Message from the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, March 13, 2026
(Translated by Eunice Gibson, CSN Volunteer Translator)
Life in our region has turned into a precipitous, credulous, and somber panorama of uncertainty and permanent fear. You can see by the continual astonishment of the society that we’re crossing through a time that’s showing us the economic and military power of those who are in control, and the way they use weapons for domination, threats and killing in all sectors of society. The civilian population, especially the campesinos, are trapped in the midst of alien interests that prioritize violence over people’s lives. We are facing a government that is not legitimate, because it is really not able to control or organize the countryside. Everything remains at the mercy of the paramilitary powers that dictate rules of social behavior and decide how the campesinos are to live in this region. That imposition and control has created an environment of terror, because the legitimate governmental authorities have lost power and the people feel abandoned by institutions. They are seeing themselves obligated to obey the rules imposed by illegal actors in order to at least be able, by incredible effort, to survive.
For several months now, the paramilitaries and the current government have been putting forward a process of peace negotiations with the support of several countries as guarantors. However, day to day living in the countryside reflects a reality that’s very different from what the officials are saying. The threats of death and extermination against our Community and the people that live around here have not ceased. They have intensified their mechanisms of control, intimidation, and abuse.
Added to that is the nearly absolute and merciless domination of the campesinos’ economic projects, directly threatening their subsistence and their agricultural autonomy. The orders of the paramilitaries prohibit the campesinos from slaughtering cattle and selling their meat in the District (Corregimiento) of San José de Apartadó and all over Urabá, where slaughterhouses have functioned irregularly for a long time, not having the appropriate permits but being forced to pay extortion to the paramilitaries. This shows their extreme control of daily life and the local economy when they can order any establishment to close down.
The uncertainty about the violence appears to be endless. The strange death of alias “Gonzalito” took place a few days ago in the La Esmeralda River in Córdoba Department. It provoked the paralysis of the approaches in the negotiations with the government, as if the event was being used as an excuse or a strategy to stop the continuation of the peace dialogs.
In recent months in the Urabá region there have been a lot of different killings by methods of extreme violence and cruelty.
The events that we are reporting for the record are as follows:
In the last few days of October 2025, in the town (Vereda) of Mulatos Medio, the paramilitaries led by alias “MOFLE”, in a meeting they had with some residents, threatened to kill several members of our Peace Community in the town of Mulatos, including José Roviro López, a member of our Internal Council. They claimed they “haven’t put them down just yet because we are still in dialogs with the government (. . .) if it weren’t for those negotiations the first people we would be taking out would be the members of that sonofabitching Community.”
On Tuesday, October 28, 2025, our Community learned of the threats against us by well-known paramilitaries in a meeting they had with Sr. Luis Yair Úsuga and Sr. Braider Úsuga somewhere in Arenas Altas and they were making use of a minor child. The paramilitaries warned that they would be supporting the claims being made by the Úsuga brothers and, in relation to the Peace Community, they warned that they would have to get the Community out of the town of La Unión and out of the area. They said that anybody that wanted to defend the Community would be declared a military objective. That action adds to the disturbance of other people’s property that the Úsuga brothers are carrying out.
On Wednesday, November 5, 2025, our Community heard about the new death threats against José Roviro López, a member of our Internal Council. The paramilitaries have announced that they don’t want to see him in the Mulatos Canyon ever again.
On Friday, November 7, 2025, the Community was told by a person that lives in this region about the threats being made by the paramilitaries against a member of our Community.
On Monday, November 10, 2025, in the town of La Unión in the District of San José de Apartadó, in the inspection proceeding, the invaders uttered slanders and threats against Gildardo Tuberquia, a member of our Internal Council.
On that same Monday, November 10, 2025, we learned that Sr. Jairo de Jesús Úsuga, a campesino in the town of La Unión and the owner of part of the Palmar property, had left the region, stating that he’d rather save his life and the life of his son than remain there on his property. He had received threats that led to his displacement.
