Letter from Fr. Javier Giraldo
To Colombian Officials
March 12 1997
Denouncing Inhumane Conditions in Uraba

Justicia y Paz
Religious Conference of Colombia
Intercongregational Commission for Justice and Peace
Santafe de Bogota

March 12, 1997

To the following:

Dr. Ernesto Samper Pinzano, President of the Republic
Dr. Horacio Serpa Uribe, Minister of the Interior
Dra. Maria Emma Mejia, Minister of Foreign Relations
Dr. Carlos Medellin Becerra, Minister of Law and Justice
Dr. Alfonso Valdivieso Sarmiento, Public Prosecutor of the Nation
Dr. Jaime Bernal Cuellar, Attorney General of the Nation
Dr. Carlos Vicente de Roux Rengifo, Presidential Advisor for Human Rights

With all due consideration:
With profound consternation permit me to again call your attention to the current situation that the region of Uraba is suffering.

Since the past 23 of February the residents of more than 15 villages of the Bajo Atrato, the majority of them belonging to the municipality of Riosucio, of the department of Choco, began to be forced through violent means to abandon their dwellings and their livelihoods by groups that identified themselves in some cases as "paramilitaries" and in other cases as "self defense groups." Some of those villages, such as Salaqui, Tamboral, Perquerre and others were bombed in order to force the displacement of the population. In the village of Vijao, on Feb. 27, they assassinated a young man Marino Lopez with extreme cruelty, dismembering his body in the presence of various members of the community. The paramilitaries recommended to some of the groups that were fleeing their communities in terror that they direct themselves to Turbo (Antioquia); that there the police would pick them up in the port and that the mayor's office would show them where they could stay.

In this moment the stadium of Turbo is overflowing with several hundred displaced families and another large group of displaced families is found in Quibdo.

General Rito Alejo Del Rio, Commander of the XVII Brigade of the Army, talked last week with the displaced people that were taking shelter in the stadium of Turbo and when he was asked to guarantee their safe return to their zones of origin, he responded that he could not guarantee that, since that zone was undergoing military operations and was being submitted to a general "sweeping." Therefore, there is no doubt about the close relationship between the National Army and the paramilitary groups that terrorize the region and have identified themselves as responsible for the criminal displacement of massive numbers of peasants and for extrajudicial executions and forced disappearances.

This same coodination of action (between the Public Forces and the paramilitary forces)is demonstrated in a similar fashion by what has been happening in the unincorporated town of San Jose, in the municipality of Apartado. A paramilitary blockade has interrupted traffic for the last several weeks, between the urban area of Apartado and the town of San Jose. There, all those who are traveling are subject to searches and on occasion the goods they are carrying are stolen under the pretext of "supplying the guerrillas." On Feb. 28 such a paramilitary group entered the hamlet of San Jose at 6:00 am and obliged all the residents to leave their houses and line up in the main street. Then the paramilitaries checked the residents' identification papers and took with them three members of the community: Don Ruben Antonio Villa, his son Antonio Villa and Don Miguel Haya. Later they forced Don Guillermo Serna to get off a public transportation vehicle and they took him also. These people were later assassinated and buried at the edge of the highway. One day before they had assassinated the driver R. Henao.

In spite of the pleadings of the widows and family members, the Public Prosecutor's Office of Apartado, in the beginning, declined to exhume the bodies and investigate the crimes. The courage of the Mayor of Apartado, Gloria Isabel Cuartas, who in the face of such a refusal went with the widows to personally search for the place where the victims had been buried, and pressured the Public Prosecutor's office to conduct the exhumations. When the Public Prosecutor's staff (accompanied by a large contingent of military and police escorts) arrived at the site of the burial, there were paramilitaries there who exchanged friendly greetings with the officials of the Public Forces using the most familiar kind of language. Such obvious signs of an immoral alliance caused profound repugnance on the part of the Mayor and the family members of the victims, which causes them to leave the scene immediately. The close ties between the institutions of the State and criminal groups who have submitted the region to a blood bath were demonstrated openly in this scene.

As on previous occasions, I reiterate to you these charges are not directed to ask for an "investigation", since a long and painful experience of seeking justice has demonstrated to us that the only results harvested are: greater risks for the victims, family members and witnesses and greater impunity for those responsible for the violence.

What I do ask for is that the national Government take urgent administrative measures to remove from their positions the commanders of the Public Forces who in such an evident form have acted in coordination with the paramilitary structures of the region. I ask that that they be replaced by officials that abide by the rule of the constitution and the principles of International Justice that protect human dignity. For the more than 500 families displaced from the Bajo Atrato, I ask that their properties and means of supporting themselves, of which they were unjustly deprived, be returned to them immediately.

With profound grief and pain,

Father Javier Giraldo M, S.J.
Executive Secretary