Call for Action for Peace in Apartadó

March 10, 1997

On February 27, a bomb killed 12 people and injured 60 in Apartado. Fingers are being pointed at the FARC-EP, a guerrilla group operating in the region -- though there is certainly the possibility of state security agents masquerading as guerrillas or utilizing 'turned' guerrillas for carry out their dirty work of destabilizing the region.

Several anonymous communiqués are going around Apartado, which are most likely the intellectual offspring of the Colombian Army's regional commander, General Rito Alejo Del Rio, blaming Apartado's Mayor Gloria Cuartas for the violence there.

CSN is calling upon the international community to begin an international letter writing campaign to stop the violence and save Gloria's life -- since communiqués in Colombia like that are just a call to the paramilitaries to kill her and to continue the killings of the general population.

Additionally, the Colombian Military has begun an official inquiry into this very web page!! A High Official of the Colombian Military visited her with the explicit purpose of closing down this web page. And on February 28, she was interrogated by the Army's XVII Brigade Base in Carepa ("Court #114 of the Military Criminal Justice System) in Case #113/BR 17-J114-IBM-746". She was asked things such as

• (2.) Provide a clear, detailed statement of everything you know for sure about the document entitled "Gloria Cuartas Page" of February 24, 1997, taken from the Internet, specifying the authorship of said document and the sources or documents upon which it ia based.
• (3.) Tell the court if you certify in full or in part that which is set forth in a part of the document mentioned above is true, and which says in exact translation from English to Spanish :" Gloria's work for peace and her very life are being threatened by violence while the......".
• (4.) If your answer to the above question is affirmative, please set down everything you know about the circumstances of time, mode, place of the above mentioned page.
• (5.) If you answer question 3 in the affirmative tell the Court what evidence you had to substantiate the above accusation.
• (6.) There appears in the "Gloria Cuartas" page in pages 6 and 7 of the English text which says in Spanish translation the following :"CSN has learned from other sources that....Fidel Castano". Please tell us everything you know about this statement.

This is clearly an attempt to stop the use of the internet as a mode of communicating vital information! Obviously the Colombian military, who pride themselves as professionals, are embarrassed that what used to be allowed to occur in silence, is no longer the case. Their passive and active support of death-dealing paramilitary units (financed by druglords like Castano) is coming under scrutiny.

We call upon all people of good will to stand up and say NO -- YOU CANNOT SILENCE THE TRUTH. ADD a Gloria Cuartas page (or a link to CSN's) on your home page!

(signed - Colombia Support Network, Madison, WI)