On Tuesday, November 18, 2025, in the town of Mulato Cabecera, the paramilitaries were working on building an illegal highway that is planned to go from the town of Belencito to La Unión in the Municipality of Carepa, which is where the Colombian Army’s 17th Brigade is headquartered. So these illegals are working and building empires and highways right under their noses. Are they accomplices or partners?
On Thursday, December 11, 2025, we found out about Order #09 of 2025, dated November 28 of that year from the Recognition of the Truth Branch, responsible for determining the events and actions (. . .) being investigated by the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) in the framework of macrocase 04. Although in that decision (Order) they determine the responsibility of the intellectual authors and actual actors of violence and of victimizing events that took place in the Urabá region, it looks as if the desire of the parties appearing there to not take responsibility is enormous. In this Order, we particularly note that in its paragraph 3417, it refers in this way (at the end of 1997) (without more information) two members of the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó were murdered by members of the 5th Front of the FARC-EP, accusing them of assaulting campesinos not belonging to that Community (. . .) Jhover Man Sánchez Arroyave (Ruben or Manteco) told the truth and admitted their responsibility for the event, referring to their having coordinated the perpetrators in their roles as members of the Command Staff of the 5th Front, and the responsibility of militias 4239, thus putting together the elements of direct co-authorship under the criteria established above.
What’s mentioned here in its time, place, and manner, refers to the vile murder on Monday, October 6, 1997, of three of our brothers and members of the Community: Fernando Espinosa, Fernando Aguirre, and Ramiro Correa. This last was a member of our Community’s Internal Council. Not only do they not remember that it wasn’t two, it was three that were massacred in that painful episode. And besides that, entering into the infamous, they accuse our brothers of threatening other campesinos living around here for not being part of our way of living. Our executioners are telling lies and failing in truth. Our Community and way of living has never demanded obligatory compliance with being or not being part of it. This process is voluntary, and those who have fallen, or are still standing, do that freely, holding fast to our moral and ethical convictions for our very lives. We remember our three martyrs, offering our lives in opposition to collaboration with armed actors.
On January 24, 2026, we learned once again that there are plans to file suit against us, possibly claiming that we have profaned tombs, accusations that have been repeated since 2024. Already at that time, we have been complaining publicly in the following terms: On Saturday, July 20, 2024, in the District of San José de Apartadó, they were spreading on social networks the accusation that the Peace Community had raided and exhumed human remains clandestinely in the town of La Linda in order to cash in. We had no choice but to reaffirm our principle of respect for human dignity and precisely because of that, we would never move anyone’s remains without the presence and consent of their own families, and much less do that in a clandestine manner. In the same way, we reaffirm the bold posture of our Community in never accepting the Justice and Peace Law and the reparation of victims because our dead are not merchandise that can be negotiated and they will never be junk in the market of death.
On Saturday, January 17, 2026, in the town of La Resbalosa, you could see the presence of paramilitaries coming in through the La Florida farm, the private property of our Peace Community. They had mules loaded with shipments, a total affront and violation of our rights, taking account of the fact that reposing there is a memorial to the traces of the horror that mercilessly destroyed members of our Community, including a little boy and a little girl, in the events of February 21, 2005. Seeing them march in while disrespecting our property has become their routine practice.
As of Monday, January 19, 2026, it has been 22 months since the departure of our sister Nalleli Sepúlveda and our brother Edinson David, murdered at the hands of the paramilitaries on March 19, 2024. Without any serious progress since that day to find those responsible for these lamentable events.
On Thursday, January 22, 2026, we were informed by a number of people that live around here that the paramilitaries are prohibiting the campesinos from buying, selling, or slaughtering animals that are raised for meat (cattle). Those measures are not only being imposed all over the District of San José, but also in the whole the Urabá region. In some cases, they demand that the commercial activity be registered, not just by the purchaser but also by the seller, demanding that they furnish personal information that only a competent authority can require. How many thousands of millions have they been charging with the famous “vacunas”, extortions? And now after benefiting from that all this time, they are imposing control on this commercial activity.
On that same Thursday, January 22, 2026, at about 6:00 a.m., in the Luis Eduardo Guerra Peace Village, somebody wearing dark clothing and with communication radios was prowling and snooping around in the private space that belongs to the Peace Community.
