Urgent action alert: Massacre in San José de Apartadó, Colombia

"The civilian population has the right to live in dignity."

Fellowship of Reconciliation
Statement and Action Alert on Massacre in San José de Apartadó
March 1, 2005

The members and leaders of the Fellowship of Reconciliation express our profound sorrow at the loss and suffering of the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó over the murder of Luis Eduardo Guerra, his companion, and his11-yearold son, and five other persons killed on February 21 or 22. We express our outrage at the evident involvement in this massacre of the Colombian army, which is funded and trained by the United States. Luis Eduardo was a co-founder of the community, deeply committed to nonviolence and to his family, whom FOR has accompanied on numerous occasions since our team began a permanent presence in San José in 2002. He was also a friend, and we will miss him.

According to the Peace Community and the Corporation for Judicial Liberty, eyewitnesses confirm that Luis Eduardo Guerra, his son Deiner, his partner Deyanira Areiza and another person were detained near the Mulatos River on February 21 by uniformed soldiers who identified themselves as belonging to the Army's 11th Brigade. They were then taken to the farm of Alfonso Bolívar Tuberquia and not seen again.

Several people returned to the farm the following day and discovered blood and dismembered body parts. These were the bodies of Alfonso Bolivar, Sandra Milena Muñoz, and their children Natalia Andrea Tuberquia, 4 years old, and Santiago Tuberquia Muñoz, 18 months old. The body of another adult, Alejandro Pérez, was found together with the remains of the Tuberquia family. The bodies of the adults had been cut apart. The group also found, at a second site, the dismembered bodies of Luis Eduardo, Deyanira and Deiner.

When Peace Community council members received information about the killings, they immediately requested that the attorney general's office come to the sites to exhume the remains as part of an official investigation. FOR team members in San José accompanied the community on February 25 on the seven-hour walk to the two massacre sites. The Attorney General's forensic investigators exhumed the bodies of Sr. Bolivar and his family that afternoon. Authorities stated that investigators would be sent by helicopter to exhume the remains of Luis Eduardo and his family. The exact location of the massacre sites was given to the authorities. FOR volunteers heard and saw helicopters overhead several times, yet the authorities stated that the weather was bad and they did not have an exact location. One official stated that the Army withheld use of a helicopter to investigators. Community members and their accompaniers waited two nights and a day for the Attorney General's office to arrive.

Why did this massacre take place? Less than two weeks before, the Peace Community announced the formation of humanitarian zones in several of the settlements in San José district that have suffered most from the armed conflict, including Mulatos, where the group murdered community members were detained by the Army. These zones would be set up around the local school and function, like the Peace Community, as places where armed groups and weapons would not be permitted, nor would people there collaborate with the armed groups.

In other words, civilians would resist the use of these communities by the army as well as by the paramilitary and guerrilla combatants operating in the area. The Peace Community planned to formally and publicly inaugurate these humanitarian zones on March 23, the anniversary of San José's declaration as a Peace Community. Alfonso Bolivar was a member of the peace committee in the settlement of Mulatos.

The settlements where the killing occurred are also adjacent to the Department of Cordoba, an area with strong paramilitary presence. They are not far from the concentration zone of 'demobilized' paramilitary troops in Santa Fe de Ralito, Cordoba. The process for the demobilization of paramilitaries has been at a crisis point, with paramilitary leaders demanding to participate in the creation of legislation that will determine what happens to paramilitaries who have committed atrocities. There was intense combat in the region on February 20 and 22, with helicopters firing rockets onto nearby settlements, close to where FOR team members live.

In the wake of the killings, the Peace Community has issued a strongly worded statement:

"We call for national and international solidarity to demand that the strategy of terror against the San José Peace Community and the civilian population in the district comes to an end. We ask that you demand respect for the Peace Community's process and for the humanitarian zones developed in the region. This time it was eight deaths, innocent civilians, entire families, children who are victims of the terror. … But the words of Luis Eduardo, his ideas and arguments, will remain with us, and with more force than ever. He believed that the civilian population has the right to live in dignity. We also believe it and will continue defending this principle, even if it costs us our lives."

What you can do
The Colombian government must be pressed to disclose which units were operating in the area at the time of the massacre, who their commanders were, their activities, and any records associated with operations by armed forces in the area.

We request all those concerned about these events to: