URGENT ACTION
On Saturday March 30, paramilitaries kidnapped and later murdered a
resident of the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado GILMA ROSA GRACIANO,
the mother of 8 children, who cared for community children in San Jose’s
nursery school. San Jose de Apartado is the sister community of the
Dane County CSN chapter in Madison, WI.
Gilma Rosa was taken off a bus with a woman co-worker who later escaped.
The bus was stopped by 2 armed men dressed as civilians just 3 minutes
after it had passed through a Colombian army checkpoint. The army, which
has denied collaboration with the illegal paramilitaries, had suffered
the loss of two soldiers killed by guerrillas two days earlier. The
commander of the Bejarano-Munoz battalion in the San Jose region, Colonel
Javier Vicente Hernandez-Acosta, charged the killers of his two soldiers
spent the night before in San Jose. This fact has been denied by the
members of the Peace Community and certainly gives no support to the
random killing of an innocent woman of that Peace Community.
Please write to Ambassador Moreno and to General Tapias at the addresses
shown below to demand an end to military collaboration with the paramilitaries
and an investigation of the murder of GILMA ROSA GRACIANO with prosecution
and punishment of those responsible. You might also express your opposition
to President Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and your local Senators
and Representatives to the U.S. funding for the Colombian military which
continues to collaborate with illegal paramilitaries.