On Saturday, January 31, 2026, we were told that the paramilitaries had got the cattle ranchers in San José de Apartadó and around the region together in a meeting to establish the rules, especially reiterating the prohibition against the slaughtering and buying and selling of cattle. Starting in the beginning of the month of February 2026, people from the surrounding towns in the District of San José de Apartadó were summoned by the paramilitary commanders to attend obligatory meetings with them. There they imposed the payment of fines by certain residents who had been warned that failure to obey their orders would lead to worse consequences.
On Monday, February 9, 2026, social networks circulated the news of the murder of José Manuel Bastidas Moya, alias “José Pistola” at a place near Chigorodó. According to the authorities, he had a criminal record and an outstanding arrest warrant. You will notice that this fellow was going around right in front of the noses of the competent authorities who never arrested him and left him to take his chances with those who were governing criminal activity in Urabá. For Bastidas, days before, he was dragged out of house and later found dead with signs of torture, his murder not investigated, and his body left any old place between Chigorodó and Mutatá. In Urabá everybody knows who’s in charge and who carries out these crimes. In the same way, the social networks exposed the judgment on him with videos and photos of the victim’s body. Is the work of the police and legal agencies operational and effective in relation to the legal order in this kind of case? Or do they know and tolerate the illegal action as better than legitimate action to continue destroying lives although they’re talking peace?
On Thursday, February 19, 2026, it was 23 months since we parted from Nalelli Sepúlveda and Edinson David, murdered at the hands of the criminal paramilitaries on March 19, 2024. Their departure left a great void, but it also left us with a seed of hope and dignity that continues to flower in every corner of our Community. We have not forgotten them 23 months later and there has been no justice. Time continues to pass, and justice continues to limp.
On Saturday, February 21, 2026, we went back to the path leading to the place where 21 years ago the soldiers and the paramilitaries committed their acts of horror. We return to commemorate one more year of the absence of our comrades who were massacred with the wickedest cruelty. 21 years of memory, of recollection, of pain, but also of hoping to see our sons and daughters, to continue the path of our elders and our ancestors. They live in our memory, Santiago, Natalia, Sandra, Alfonso, Alejandro, Bellanira, Deiner, and Luis Eduardo. We continue to demand justice and the truth, even though that is a Utopia in this place.
On Tuesday, March 3, 2026, in the town of La Resbalosa, we were able to verify the presence of the well-known paramilitary, alias “Guasco”, going into the La Florida farm, the private property of our Peace Community.
On Monday, March 9, 2026, at 5:15 p.m., Officers from the Colombian Police from the police station sited in San José de Apartadó burst into the private property of our Peace Community in San Josecito with the pretext of wanting to stop commercial activities by the campesinos in the region. In spite of the fact that our Community insisted that the presence of uniformed officers on the Community property is not permitted, the agents refused to recognize those conditions and the presence of the Peace Community.
On Friday, March 13, 2026, at 9:00 a.m., at the urban part of San José, two people accosted a young campesino and told him it would be better if he left this region unless he wanted to suffer the same fate as his brother, who had been murdered some years ago by the paramilitaries.
On that same Friday, March 13, 2026, we learned from the radio and local news media about the development of a journey on the 13th and 14th of March of 2026 to verify the process of the conversations being put forward by the national government and the Gaitanista Army of Colombia (EGC). While that’s going on, the criminal activities by the paramilitaries against the civilian population do not stop.
On Friday, March 13, 2026, we are still continuing to wait for the pertinent measures and actions by the entities and competent authorities in relation to the abusive, arbitrary, and violent invasion activities that have been going on with our Community’s property, the Palmar farm in the town of La Unión. In spite of our counting on the appropriate administrative actions by the Inspector of Police, nothing effective has been done. Are they subordinate to or complicit with the invaders?
Our principles and our moral and ethical convictions of life can neither be renounced nor broken. Our clamor to humanity and to history will continue until the time that the persecution and extermination of our way of life comes to an end. At the same time, we reiterate our gratitude to those who sustain us with their moral force.
Peace Community of San José de Apartadó
March 13, 2026