By Alejandra Bonilla Mora, CAMBIOColombia, January 12, 2025
https://cambiocolombia.com/poder/historico-acuerdo-comunidad-de-paz-apartado-estado-colombiano
(Translated by Eunice Gibson, CSN Volunteer Translator)
CAMBIO here reveals the details of an amicable solution reached by the representatives of the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó—which is neutral toward all of the actors of the conflict, ever since 1987—and the Colombian government. With the acceptance of international responsibility for multiple violations of human rights, and of specific commitments, they are trying to end a lawsuit in the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (CIDH in Spanish) which goes back to 2008.
The Colombian government will perform a public act to recognize its international responsibility for the multiple violations of human rights committed by action or omission against the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó since its creation in 1997.
This is the first step in an unprecedented agreement that was signed on December 18, 2024, between the Community and the National Agency for the Legal Defense of the Government (ANDJE in Spanish) in the framework of a lawsuit that goes back to 2008 in the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights.
CAMBIO haslearned the details of the agreement for an amicable solution, as that is called technically. It includes measures for collective reparation, the creation of an independent commission to evaluate the criminal investigations of human rights violations exercised against members of the Peace Community, and the commitment by the Attorney General’s Office to assign more prosecutors to the area.
But, beyond the details, the agreement can only be described as historic.
Resistance in the midst of war
It’s historic because of everything that surrounds it. This is a campesino community located right in the middle of the armed actions that were going on in Antioquia in March of 1997, declaring themselves to be neutral in relation to all the actors in the conflict. Thus, the Community, in what is now an example to the world, made it clear that the war was not their war, and they would not collaborate with anyone violent, including agencies of the government.
But the members, and the Community as a collective entity, have been the victims of innumerable acts of violence. For that reason, since December of 1997, they have been the subject of a provisional remedy for their protection, ordered by the CIDH, and since October of 2000, of provisional remedies ordered by the Inter-American Court for Human Rights (Court-IDH).
Even though those measures were reiterated on multiple occasions, most recently in 2018, that has not succeeded in slowing the threats, executions, disappearances, sexual violence, complaints of homicide, and paramilitary violence carried out jointly—according to the Community—with the Armed Forces of Colombia.
One of the episodes that the Community pointed out occurred in 2005, the torture, homicide, and dismemberment of eight people, including three children, in the towns of Mulatos, in Apartadó, and La Resbalosa in Tierralta, Córdoba Department. It was perpetrated by the paramilitaries, Héroes de Tolová Bloc, led by Don Berna, and with the connivance of the military. (Several members of the military have been convicted in the ordinary criminal justice system, and some of them have been summoned to the JEP).
Days later, then-President Álvaro Uribe insisted that it appeared that members of the Community were helping the guerrillas. That not only stigmatized the Community, but in a 2012 legal action, the Constitutional Court ordered the government to beg pardon.
This action of begging pardon was attempted in 2013 by then- President Juan Manuel Santos, but it was not well received by the Community, as they had learned about it from the news media. Up to now, in spite of decisions by the Council of State, and attempts to perform the act, the Colombian government has not performed a public act of begging pardon that could satisfy the victims’ rights. Thus, this agreement for reparation has additional importance.
The petition
To be able to understand this amicable solution, it has to be made clear that in 2008, the representatives of the Peace Community (Their first representative was CEJIL, a human rights organization for Latin America, and later it was Fr. Javier Giraldo.) first filed a petition with the CIDH, complaining of the constant acts of violence that they were suffering from 1997 to 2000. That complaint was filed when they already had the provisional protective remedies from the IDH Court. Those had been issued in extremely serious and urgent cases. Compliance in such cases is obligatory.
In December of 2016, the CIDH accepted that complaint. Ever since then, the Peace Community has sent updated reports of acts of violence, and in 2018, it furnished a comprehensive record of observations in the case. The report was answered by the Colombian government during the administration of Iván Duque.
CAMBIO was able to learn that in the administration’s response the events of violence were not denied, but the response emphasized that there were internal procedures in Colombian law to attend to the situation, and that there were multiple entities that could carry that out.
