PBI-Colombia accompanies the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó at the commemoration of the Massacre of Mulatos and La Resbalosa
PBI-Colombia has posted: “PBI Colombia accompanied the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó in the community work and the commemoration of the Massacre of Mulatos and La Resbalosa, perpetrated on February 21, 2005, by the Army. Hearings on this event are currently underway at the JEP with case 04.”
The Massacre
PBI-Colombia has previously explained: “On February 21, 2005, the villages of Mulatos and La Resbalosa (Antioquia), located five hours from La Holandita, the main settlement of the Peace Community, were the scene of a heinous crime that, once again, hit its inhabitants.”
“Among the 8 victims of this massacre, 7 were members of the Peace Community: Luis Eduardo Guerra, historical leader and founder of the Community, Bellanira Areiza, his companion and Deiner Andrés Guerra, his 11-year-old son; Alfonso Bolívar Tuberquia Graciano, the coordinator of the Humanitarian Zone of La Resbalosa, Sandra Milena Muñoz Posso, his wife, Natalia and Santiago, their two children aged 5 years and 20 months.”
“The massacre was perpetrated by a commando of around 60 paramilitaries from the Heroes of Tolová Bloc of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) along with troops attached to the Army’s 17th Brigade.”
That article adds: “In the months following the massacre, the XVII Brigade and the Ministry of Defense stated that, given the modus operandi employed, there was no doubt that the massacre had been perpetrated by the FARC-EP guerrilla group.”
The Peace Community
For Peace Presence explains: “In the middle of the 1990s, as violence escalated and peasant farmers suffered from extrajudicial deaths at the hands of armed actors as well as forced displacements, the people began to organize themselves in order to return to their land and to escape from the spiral of violence.”
It adds: “Conscientiously objecting to the war and demanding their rights as civilians not to be involved in a conflict, the community denounced the use of arms within their territories and committed to a variety of principles in the process (including cooperative communal work, prohibition of alcohol, the non-use of illicit drugs, the no-entry of armed actors, non-use of weapons and the refusal to provide information to armed actors).”
JEP Case 04
The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) has noted: “The JEP opened case 04, through Order 040, on September 11, 2018.”
“This case prioritizes the territorial situation based on the facts of the conflict occurred in the Urabá region between 1986 and 2016. This is one of the three territorial cases that the JEP has opened along with that of the Norte del Cauca, the south of Valle del Cauca, and the municipalities of Barbacoas, Ricaurte and Tumaco in Nariño.”
It adds: “To date, members of the 5th, 34th and 57th Fronts of the Jose Maria Cordoba Bloc of the FARC-EP and their respective Fronts have appeared in Case 04 mobile units, as well as members of the XVII Brigade of the National Army.”
PBI-Colombia has previously noted: “In an appeal to the JEP, [the Peace Community] asked that the case be returned to the ordinary courts. The Peace Community does not agree that the massacre is treated as a fact of the armed conflict, since it considers that it occurred in the context of the persecution against the community for having declared itself neutral in the face of the armed conflict.”
Accompaniment
The Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project has accompanied the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó since 1999.
