While people speak of peace, tranquillity, development and progress in Urabá, the gunfire does not let up. Yet again our Peace Community finds itself with ethical and moral obligation to record before the country, the world, and history, the new facts of horror, in order to prevent oblivion being complicit in human brutality:
- On Monday April 14, 2014, the Peace Community received communication dated February 20, 2014, in which Colonel ERNESTO JOSE CORAL ROSERO of the Brigade XVII sent to Colonel RAFAEL AVILA SALAS, the Chief of the Seventh Division of the army, information that has been submitted by the Armed Forces on several occasions to different communities who accompany us, in Colombia and other parts of the world. In the letter, the commander of the Brigade XVII disrespectfully turns victims into perpetrators, by saying that the group of peace community members who showed solidarity with Wber Areiza insulted them and recorded the event photographically in an abusive way. It is not the first time that this has happened; for over 17 years we have suffered all kinds of outrage, torture and murder, and then they try to turn us victims into perpetrators.
- On Sunday April 20, 2014 at 11:30 am at the 40km point between the Tunja – Bucaramanga road, the vehicle in which Arley Tuberquia, member of the Internal Council of our Peace Community was travelling, was intercepted by a police patrol. When they identified him as a member of our Community, they insulted him and even questioned him as to why he was travelling through that place. They insulted him saying that all those sons of bitches members of the Peace Community were the same, bloody guerrillas who camouflaged themselves under the discourse of human rights.
- Thursday 24 and Friday 25 April, 2014 there was a strong paramilitary presence in the villages of Las Claras, Murmullo Alto and Alto Joaquín, which belong to the township of La Osa in the municipality of Tierralta, Córdoba.
- Wednesday April 30, 2014, at 7:30 am, a bomb was detonated in the town of San José just as the gates of the school were about to open. It appears the explosion was detonated in a controlled manner by the armed forces present there, who were aware of the proximity to the school.
- In recent weeks, the paramilitaries with the support of the armed forces and state institutions, have been illegally building a road between the town of Nuevo Antioquia and the rural settlements of La Hoz and Rodoxali, belonging to the township of San José. Everything goes unnoticed. A few weeks after we denounced the paramilitaries appropriation of the land in Rodoxali, today they are building roads under the protection and the blessing of the authorities. How far will such a criminal and brazen state go?
We thank the national and international solidarity that has accompanied us with their unconditional and irrevocable moral force in demanding respect in the face of barbarity. The love we have for life, will never let us cede an inch before death.
Peace Community of San José de Apartadó
May 5, 2014
Comunidad de Paz de San José de Apartadó
http://www.cdpsanjose.org
