April 9, 1997
Letter by Father Javier Giraldo
on
Violence and Refugees in Choco and Uraba
Religious Conference of Colombia
INTER-CONGREGATIONAL COMISSION OF PEACE AND JUSTICE
Santafe de Bogota, April 9, 1997
To:
Mr. ERNESTO SAMPER PIZANO
President of Colombia
Mr. HORACIO SERPA URIBE
Minister of Interior
Madam MARIA EMMA MEJIA
Minister of Foreign Relations
Mr. CARLOS MEDELLIN BECERRA
Minister of Justice
Mr. ALFONSO VALDIVIESO SARMIENTO
Attorney General
Mr. JAIME BERNAL CUELLAR
Procurador General
Mr. JOSE FERNANDO CASTRO CAICEDO
Defender of the People
Mr. CARLOS VICENTE DE ROUX RENGIFO
Presidential Advisor for Human Rights
With all due respect :
Allow me once again to call to your attention, the tragic situation which
the Uraba region is suffering at this time.
In another communication of last March 12 I asked that you act urgently in
the face of the cruel exodus which more than 15 communities of the Lower
Atrato River region found themselves obligated to make, due to the criminal
joint action of the Armed Forces with paramilitary groups, as well as
facing the crimes perpetrated by the same joint action of the Public forces
with the paramilitaries in the town of San Jose de Apartado, were several
residents were murdered.
In spite of my pressing request and in spite of the fact that numerous
international delegations have been able to show the public presence of the
paramilitaries just a very few minutes away from the military base, where
they stop all vehicles travelling on the road, steal the goods, food and drugs
of the peasants, and retain persons who later are dissappeared or
assassinated, no state office acted, rather tolerating and accepting such an
abominable chain of crimes.
Last April 10 I directed a new anguished and urgent call to the President of
the Republic, the text of which I made known by copy to all of the persons
to whom this letter is addressed. I wrote to acquaint then with the effect
which yheir ignoring of the call of March 12 had had, describing the
concrete form in which another 10 residents of the town of San Jose de
Apartado had been murdered between March 27 and April 1, as well as how
several neighboring communities in this same district had been expelled
through the joint action of the Army and the paramilitaries.
No measure was taken, however.
The paramilitary checkpoints on the road which runs from Apartado
continued, just a few meters away from the miliatry base. On Saturday
April 5 they detained a youth named Cesar Perez at those checkpoints,
murdering him a few minutes later. On Sunday April 6 they detained a
Protestant youth named Ovidio Torres, who dissappeared. Residents who
flee terrified from the rural areas to the town of San Jose are without
anything to eat, since at the checkpoints the paramilitaries take away food
and drugs.
In the town of San Jose there remain several hundred displaced persons,
prisoners to terror and the great lack of food.
It deeply hurts our moral conscience that, after perpetrating such
abominable crimes, they add to this the lie with which they seek to hide
these crimes from the national and international community. According to
the daily newspaper El Colombiano
(April 5, page 10A), the Press Office of the Seventeenth Brigade of the
Army, headquartered in Carepa, reported several of the victims as
guerrillas killed in combat. Such a perverse strategy of disinformation and
deceit has no name.
But what hurts our conscience as human beings even more is the fact that
they denied the delivery of the cadavers of their children and brothers to
many relatives of the victims, members of extremely poor and humble
families, in the hospital of apartado, demanding of them the sum of 300,000
pesos (about 280 dollars) to be able to take out the bodies and threatening
them, if they did so, of Òsuffering the consequences when they again passed
through the checkpointÓ. This deeply hurts the conscience of humanity.
Taking upon myself the role of spokesman for the millions of human beings
who throughout the world will repudiate as energetically as possible such a
cruel affront to humanity, I express to the Colombian government and to all
of the institutions of the state which have refused to listen to our repeated
urgings, the most profound moral censure.
The country and the world have been moved by the spectacle of the persons
displaced from the Lower Atrato region, who now arrive by the thousands at
diverse places in the Antioquian part of Uraba, in inhuman conditions. We
have listened to them and their tales reveal more and more progressively
the numerous atrocities which forced them to abandon their means of
subsistence : bombardement, threats, dissaperances, murders, cutting up of
bodies, pillage, destruction of homes and crops and intimidation of every
kind.
It is sad that the state replies to them with pressure for a return
accompanied by offers of ÒprotectionÓ on the part of the same people who
forced them to leave their homes with heartless cruelty. It is sad that the
organs of control of the State remain insensitive in the face of such a
tragedy, or have recourse to the classic invitation to Òcourageously file a
complaint against those who victimized themÓ, as if they were unaware
that in Colombia this means signing oneÕs death sentence. It is sad that the
mass media cover up the truth so much. It is sad that the complaints and
denunciations are now not even replied to. The absolute impotence in the
face of monstruous crimes which are now becoming massive is sad and
depressing.
Now even the most elementary prudence has been lost. All of the
international and national delegations which have visited Uraba in the last
few months have been able to prove that now no effort is even made to hide
the union between paramilitarism and the Public Forces. Even the organs of
control of the State have lost their prudence, permitting criminals to have a
free hand together with them to act with a guarantee of impunity.
May this historical record show that in such tragic times at least we
censured the procedures of the State which are so criminal.
With profound grief and pain,
JAVIER GIRALDO MORENO S.J.
cc High Comissioner of the United Nation for Human Rights
Different Organs of the United Nations
Inter-American Commission of Human Rights
International Human Rights Organizations
Diplomatic Representatives before the Colombian government
Non-governmental Organizations of Human Rights