PBI-Colombia expresses its indignation over the murder of two members of the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó

Published by Brent Patterson on March 20, 2024March 20, 2024

UPDATE (March 22): “From our Peace Community we accompany our brothers and companions murdering by the criminal hands of the paramilitaries, clearly tolerated by the institutions. Goodbye Nallely and Edinson. They will forever be in our memory.”

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PBI-Colombia has posted: “We express our deep pain, rejection and indignation at the murder of Nallely and Edinson, two beloved people of the @cdpsanjose [the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó] with whom we shared in solidarity only days before.”

This follows the Peace Community posting: “Nallely Sepúlveda, wife and child Edinson David, brother of the humanitarian coordinator of our Peace Community, were massacred with gunshots in the village of La Esperanza, while he was caring for his father in the Apartadó hospital.”

The bodies of the wife and brother of the coordinator were found on the Las Delicias farm, which is part of the Peace Community, in the village of La Esperanza, in the municipality of Apartadó, Antioquia.

El Tiempo further explains: “An absolute sadness overwhelms the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó today after learning of the murder of two of its members, a woman of approximately 30 years old and her brother-in-law, 14 years old.”

That article adds: “A spokesperson for the community reported that the woman was the mother of three children and was married to a humanitarian coordinator of that community, who at the time of the crime was in Apartadó accompanying her father in a medical emergency.”

El Pais notes: “The first hypothesis suggests that the crime could be linked to an attack perpetrated by an armed group. However, the possibility that this is an act of accomplishment or revenge is also being investigated. Preliminarily, upon inspection of the bodies, wounds caused by a sharp weapon were observed.”

That said, El Heraldo reports: “The woman and the child were killed with firearms, apparently by members of a criminal group from which the Community has reported threats.”

Infobae adds: “The region where this crime was perpetrated is mainly operated by the paramilitary Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AGC), also known as Clan del Golfo, the country’s largest criminal gang.”

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).”

Accompaniment

The Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project has accompanied the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó since 1999.

Tweet: President Gustavo Petro comments on the double-killing in the Peace Community: “400 members of the Peace community of San José de Apartadó [have been] murdered. Two days ago, the entire government was there in Apartadó and we met with members of the community at the Popular Assembly. Upon our return, two more members of the community were murdered. Dark forces want to revive paramilitarism in the northwest of the country.”