WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS
ISSUE #432, MAY 10, 1998
NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK
339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499
*1. NEW PARAMILITARY MASSACRE IN COLOMBIA
On May 4, a group of some 200 paramilitary troops arrived in the
village of Puerto Alvira, in Mapiripan municipality in the
southeastern Colombian department of Meta, where they murdered
at
least 23 people, including a five-year old girl. Another eight
people are missing. The paramilitaries went from house to house,
looking for their victims with a list of names in hand. They also
destroyed businesses and burned the village's only gas station.
Many of the surviving residents are now fleeing the zone.
Mapiripan municipality was the scene of another paramilitary
massacre in July 1997, where at least 26 people were killed [see
Update supplement "Colombia: US-Funded Troops Back Paramilitary
Massacres," 3/22/98]. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 5/6/98 from EFE;
Clarin (Buenos Aires) 5/8/98, 5/6/98; El Colombiano (Medellin)
5/7/98] On May 5 the bodies of nine victims of an earlier
massacre--one of them an eight-month old baby--were found in the
area. [Agencia Informativa Pulsar 5/6/98]
On May 7 the United Self Defense Groups of Colombia (AUC)--an
alliance of rightwing paramilitary groups--took credit for the
Puerto Alvira massacre, charging that the victims had
collaborated with the country's largest leftist rebel group, the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). In its communique,
the AUC issued a new declaration of war against the FARC's
eastern bloc--where the Colombian army recently suffered a
crushing defeat by the FARC [see Update 423]--and warned that it
will continue its actions to punish anyone who collaborates with
guerrilla groups. The AUC claims it will keep up the massacres
until the FARC negotiates peace with Samper's government. [Pulsar
5/8/98; Clarin 5/8/98]
President Ernesto Samper Pizano condemned the massacre and
ordered a special combined police and army anti-paramilitary
search unit into the zone to look for the killers. "I'm not going
to allow a dirty war to be repeated in Colombia," said Samper.
[El Colombiano 5/6/98; Clarin 5/6/98] People's Defender Jose
Fernando Castro Caicedo revealed that in January nearly 100
residents of Puerto Alvira signed a letter asking for the army to
come to protect them, knowing that the paramilitary groups were
planning to attack the village. [Pulsar 5/6/98; ED-LP 5/6/98 from
EFE]
The army is now operating in Mapiripan, but instead of chasing
the paramilitary groups it appears to be going after the FARC.
Army commander Mario Hugo Galan claimed that at least 25 rebels
and four soldiers died on May 8 when troops from the seventh
military brigade clashed with the FARC in an area called La
Cooperativa, near Puerto Alvira in a rural zone of Mapiripan
municipality. "We decided to develop operations in this sector,"
explained Galan. [Clarin 5/9/98]
In a May 6 statement, The Colombian Communist Party (PCC) blamed
the government and army for the Puerto Alvira massacre and for
the existence of the paramilitary groups in general, and urged
people around the world to stage protests on May 19 in
conjunction with actions in Colombia called by the Broad Social
Front as part of a national day against violence and impunity
[see Update #430]. [PCC Central Executive Committee statement
5/6/98]
In related news, on May 4 the bodies were found of two of the six
community leaders abducted on Apr. 29 from the El Pinar refugee
community in the Bello area of Medellin [see Update #431]. The
six had been seized by a group of 20 heavily armed men wearing
National Army uniforms. The bodies of three of the leaders had
been found earlier; one is still missing but is presumed dead.
The same day as the abduction, the entire community of 120
families was evicted; 24 of them have taken refuge in Veracruz
Church in central Medellin. [El Colombiano 5/5/98]
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