The hamlet of NUEVO ANTIOQUIA lies within the municipal jurisdiction of TURBO. It also borders several small rural communities within the rural district of San José de Apartadó, which includes settlements belonging to our PEACE COMMUNITY. For more than 15 years, NUEVO ANTIOQUIA has been a barracks for paramilitarism in the region of Urabá. It has also been a centre for the coordination of State security agencies with the most criminal paramilitary structures, which have flooded the region with blood. According to testimony given to UN officials, soldiers stationed at this military base have participated in joint patrols with paramilitary forces in order to perpetrate massacres and forced disappearances at the end of the 1990s. As part of the Public Prosecutor’s investigation into the massacre of 21 February 2005, military and paramilitary members have confessed to their participation in this atrocious crime. They have also provided information on the basic coordination between military and paramilitary members to plan and execute the massacre, epicentre for which were the bases in Nuevo Antioquia. Over the last years, months and weeks, our Community has not relented in speaking out against the paramilitary incursions that have affected the adjoining communities of Playa Larga, Rodoxalí, La Esperanza, Mulatos, La Resbalosa, La Hoz, Sabaleta, Alto Bonito, Las Nieves and El Porvenir. Some of these incursions have included up to 600 armed and uniformed paramilitaries, identified with armbands, who come and go from their barracks in Nuevo Antioquia where they are commonly seen in the company of the military and police. In a recent episode from last month, the paramilitaries even stored their bicycles at the police station while they held members of our Community in order to forcibly disappear or threaten them.
For many years, we have implored the President of the Republic Álvaro Uribe Vélez, his Ministers of Defence and many other State authorities to intervene in NUEVO ANTIOQUIA so as to suppress this criminal den shamelessly protected by the State. In every way possible, we have urged the Government to remove the military and police personnel who evidently trample the Constitution –and all aspects of the rule of law- and instead send officials who know and respect the law and the Constitution. Nonetheless, our outcry has been futile. President Uribe and his Ministers of Defence have conclusively demonstrated they support these crimes and are pleased to respond with “there are no paramilitaries, since they were all demobilised.” With this phrase, which is light years removed from the true reality, they shelve all of the reported abuses. The State control agencies display a similar attitude when the incursions and threats that said criminal structure is constantly perpetrating are left entirely unpunished.
On this past Sunday morning, 18 October 2009, paramilitaries from Nuevo Antioquia sent a new message to our Peace Community, which expressed the following:
“We request you leave these lands as soon as possible since we are looking for some people who screwed up, you may more or less imagine who they are and if we find them blood will flow and whoever else is around will meet the same fate, be they innocent or not, or if these persons do not leave everyone will pay, this is not a threat it is information that your lives are at risk if you do not obey”.
Our Community reiterates its firm decision to not obey orders from criminals even though they are so clearly supported by State powers. President Uribe –as well as the military command, which has remained wilfully blind to our outcry- will be held the most responsible for everything these criminals do over the following days. Due to their disregard and leaving so many crimes unpunished, State control agencies will also not be exempt from complicity.
Since approximately 1997, the XVII Army Brigade has been creating a nucleus of paramilitaries with the purpose of destroying our Peace Community and those who accompany us. As we have reported in several communiqués, WILLIAM GUZMÁN has been a member of these paramilitary structures. This past Sunday 11 October 2009, William arrived to the hamlet of San José on a motorcycle with another man. While there, he stopped a member of our community and told the person he worked with the paramilitaries and closely with the army. He also said it had been decided to murder EDUAR LANCHERO, who accompanies our Peace Community. He claimed Eduar had been under surveillance for a long time and that his death was a question of a few days.
Previously, Eduar had been the principal target of the many lies the Brigade made the deserted FARC guerrilla member aka “Samir” claim in an interview with former Minister Fernando Londoño Hoyos this past May 28. Furthermore, it was revealed that several officers at the José María Córdova Military Academy had shown photos of Eduar for the soldiers to memorise as someone to be killed. The Colombian government has refused to explain all of this persecution against Eduar to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. It will be held responsible for anything that may occur to Eduar. Once again, the national and international community may clearly see that the former paramilitary structures continue to operate as before under the government’s protection.
PEACE COMMUNITY OF SAN JOSÉ DE APARTADÓ
October 21, 2009