PBI-Colombia has posted:
“We accompany the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, @sanjoapartadó in the commemoration of the massacre of July 8, 2000, in which 6 of its members were murdered in the village of La Unión by paramilitaries in collusion with the security forces. To remember is an act of resistance.”
In the October-December 2000 issue of Peace Magazine, Erika Zarate, a former member of PBI’s International Council, writes about the massacre. Her article begins with a quote from Scott Pearce, another former PBI volunteer, who says:
“Yesterday we visited the village of La Unión. It was an emotional trip for me because it was the first time I had returned to the community since the massacre of July 8. We rode up to La Unión on mule. I rode with a young girl from the community, and as we proceeded slowly along the steep muddy trail she told me about her classes at school and we practiced counting. Then, without pausing, she began to talk about the massacre. Her father was one of those killed. She talked in detail about the events of July 8 in the same tone of voice she had talked about her troubles learning to read, as if it was all a strange story she couldn’t quite understand…”
Erika adds:
“This recent massacre in San José, [was] allegedly instigated jointly by military and paramilitary troops… Twenty hooded men entered the village of La Unión and gathered together the villagers. After asking them several questions and, accusing them of “helping the guerrillas,” they separated the women, children, and old people and opened fire on the remaining group of men, killing six of them. They left immediately following the massacre, warning the villagers to flee the area within three weeks. According to the Intercongregational Commission for Justice and Peace (Colombia), Amnesty International, and the World Movement Against Torture, a helicopter, probably belonging to the XVII Brigade of the Army, flew over the site of the massacre, and troops from the same Brigade were seen close by during the same time period.”
PBI-Colombia has also noted:
“PBI accompanied the families of the victims in the village of La Union [on July 9, 2000]. The day before, members of the Peace Community, Rigoberto Guzman, Elodino Rivera, Diofanor Correa, Humberto Sepulveda, Jaime Guzman and Pedro Zapata were assassinated by paramilitaries. According to Father Javier Giraldo, this massacre was not the product of confrontations in the midst of the armed conflict, nor was it a war crime. This massacre was planned and carried out with a single and indisputable objective: to wipe out the Peace Community.”
More than 326 Peace Community members killed
On the twentieth anniversary of its formation in 2017, the Peace Community stated that 326 of its members had been murdered and that more than 4,000 human rights violations had been committed against the community.
More of its members have been killed since then.
Most recently, community members Nalleli Sepúlveda, age 30, and Edinson David, age 14, were killed on March 19, 2024.
Moira Birss, formerly the U.S. rep to PBI-Colombia, has written in the NACLA report:
“Part of what makes Apartadó and the Urabá region so attractive to armed groups (and the economic interests that often drive them) is the area’s strategic location near the Gulf of Urabá. The gulf flows into the Caribbean Sea, connecting to the Panama Canal and all its commodity export opportunities. On the other side of the gulf is the Darien Gap, which in recent years has become an important migratory route and where transit is controlled by the Gulf Clan. The Peace Community believes that the transit of goods and people through this area is central to the motivation behind the murders of Nalleli and Edinson.
In the months and weeks leading up to the killings, tensions had been building in La Esperanza over widening a pedestrian and horse path to become a car-sized road that would go deep into the hills, presumably to facilitate commodity exports.
The route runs through the Las Delicias estate [where Nalleli and Edinson were killed]. As it is not authorized by the regional authorities, the construction of the road is illegal. The Peace Community has opposed the project and has denounced the involvement of the Gulf Clan and the support of the Army in the process.”
The Peace Community
The Peace Community is located more than 700 kilometres northwest of Bogota in the mountainous northern region in the department of Antioquia.
On March 23, 1997, the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado was formed. The farming community declared itself neutral in the armed conflict and rejected the presence of all the armed groups in its territory.
PBI-Colombia began accompanying the Peace Community in 1999.