Colombia: Some 5,000 people were killed in attacks on a communist faction in the 1980s and 1990s

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Colombian justice has verified that at least 4,616 people were killed and another 1,117 disappeared in attacks carried out mainly by government officials against the Patriotic Union (Unión Patriótica, UP) party from 1984 to 2007, a report released Friday reveals.

“Of the 5,733 victims (members of the UP), 4,616 were homicides” and the rest were “victims of enforced disappearances”, according to the Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz (JEP), a special court set up in 2016.

“Violence against UP members was perpetrated primarily by government officials and paramilitaries, in a massive, generalized and systematic manner,” the JEP report states.

The UP, a faction with a communist ideology, was formed as part of the peace process between the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the then president, Belisario Betancourt (1982-1986).

Among its members and executives killed were its candidates in the 1986 and 1990 presidential elections, Jaime Pardo and Bernardo Haramillo, respectively, incumbent MPs, numerous local elected officials.

The party has re-emerged in the last decade. Today, it is participating in the “Historic Agreement”, the alliance of the left that precedes, according to opinion polls, in the run-up to the May presidential elections, in which its candidate is Gustavo Petro.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (ICC) has been investigating this case since 2018. It has stressed that the investigations carried out by the Colombian authorities into the attacks against UP were “insufficient”. However, he has not yet issued a verdict.

JEP, which proposes alternative punishments to those who confess to their crimes and offer reparations to victims or their families, has at its disposal the testimonies of 150 people involved in the attacks against UP. The vast majority (121) belonged to the security forces and the secret services.

“There has been a systematic contribution of government officials” to these crimes, whether committed by the security forces themselves or by far-right “paramilitary organizations”, the JEP report said.

This special court was established under the 2016 peace agreement, which led to the disarmament and dissolution of the FARC. It is responsible for prosecuting the most serious crimes of the civil conflict that lasted more than half a century and had nine million victims (dead, missing, abducted, mutilated, displaced).

Under the peace agreement, those who confess to their crimes and agree to pay reparations to victims serve alternative sentences are not imprisoned.

In January 2021, senior FARC officials were charged with abducting 21,396 people from 1990 to 2016. Former rebel leaders have acknowledged their responsibilities and are awaiting sentencing.

Dozens of former soldiers are also being prosecuted for the killings of 6,400 civilians, who were massacred by the armed forces and later presented as guerrillas killed in the battle, a scandal known in the Latin American country as falsos positivos (“false positives”).

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