Colombia: 5,733 people killed or missing in attacks on Patriotic Union from 1984 to 2016
In 2008, Colombians in Brussels demanded justice for Bernardo Jaramillo, candidate for the 1990 presidential election. AFP - DOMINIQUE FAGET
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Colombian justice established that 4,616 people were killed and 1,117 disappeared during attacks, carried out in particular by state agents, against the Patriotic Union party (UP, communist) between 1984 and 2007, according to a report published Friday 22 April 222.
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"
Of the
5,733 victims (members of the UP),
4,616 were victims of homicide
" and the others were
"victims of enforced disappearance
", indicates in this document the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), a special tribunal created in 2016. “
Violence against UP members was mainly implemented by state agents and paramilitaries in a massive, widespread and systematic manner,
” charged the JEP.
Jaime Pardo and Bernardo Jaramillo murdered
The communist-minded UP emerged as a political movement during an attempted peace process between the Marxist guerrillas of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and then-president Belisario Betancur (1982- 86).
Among its murdered militants were two candidates for the presidential elections of 1986 and 1990, respectively Jaime Pardo and Bernardo Jaramillo, as well as sitting parliamentarians and many local elected officials.
The party reemerged at the start of the last decade
and is now part of the "Historical Pact", a left-wing coalition that leads the polls for the upcoming presidential election in May, behind candidate Gustavo Petro.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the highest judicial body on the continent, took up the case in 2018, considering that the investigations carried out by Colombia into the attacks against the UP were "
insufficient
".
It has not yet ruled on this case.
Testimonials from 150 people
The JEP, which offers alternative sentences to prison for those who confess their crimes and reparations to victims and their families, received testimonies from 150 people linked to the attacks on the UP, the majority (121) being members security forces and state intelligence services.
“
There was a systematic contribution by state agents
” to the crimes, which were sometimes perpetrated by the security forces themselves and at other times by
far-right “
paramilitary groups
”, according to the JEP.
Born of the 2016 peace agreement which allowed the disarmament of the FARC, this tribunal judges the worst crimes of this conflict which lasted more than half a century and left nine million victims, dead, missing, kidnapped, mutilated. and moved.
According
to the peace agreement
, those who confess their crimes and allocate reparations to their victims will benefit from alternative sentences to prison.
In January 2021, senior FARC commanders were indicted for the kidnapping of 21,396 people between 1990 and 2016. The former guerrillas have accepted responsibility and are awaiting sentencing.
Dozens of former soldiers have also been indicted for the murder of 6,400 civilians executed by the army and presented as guerrilla victims of the fighting, a scandal known as the "
false positives ".
".
📝 5,733 personas fueron asesinadas o desaparecidas en attacks directed against the Union Patriótica between 1984 and 2016
.
Comunicado: https://t.co/Y4ktJlID2i pic.twitter.com/La3CZojIrB
— Special Jurisdiction for La Paz (@JEP_Colombia) April 22, 2022
(With AFP)
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