The Community was Right

Last week, news came out that an arrest warrant had been issued for a Captain in the Colombian army in relation to the February 2005 massacre of 8 people in one of the humanitarian zones of the Peace Community. Below is a translation of the article that appeared in the national news magazine, Semana. For the original version in Spanish click here.

The Community was Right

Paramilitaries and Soldiers would have acted together in the massacre of San José de Apartadó. So much so, that last week an Army Captain was issued an arrest warrant.

In February of 2005, when the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó said that members of the [Colombian] Army had participated in the massacre in the district of La Resbalosa, where two families were cruelly assassinated; almost no one believed them. It seemed unbelievable that members of the Armed Forces could have participated in a crime against seven rural farmers, among them three children, two of who were slashed in the throat and the other, beheaded.

Few believed them, because the Armed Forces attempted to show that their men were not at the site of the crime, and even better they suggested that the denouncements made by the [community’s] spokespersons, Gloria Cuartas and the Jesuit priest Javier Giraldo, were part of the “political war” that supposedly the guerrillas develop against institutions.

But three year later, it seems that justice is beginning to demonstrate that the Community was right. This past Wednesday, a State prosecutor from the human rights unit announced a warrant was to be issued for Army Captain Guillermo Armando Gordillo Sanchez for being a co-author of the murder, an accomplice in criminal behavior and terrorism. Gordillo was the officer in charge of the Alacrán Company, assigned to the 17th Brigade based in Urabá. He and his men patrol the region in which the massacre occurred. And even though he alleged his innocence before Public Prosecutors, the testimonies and evidence that incriminate him are sufficiently profound.

The confession of a demobilized paramilitary became the key piece to tie together the puzzles of this case; one that has provoked some of the most focused international attention. Adriano José Cano Arteaga patrolled with the group Héroes de Tolová , that belonged to “Don Berna” [a now demobilized paramilitary leader]and operated between Córdoba and Urabá and was not yet demobilized when the massacre occurred. Cano assured that a paramilitary known as “44” directed the massacre and that another known as “Pirulo” cut the children’s throats. The paramilitaries were, according to his story, joined with some 50 soldiers under the command of Captain Gordillo, who would have stayed “holding down the scrubland or while the paramilitaries went ahead to commit the crime.


They first killed Luis Eduardo Guerra, a known leader of the Peace Community, his son Deyner Andrés Guerra (11 years old), and Beyaniera Areiza. After killing them with machetes they left their bodies strewn in the mountainside. Then they killed Alfonso Bolívar Tuberquia: his children Natalia (5 years old) and Santiago (2 years old); his wife, Sandra Milena Muñoz, and a worker from the farm named Alejandro Pérez. The four also died by machete. The children, according to the autopsy “by slashing the throat with a knife”.

According to [Cano], Gordillo would have said to another member of the paramilitaries that “44” had “f**ked up” to have killed these people in his jurisdiction.

Extremely Serious

Why did this massacre occur? Was it planned? Was there a cover-up? Apparently, the investigation still has not produced answers to these questions. But there is a hypothesis from investigators that aims to establish that the terrible acts would have been motivated by retaliation for a FARC attack against the Army that two weeks earlier had taken the lives of 17 soldiers in Mutatá. Criminal experts assure that the modus operandi of this massacre was not only marked by hate, but also with the intention to send a message of terror to the other members of the Community.

In spite of the fact that the detainment of Captain Gordillo does not implicate him as guilty, sources from the Public Prosecutor’s office have assured SEMANA that the investigation of his involvement points to soldiers acting as coauthors of the crime. The national and international implications of this crime are enormous.

On one hand, this constitutes one of the most serious violations of human rights committed in recent years. Especially because this community, that has declared itself neutral in the face of the conflict, has been handed down cautionary measures that obligate the Colombian State to protect it in special manner. If it can be shown that those who had the mission to provide protection – the military – were the co-authors of the crime, the sanction for this country on the international scene will undoubtedly be waiting.
But the Public Prosecutor seems to back up not only this Community in regards to this massacre. The testimonies of various paramilitaries, including that of Cano, make clear that which NGOs have warned about, that the Military has participated in joint operations with the paramilitary, especially in the Urabá region. The Ministry of Defense has given complete support to the Public Prosecutors and has insisted on ensuring due process for Captain Gordillo.

Beyond the sanctions that the Colombian state could feel for this act, the Armed Forces require a profound reflection on two crucial aspects: the stigmatization of peace communities and the control mechanisms and tracking of its troops.

In some sectors of the Armed Forces, it is suggested in a low voice that peace communities and many of the NGOs are screens for armed groups. This has set the stage for the term “political war” and its use in referring to most of the public denouncements from the communities that are made through legitimate and legal means. The risk of this stigmatization is that officers end up thinking, mistakenly, that they can resort to criminal methods to combat a supposed enemy.

As far as control of the troops, it is worth the effort to remember that for more than a decade, many sources – including the military – have called attention to the coexistence of members of the 17th Brigade with the paramilitaries. The internal investigations, nevertheless, never bring results.

If Captain Gordillo and others from the Military are eventually found guilty of this crime, the Armed Forces will be forced to confront one of the largest embarrassments in their history.