Trail of blood leads from Colombia to the U.S.

Published on Thursday, March 17, 2005 by the Star Tribune (Minneapolis,
MN)
 
On Feb. 25, they found a trail of blood leading away from a farm. One hundred
men and women from San José de Apartadó, Colombia, accompanied
by international witnesses from Peace Brigades International, the Fellowship
of Reconciliation, the Corporation for Judicial Liberty and Concern America,
followed the trail to the first grave.

Two-year-old Santiago and his 6-year-old sister, Natalia, were buried with
their parents, Sandra Milena Muñoz-Rozo and Alfonso Bolivar Tuberquia-Graciano,
and Alejandro Perez Cuiles. Later that day, they found more bodies in an open
field. Eleven-year-old Deiner Guerra was there with his father, Luis Eduardo
Guerra, and Luis’ 17-year-old companion, Bellanira Areiza-Guzman.

According to Amerigo Incalcaterra, a U.N. human rights official at the scene,
bodies in the graves had been hacked apart with machetes. At least one body,
that of Luis Eduardo Guerra, showed signs of torture. The search stopped at
the graves, but the story does not end there. In a deeper sense, the bloody
trail leads to the United States.

The people of San José knew knew what to expect when they left their
town to search for their neighbors. In 1997, led by the murdered Luis Eduardo
Guerra, they had declared their town a "peace community," refusing
entry and welcome to all of the armed factions in Colombia’s bloody civil war.

Since 1997, more than 130 residents have been murdered. No one has been convicted
for a single one of those murders.

Peace communities stand against both the Colombian Army and its paramilitary
allies and the FARC guerrillas. (FARC is the Spanish acronym for the leftist
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.) Peace communities forbid carrying weapons.
They insist that no fighters from any side are welcome.

At times, members of peace communities have succeeded in turning back FARC
or Army forces intent on violating their territory. At other times, armed men
from the Army or the right-wing paramilitaries or the FARC have entered and
killed.

Luis and Alfonso were friends. Alfonso was a leader in the nearby peace community
of Mulatos. As a leader in Colombia’s peace community movement, Luis had traveled
to Madison, Wis., and to Europe to raise awareness about peace communities.
But Luis was not a politician or a human rights official. He was a farmer.

Luis and his family had left San José days earlier, walking seven hours
to Luis’ fields, to harvest cacao beans.

On the way home, they were stopped by soldiers from the 17th Army Brigade and
taken to Alfonso’s nearby farm. Luis’ half-brother, also part of the group,
escaped and ran to San José to raise the alarm. A small group found blood
and human remains at Alfonso’s farm. They returned to San José to assemble
the larger search party, which found the graves.

One might expect President Alvaro Uribe and other government officials to offer
their profound apologies for the Army’s actions and a promise of investigations
and prosecutions. They neither apologized nor promised legal actions. Instead,
on March 2, the Army occupied San José.

On March 9, President Uribe denounced the peace communities, saying that no
community could bar the Army from entering.

The United States shares responsibility for the actions of Colombia’s president
and the massacres carried out by Colombia’s military. Colombia is the third-largest
recipient of U.S. military aid. Under "Plan Colombia," we help to
train and arm Colombia’s army. U.S. soldiers train their Colombian counterparts
to guard oil pipelines, and U.S. mercenaries fly helicopter missions and languish
in FARC custody as prisoners of war.

As chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere,
Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., has been unwavering in his support of Plan Colombia’s
military aid and the Uribe administration.

On June 23, Coleman said on the Senate floor, "For anyone familiar with
the situation in Colombia, it is clear President Uribe is bringing security,
stability and law and order to a country that so desperately needs it."

On Feb. 28, seven days after Luis Eduardo Guerra and his family and friends
were killed by the Colombian Army, the U.S. State Department issued its annual
human rights report. As usual, the report praised the Colombian government for
progress in human rights.

Like the men and women of San José, the world can follow the trail of
blood from the massacred farmers and human rights workers and teachers and journalists
and labor leaders in Colombia. That trail of blood leads to our door.