Message from the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó
May 6, 2025
In recent months, our Peace Community of San José de Apartadó has lived a very peculiar experience. Beginning last year (2024) we agreed to enter a “Peaceful Solution” negotiation process with the Colombian government, to be mediated by the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights. We didn’t agree to abandon our “rupture” with the government because the reasons and the motives for that decision have not changed, in spite of the fact that they go back 20 years.
The current administration of President Gustavo Petro has been able to modify some institutions, including the Agency for the Legal Defense of the Government, which no longer occupies itself predominantly by denying all responsibility by government agents in the crimes, but rather is admitting it in emblematic cases like the one affecting our Peace Community. We have therefore requested reparation for the monumental and specific damage perpetrated by the agents of the government; it’s not possible for us to repair the hundreds of killings and disappearances. Neither have we tried to translate all this harm into monetary equivalents, as the majority of our values have no mercantile character, nor can they be measured in money. We have asked that they re-examine all the shocking proceedings and edicts by the phony and rotten “justice system” that has been in effect in this region for decades. We have asked that they return to us the good name that has been trampled by the mass communications media and by the rotten judicial system. We have requested that they recognize our legal titles to our collective properties; we have asked that the government stop charging us, as the victims, with the crimes of illegal eviction, displacement, and the massacres that their agents have committed, encumbering our abandoned parcels with multimillions in taxes.
But although the process of “Peaceful Solution” is advancing in a satisfactory manner, another facet of the government is continuing to injure us with neither rest nor shame. The Clan del Golfo, now a subjugating paramilitary organization in this country, dominates the Urabá region and nearly all of the towns (veredas) in the District (Corregimiento) of San José de Apartadó. It’s like a real de facto government, with the acquiescence of all the institutions that hypocritically use them to maintain their abominable system. They are considered to be the only governing authority and they can count on the silent complicity of nearly all the institutions like the Army, the Police, the Attorney General’s Office, a large number of Community Action Boards like those that signed a peculiar “contract” with FEDECACAO (Federation of Cacao Growers) titled “No More Peace Community”, or those that covered up the murders of our comrade Nallely and the young boy Edinson a year ago in the town of La Esperanza.
The Clan del Golfo is made up of militants and its members are paid huge sums of money, which has allowed them to take over major blocs of fighters demobilized from the now-defunct FARC, plus sectors of society, politicians, and business owners, among others. Right now, a lot of speculation is circulating about the quantities of bribes to various government officials in the region as well as to mass media personnel, in order to maintain the status quo of Clan del Golfo domination.
The complicity of the Armed Forces with the domination by the Clan del Golfo is obvious. In March of 2024 the Commander of the 17th Brigade openly told international visitors that the Brigade would not be obeying President Petro’s order to beg the pardon of the Peace Community for the multitude of crimes committed against us. But now we’re seeing an audacity that is just too much: In February of 2025, the Commander of the 17th Brigade, Colonel Luis Enrique Camargo Rodríguez, filed a civil rights suit against an official in the Petro administration, Dra. Gloria Cuartas, Chief of the Unit for the Implementation of the Peace Agreement. He’s claiming that a statement she made on her X (formerly Twitter) account on February 19, 2025, violated the soldiers’ rights to honor and good name.
The text of Dra. Cuartas’ statement is as follows, “Mr. President, I hope that the new Minister of Defense will help us to resolve this complicated internal relationship of the 17th Brigade and the Police in Urabá against the autonomous peace project, a creator of ethics, and an example for the world. The Clan del Golfo couldn’t function without the Brigade and the Police.”
The local judge of general jurisdiction in Carepa, Ruth I. Betancur Henao, accepted the civil rights action without investigating to see if there really was a complicated relationship between the 17th Brigade and the paramilitaries in Urabá. She even violated the rules that regulate her jurisdiction over cases that involve high-ranking national officials, and she decided the civil rights action in favor of the military and, in an act of shameless obsequiousness, on March 12, 2025, she ordered Dra. Cuartas to retract her statement within 48 hours.
A few days later, on March 28, the Civil Court Judge in Apartadó, Dr. Martin Gómez Ángel Rangel, overturned the decision of the Judge in Carepa, not only because she ignored the limits affecting her jurisdiction in such cases, but also because a quick scan of Decree 2647 of 2022 which outlines the functions of the Unit for the Implementation of the Peace Agreement, makes it clear that Dra. Gloria Cuartas was carrying out her duties when she made that request of the President.
