2002 and 2003)” The report documented 111 cases that generated the chilling statistic of 232 extrajudicial executions. Of those, 40 appeared to be of minors and 32 still have not been identified.
This is not just a simple piece of statistical data. It’s the verification by other sources. It’s the systematic homicides. performed by some Brigades of the Colombian Army, and also of the influence that Democratic Security and Plan Colombia had in those homicides. Perhaps the name that’s repeated most often in all of this is the name of General Mario Montoya, who, between denialism and cynicism, has said things like that the extrajudicial executions, if any existed, can certainly be explained, because boys from the poorer classes, when they get into the Army, they don’t even know how to use a knife and fork. Another issue that has to be examined in detail in 2025 is why military operations like Orion, Mariscal, and others were never investigated by the ordinary justice system.
If it were not for the JEP and the Unit for the Search for Disappeared Persons, as well as the mothers who have been searching, we certainly would not be able to understand or digest what happened in Medellín’s 13th Ward. In the months to come, La Escombrera will look us in the face and ask us how we allowed these horrors to take place and why there are still those who, in spite of the accumulated evidence, insist on defending these military operations.