Murder of Members of The Peace Community of San José de Apartadó

The Colombian Peace Community of San José de Apartadó (CdP) has recently been the victim of the murder of two of its members, 30 year old Nallely Sepúlveda and 14 year old Edinson David. They were killed on 19 March at the village of La Esperanza.

CdP is an emblematic site in the history of the Colombian conflict. It was founded on 23 March 1997 in the face of paramilitary violence, forced displacement and the assassination of its leaders. It was founded as a territory declaring itself neutral in the face of the armed conflict and rejecting the presence of all armed groups. And it has since been recognised nationally and internationally as an important peace initiative.[1]

The latest atrocities in CdP occur within a general context of escalating violence. The Agreement to End the Armed Conflict signed by the Colombian State and the FARC-EP, in November 2016, was aimed at ending violence and its impact on the daily lives of civilians. Yet, despite the ceasefires, the impact of violence on the population has remained more or less constant.  Over the past 4 years, on average one FARC leader has been killed every two days; and one former FARC peace signatory has been killed every week.[2] A recent United Nations Report on the human rights situation in the country for 2023 has drawn attention to the deterioration of security conditions in many regions of the country, and the continued territorial expansion and violent strategies of social and territorial control by non-state armed groups and criminal organisations against the civilian population and on ethnic-territorial organisations and grassroots organisations.

The lands and villages in the CdP are located in the area of the Serranía del Abibe, between the Gulf of Urabá and the Nudo del Paramillo. This geographical area is valuable partly because of its strategic location (it is the location of major routes for drug and arms trafficking) and because of its agricultural productivity (the land is fertile and used for cattle breeding and agro-industry) and is the site of extractive mining industries.[3]

The events of 19 March took place within the context of the dispute over territory belonging to the Peace Community. The farm that was the site of the murders, ‘Las Delicias’ is one of the CdP’s most productive farms, and it overlaps with a coal mining concession. The CdP had been publicly criticising the practice of illegal groups buying up plots of land and opening illegal roads over the last few years.  Deforestation and environmental damage in the area adds up to around 1,600 hectares of land according to the European Union. This deforestation has occurred in areas close to the CdP, on territories which are also considered protected.[4]

Las Delicias is only one of a number of territorial disputes over CdP lands. The threat level and lack of protection also remains critical for families living in La Resbalosa, El Porvenir, Mulatos and the Aldea de Paz Luis Eduardo Guerra. Those communities are facing precisely the same threats of violence. The Defensoría del Pueblo (the Colombian National Ombudsman) has published several warnings since 2018 in which it has highlighted the “rigorous territorial and social control”[5] held by paramilitary groups, such as the Autodefensa Gaitanista de Colombia (AGC) and the Clan del Golfo. In these documents, the Defensoría del Pueblo highlights the threats to the territories of Urabá in Antioquia: homicides, forced displacement, dispossession of land and the illegal exploitation of natural resources.

The President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro responded to the murders of the 19 March by saying that, “dark forces want to bring back a new version of paramilitarism to the northwest of the country,”[6] paying tribute to the peasants of Urabá and the costs they had suffered during the armed conflict and underlined the disproportionate suffering faced by the CdP and its project.[7]  In this statement, President Petro also underpinned the importance of defending the CdP.

An appeal led by academics in Colombia has been launched to do precisely this: to defend and restore the right of the CdP and Colombia to live in peace.

This blog is a summary of their statement which can be found in full here.

 

“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.” 22 March 2024 @cdpsanjose

Notes

[1] As a collective subject, the Peace Community has been granted special protection by the Constitutional Court (Ruling T-1025/07 and Ruling T-1025/12) and by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (see resolutions of 9 October 2000, 24 November 2000, 18 June 2002, 17 November 2004, 15 March 2005, 2 February 2006, 6 February 2008, 30 August 2010 and 26 June 2017), and its members enjoy the humanitarian accompaniment of international organisations (Fellowship for Reconciliation FOR Austria, Operazione Colomba, Peace Brigades International – Colombia, among others) and the solidarity and humanitarian support of national and international organisations, such as the European Support Network for the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó.

[2] Annual Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Reports of the Office of the High Commissioner and the Secretary-General, 14 February 2024, https://www.hchr.org.co/wp/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/02-28-2024-Informe-Anual-Advance-Espanol-2023.pdf

[3] Asociación Red de Defensores y Defensoras de Derechos Humanos dhColombia, “Formalización de la tierra en la Comunidad de Paz de San José de Apartadó”, in Informe Derechos humanos, exigibilidad y aproximaciones al litigio estratégico, Gente Nueva Bogotá, February 2023, p. 38.

[4] Among numerous articles, refer to Daniel Rivera Marín, Quién está detrás del asesinato de 2 campesinos de la comunidad de Paz de San José de Apartadó, “El Colombiano”, 22 March 2024, and Ana Cristina Restrepo Jiménez, ¿Quiénes “ordeñan” las “vacas” en Antioquia?, “El Espectador”, 5 April 2024.

[5] Defensoría del Pueblo de Colombia, Alerta temprana n° 51-20, 14 December 2020, p. 6. See also Informe de Seguimiento Nº 014-2023 a la Alerta Temprana Nº 051-2020 para el corregimiento San José de Apartadó, en el municipio Apartadó, departamento Antioquia.

[6] Fuerzas oscuras quieren reeditar el paramilitarismo en el noroeste del país: Petro ante violencia en Antioquia, “Vanguardia”, 20 March.

[7] Remarks by President Gustavo Petro, during the event Acciones por la paz y la vida del Gobierno del Cambio llega a Apartadó – 18 March 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj_2-LMgTgw