Later on, the civil rights action was dismissed with prejudice by the Municipal Court in Apartadó.
All this demonstrates that the 17th Brigade has learned no fundamental lessons about appropriate activities.
In 2020, the same 17th Brigade had filed another civil rights action against our Peace Community, trying to get the legal system to censor a collection of our historic certified claims that had been circulated on social networks. They were alleging the same argument, saying we were violating the soldiers’ rights to honor and good name. Then another judge was their unconditional protector who ignored the limits of her authority. This case was reviewed by the Constitutional Court, which received numerous amicus curiae briefs from international jurists who closed ranks in defense of the right to free expression. That ignorant judge had also not even tried to learn whether the Community’s statements were true or false, or if they were complaining about serious issues that had to be examined. She cared nothing about that, but only cared to give satisfaction to the military. The high court’s Justices themselves were divided in their arguments and in their much-criticized decision, T-342/20, where they claimed that even if there had been a violation of the 17th Brigade soldiers’ rights to honor and good name, they would maintain respect for the right to free expression, and they refused to require our statements to be removed from social networks. They also refused to order the Community to cease using social networks to make their complaints. There was an action filed to annul the decision. The Justice who had written the first version of the decision later changed it and finally wrote an emphatic dissenting opinion in which he defined the extent of the right to good name.
In one paragraph, which could certainly apply to the case of Dra. Gloria Cuartas, Justice Jorge Enrique Ibañez stated:
“Current jurisprudence relating to the constitutional protection of good name demands irreproachable conduct by a person who wants to be the plaintiff in such a case. So, a person who has court decisions against him, that would negate the existence of irreproachable conduct on his part; he is in no position to claim the protection of the right to good name because of the offenses or omissions he committed in the past. The Court has been emphatic in its insistence that the right to good name, besides showing selfishness, is directly related to the appraisal that members of a society make about someone; the reputation or character of a person is what enables the right’s protection.”
Furthermore, the constitutional jurisprudence and the pronouncements by the Inter-American Court for Human Rights have recognized that the protection of the right to good name that is applied to public figures and government officials is weaker because of the exposure that is derived from their activities and the right that citizens have to control their exercise of public power. Citizens may make peaceful criticism of their governing actions or social behavior. Thus, the high level of exposure in the public forum presupposes inexorably that officials accept the “risk of being affected by criticism, opinions, or adverse revelations, mostly because of the general interest in and observation of their ethical and moral conduct.”
Based on a sketch of the jurisprudence currently in effect, the analysis of the guarantee of the right to good name and honor of the members of the 17th Brigade would require a good image, and irreproachable conduct on the part of those who claim its protection, as well as an analysis of the tolerance they have to have of critical opinions or adverse revelations because they are regularly exposed in public forums.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, in Decision 342 of 2020, in complete disregard of the constitutional jurisprudence set forth, the Court decided to protect the right to honor and good name of the members of the 17th Brigade. It omitted: (i) the more than ten decisions by the Inter-American human rights system, the several follow-up orders issued by the Constitutional Court, and the different court decisions, both national and international, which consider the proven complicity between the 17th Brigade of the Colombian Army and the paramilitaries that were active in the Urabá area carrying out violent acts that victimized members of the Peace Community; (ii) the fact that the messages that gave rise to the civil rights action were published by the Peace Community in the same time period that that the Inter-American Human Rights System had issued provisional remedies protecting the Community from the very same kind of events that the Community had complained of in the challenged publications.
But it wasn’t only the 17th Brigade that had demonstrated disregard and contempt for the constitution and the laws; the prosecutors did the same thing. Already for many years our Community had turned to Article 18 of the constitution and its respect for the principle of conscientious objection and instituted a “rupture” with the “justice system” after many years of turning to the agencies of the judicial apparatus for the protection of the constitutional and universal rights of our members. reaping only evidence of corruption and terrifying moral rot that could not be called “justice” in any manner at all. In spite of that, many legal officials continue to call members of our Peace Community to demand testimony. They keep on using the same corrupt methods while leaving intact the horrendous procedures of the past.