In July of 2024, during a hearing to which the CIDH had summoned the government, represented by the National Agency for the Legal Defense of the Government, the Agency stated its intention to achieve an amicable solution. Several sources consulted by CAMBIO emphasized that, in a right-wing administration, that would never have been possible, and they highlighted a change in posture in defending the government since Gustavo Petro took over the President’s Office. The instruction is to “take the side of the victims”, meaning, they want to avoid litigating an issue when the evidence is already very solid, thus revictimizing and even more, they want to close down cases pending in the IDH Court.
In the midst of secrecy, (because this amicable solution is confidential) CAMBIO sought out the Director of ANDJE, César Palomino, who stressed that it was “a historic agreement, if you keep in mind the significance of what it means to the Community as an example, even at a whole world level, that heralds disarming as a policy of civil society.”
“This posture adopted by the Peace Community brings with it the fact that its members were the object of innumerable violations of human rights. The agreement to an amicable solution seeks to repair, completely and collectively, all of the situations that those who are part of the Peace Community have had to endure,” said Palomino.
But the agreement to an amicable solution that is being celebrated today includes much more than a list of tasks because, for the CIDH to approve it, there has to be real progress in the items that are agreed. That is key, because if the CIDH doesn’t approve the agreement, the litigation in that international organization will continue.
Nevertheless, sources consulted by CAMBIO appear satisfied with what was achieved because they were able to rebuild the Peace Community’s confidence in the government, because the current administration is in mediation with the CIDH, and also because they agreed on measures for collective reparation (nothing individual and nothing monetary). These are a novelty in the framework of what is normally agreed in amicable solutions, and also because they are seeking to compensate for harms suffered at various levels. This would include efforts, not only national, but also departmental and local, with a cross-sectional focus.
What does the agreement contain?
In the first place, they agreed on a public event in which the government takes responsibility for the human rights violations exercised by the Colombian government against members of the Community. The amicable solution recognizes the Peace Community as a collective entity, and they agreed on measures for reparation, for the truth, for justice, and for a social policy that guarantees the support of the members, and also to supply their necessities, no matter what happens, even for their access to land.
The agreement includes measures to improve living and housing conditions in which local authorities have a very important role. The government will also construct and maintain monuments in honor of the victims; it will locate memory spaces for the installation of plaques, monuments, and murals. Besides that, they will publish a book that narrates the history of the Peace Community.
A measure that is central to this covenant is the creation of an independent justice commission led by the Ombudsman’s Office and that would be made up of four experts.
CAMBIO has learned the names of three of these experts: Attorney Jorge Molano has accompanied the Community by defending it legally in the cases surrounding them; Attorney and human rights defender for thirty-five years Liliana Uribe, who has worked with the Truth Commission; and Dora Lucy Arias, a highly respected Attorney and defender of human rights who recently was on the list of eligibles for the post of Ombudsman. The fourth expert is a former Justice of the Constitutional Court.
This Commission for the Evaluation of justice will have to review 50 cases in a universe of 300 criminal complaints that have to do with human rights violations carried out against the Community. They will then draft a report for the President’s Office and include recommendations. We must remember that in 2012, the Constitutional Court had ordered the creation of a commission to evaluate justice within the framework of the follow-up to the Community’s case. However, that was never really undertaken.
In addition to that Commission, the Attorney General’s Office of Luz Adriana Camargo has committed to establishing a group of prosecutors and CTI (Technical Investigation Corps) investigators in order to make progress in cases that have been delayed. CAMBIO tried to reach Fr. Javier Giraldo for his comments on the importance of what has happened and on some of the details, but we were unable to reach him at the time of going to press.
Photo: A monument in the Peace Community contains the following statement:
“At this location, on July 8, 2000, these six members of the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó were massacred by the Colombian Army and its paramilitary arm.
Buried in this earth where they had built community and solidarity, their lives have expanded toward infinity without leaving behind their living energy that impels us to resist oppression. We honor their heroic sacrifice and we will conserve their memory always.
Peace Community of San José de Apartadó”