The events that we now recount to history and humanity are as follows:
On Wednesday, February 12, 2025, we received a communication from the Attorney General of Colombia. It cited three members of our Internal Council to give testimony on events that took place in past years.
On Thursday, February 27, 2025, while members of our Peace Community were going out to do some community maintenance work on the road that leads to San José de Apartadó, near our farm La Roncona, we were interrupted by a National Police Patrol (Patrol # 41-0391). They had installed a checkpoint without signals of any kind right on our Community’s farm. So our Community asked the agents to move the site so we would be free to work on the maintenance of the road. The agents refused, stating that they had no intention of moving their location, and saying that if anybody had to leave, it would be the Peace Community.
On Wednesday, March 5, 2025, our Community learned of another request from the Colombian Attorney General’s Office, asking to enter the Las Delicias property in the town of La Esperanza to recreate the scene of the crime committed on March 19, 2024. Our Peace Community rejected that request. Every time that’s done it’s one more revictimization and mockery of the pain that our whole Community suffered, and without any indication up to now that the “justice system” is adopting more credible methods of investigation of the crimes.
On Thursday, March 13, 2025, we received a new message from the Colombian Attorney General’s Office, in which they summoned three members of our Internal Council. The Peace Community and its members declared a conscientious objection.
On Friday, March 14, 2025, several residents of the town of La Unión came to our Community to express their fear and concern about the threats from the paramilitaries. They have imposed quantities and amounts of money on every family for the support of the construction of an illegal highway leading from the urban part of San José de Apartadó to La Union. The warning to the residents of the area is that they have to give money for the road because “it’s an order from you-know-who”. The paramilitaries have complete control in the area. Several families in different towns in the District of San José de Apartadó have come to our Community to file reports of the continuing threats to which they’re being subjected.
On Wednesday, March 19, 2025 a considerable group from our Community, with international accompaniment, was traveling around the areas where we had last seen our martyrs Nallely and Edinson. With the completion of a year of absolute impunity, it doesn’t seem that the barbarity of those killings is to be contained. Now they’re talking about the construction of highways being promoted by those very same killers responsible for the deaths of our community members.
On Friday, March 21, 2025, during the presentation of the report and the progress of the agreement signed by the government of Colombia and the Peace Community, there was a speech by the Justice of the JEP (Special Jurisdiction for Peace) Dra. Nadiesda, who referred to this case in the JEP as a great advance in the investigation of the events that took place in Urabá especially. That speech was not only inappropriate, but it was a revictimization of the Community because what the mechanism it contemplated has accomplished was to provide guarantees and license to the criminals to keep on committing their crimes against humanity.
On Tuesday, March 25, 2025, our Community was warned about new death threats to members and leaders of our Community. In those threats the paramilitaries announce that they have decided to kill any member of the Community. They’re saying that the killings of Nallely and Edinson (March 19, 2024) hurt all the members of our Community, which means that the killing of any member of the Community would be painful for all of us. In that threat they warn several people who are close to us that they shouldn’t belong to the Luis Eduardo Guerra Peace Village in Mulatos Medio because if they do, they will suffer the same fate as Nallely and Edinson.
On Wednesday, March 26, 2025, it was obvious that paramilitary groups were present on our Peace Community’s private property La Cabaña in the town of La Resbalosa, the same area in which the massacre of February 2005 was perpetrated.
On Thursday, March 27, 2025, several residents of towns in the District of San José de Apartadó were feeling terrorized by the threats by the well-known paramilitaries against families that didn’t want to contribute money to build the highways to some of the towns in the District of San José. The paramilitaries had been announcing that anybody that didn’t collaborate would have to get out of the region or their lives would be in danger. They also announced that no landowners would be permitted to refuse to allow the highways to cross their property.
On Friday, March 28, 2025, in the Luis Eduardo Guerra Peace Village in the town of Mulatos Medio, a well-known paramilitary was hanging around the property for several hours, doing things to demonstrate control and stalking the movements of members of the Community. He didn’t seem to care about the presence of international accompaniment.
On Sunday, March 30, 2025, around 8:30 p.m., that same well-known paramilitary, alias El Cochero (the Cab-driver), tried to come into our settlement at San Josecito.
On Monday, March 31, 2025, at a meeting in the urban part of San José, they gave the instruction that every adult and even the young people located in the lower part and the surroundings of San José were obliged to contribute toward the building of the highway that would lead to the towns of Mulatos and La Resbalosa. The demand would be based on the premise of “an action of solidarity with the families in Mulatos and Resbelosa”.
On that same Monday, March 31, 2025, well-known paramilitaries that were going to a public establishment in the urban part of San José declared in front of several civilians that “. . . one of their plans for destroying the Community is the sexual abuse of the women of this sonofabitching community . . .”.
On Tuesday, April 1, 2025, a committee from our Community was traveling to the place for the Launching of the Committee for the Evaluation of the Justice System which had been installed in the University of Antioquia office in Apartadó. We were intercepted and forced to pay an extortionate toll, located illegally at the point of La Balsa, on the road from Apartadó to San José. Later, even the National Ombudsman herself, Dra. Iris Marin and her staff, who had visited our settlement of San Josecito, witnessed the illegal toll that had been installed at the above-mentioned location.
On Wednesday, April 9, 2025, we learned of the killing of Robinson Rueda, a young man from the District of San José, who apparently had been murdered in Medellín. We also learned that there had been a plan to kill him earlier in San José during one of his most recent visits.
On that same Wednesday, April 9, 2025, several international organizations, in a gesture of solidarity with our Community and the people that live around here, called on President Petro to put a stop to the violations of human rights that are being repeated systematically, again and again.
On Tuesday, April 15, 2025, we received official notice of the implementation of a project known as “payment for environmental services” being promoted by the JEP and some other agencies. While they are working on social projects, their peace and justice projects are lagging and trampled. (How sad!)
On Friday, April 18, 2025, a person who lives around here came to give us the bad news about some well-known paramilitaries who oppose both our way of life and Roviro López, a member of our Peace Community’s Internal Council.
On Wednesday, April 23, 2025 , the Attorney General of Colombia once more summoned a member of our Internal Council to give testimony. Our Community and its members have stated publicly over and over our conscientious objection under Article 18 of the Constitution.
On Friday, April 25, 2025, a well-known paramilitary came up to a member of our Peace Community to warn that they would no longer accept the presence of members of the Peace Community in the area of either the Mulatos canyon or of La Resbalosa. He claimed that the Peace Community is a sonofabitching botheration and they will no longer permit the presence of its members in the area.
On Sunday, April 27, 2025, a person who lives in this area came to us to let us know that well-known paramilitaries are waiting for an opportunity to kill three members of the Peace Community’s Internal Council, Arley Tuberquia, Roviro López, and Germán Graciano. They plan to leave some evidence to make it look like an isolated event in the general context of this region. We aren’t surprised at this supposedly legal and deadly strategy; on the one hand, the prosecutors are harassing us by summoning members of our Internal Council to give testimony every once in a while. Meanwhile the paramilitaries are threatening to kill the very same members of our Internal Council that have been summoned to give testimony.
On Wednesday, April 30, 2025. At the Las Delicias property in the town of La Esperanza, at 10:24 p.m., two paramilitaries tried to get into the main community residence while a humanitarian committee from our Community was present there along with international accompaniment. When the Community reacted, the two subjects fled.
In the last few days, what’s been happening is that the paramilitaries are announcing the opening of highways in some of the towns in the District of San José de Apartadó. The construction of those highways has been imposed by the paramilitaries, not only built illegally, but also by imposing obligatory tariffs on the campesinos that live around here. This project has not only been financed and promoted by the paramilitaries; but also with the welcome for this criminal activity provided by some of the Community Action Boards in the area. With the illegal road they’re building between urban part of San José and the town of La Unión, a member of our Community was damaged by the building of that road. They warned his family that they dared not oppose its construction, told them not to stick their noses into any issues, but to avoid problems by allowing the road to go through their property. They cut down the cacao trees belonging to a member of our Peace Community. They’re imposing paramilitary terror and dressing it up as social development.
While we are getting closer to an understanding with the Colombian government, dealing with the causes that gave rise to our “rupture” with the government institutions, at the same time, they’re showing us all the force behind their project to exterminate our way of life.
Nevertheless, our unshakeable convictions for life still give us the strength to expose the paramilitaries one more time and as many times as it takes.
We treasure the memory of all our fallen brothers and sisters, and we honor them with our peaceful resistance and nonviolent struggle which we long ago decided to undertake.
Peace Community of San José de Apartadó
May 6, 2025