----- Original Message ----- From: Roger ROMAIN <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2001 5:29 PM Subject: Fw: Colombia: The Cimitarra Valley situation ----- Original Message ----- From: "Pakito Arriaran" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, February 26, 2001 4:36 AM Subject: Colombia: The Cimitarra Valley situation COLOMBIA REPORT Information Network of the Americas PO Box 20314 New York, NY 10009 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.colombiareport.org - Monday, 19 February 2001 - ----- ____________________________________________________________________ THE CIMITARRA VALLEY SITUATION ____________________________________________________________________ by Liam Craig-Best http://www.colombiareport.org/colombia51.html On the morning of January 20, 2001, a joint Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla force simultaneously carried out surprise attacks on five paramilitary bases in the Cimitarra Valley in the south of Bolivar. The guerrillas, who initially attacked the camps with gas cylinders that immediately killed 22 death squad members, in total managed to wipe-out over 120 paramilitary fighters. In 1998 after paramilitaries had begun to displace large numbers of peasant farmers in the south of Bolivar department, a delegation of regional peasant farmer leaders took part in a series of negotiations with the Colombian government that led to a signed agreement under which the government said it would guarantee the safety of the displaced communities and take action to combat the paramilitary groups responsible. Far from taking action against the paramilitary forces the government stood by and did nothing, while an increase in paramilitary activity occurred alongside an increase in the amount of help these units received from the Colombian Army in the region. Local army commanders who were known to be deeply involved in death squad activities were allowed to remain in their posts and army units that openly patrolled with the paramilitaries were not reigned in. One of the worst affected areas was the Cimitarra Valley. The following year, on November 28, 1999, Cimitarra Valley peasant leaders Edgar Quiroga and Gildardo Fuentes were 'disappeared' by local paramilitary forces. Both men had taken part in the talks with the Colombian government yet still nothing was done and the army continued working hand in glove with the killers. In late 2000 there was a massive increase in paramilitary activity in the Cimitarra Valley and the numbers of civilians being displaced from the area increased dramatically. Amnesty International reported that in early December the paramilitaries attacked the Cimitarra River Valley Peasant Farmers Association and that during mid-December some 200 paramilitaries raided 11 hamlets in the valley. Amnesty also said, "Two army helicopters were reportedly overhead during the raids, together with one civilian helicopter which is known to be used by paramilitaries. It is of concern that the army and the paramilitaries were apparently working together." On December 15, the Colombian military bombed four communities in the Valley and although this forced many residents to flee, a large number elected to remain. Predictably the paramilitaries then moved in and began their work. Hundreds of families were told that they would be exterminated if they did not leave and at least six people, including peasant leader Eduardo Amaris Perz, were 'disappeared'. During the following days the paramilitaries announced that local peasant leaders Miguel Cifuentes, Gilberto Guerra, Andres Gil and Libardo Traslavina, along with the communities they represented were guerrilla sympathizers and were therefore military targets. To add to this the army then backed-up the paramilitaries by labelling the leaders of the Cimitarra River Valley Peasant Farmers' Association as 'subversives,' thereby leaving them completely open to death squad attacks. All four of the leaders threatened had, two years previously, participated in the negotiations with the government regarding protection for the displaced. The paramilitaries with the open backing of the army now had the Cimitarra Valley firmly under their control and by the end of December they had set up numerous checkpoints and bases in the region from which they ran their operations. On December 30th, according to witnesses, paramilitaries and soldiers from a nearby counter-guerrilla battalion were jointly manning a roadblock at a place known as La Rompida when an unarmed civilian, Libardo Taburete, arrived on a motorcycle. He was hauled away tortured and murdered, apparently without reason In the new year the paramilitary violence continued and on January 3, 2001, the death squads kidnapped 18 local residents who were members of the Cimitarra River Valley Peasants Association. In a communiqu the paramilitaries announced that the kidnappings were in retaliation for the killing of a paramilitary fighter and the detention of two others by the guerrillas. Coinciding with the December increase in paramilitary activity two senior guerrilla force commanders in the region met and devised a joint strategy to expel the death squads from the Cimitarra Valley and, in the words of one of them, "to give some sort of justice to those families who have suffered at the hands of the death squads. The two commanders, Pastor Alape, commander of the Magdalena Medio Block of the FARC, and Gallero, a senior leader of the Ramirez Castro Block of the ELN, decided to slowly and secretly surround the area where the paramilitary forces had their camps before making a large-scale lightening blow against them. In the meantime, they decided, they would carry out as many assassinations of death squad members as possible. By mid-January 2001 the guerrillas had managed to kill around 100 paramilitary fighters and had all five major death squad camps in the Cimitarra Valley secretly surrounded. Early in the morning on January 20, the FARC and ELN sent their best troops to attack the five camps. Even though a military helicopter provided logistical support to the paramilitaries defending the camps, the guerrilla operation managed to over-run all five camps and kill more than 120 paramilitaries, including the Cimitarra Valley death squad commander. What the guerrilla forces found in the paramilitary camps only surprised the most naive observers. Piles of boxes of army issue ammunition and landmines, as well as military documents, were discovered in the command posts. The army had basically supplied the bases. What came as more of a shock was the fact that some of those killed by the guerrillas inside the death squad camps were actually active service military personnel. Among them was Henry Morales Rojas (Identification Number 91-478-941) who was found with a certificate showing he was a serving member of a local army counter-guerrilla battalion. Other paramilitaries killed included Orlando Francisco Campo Mendoza from the town of Fonseca, Guajira department (ID Number 17-956-895), who had documents on his body showing that he had left the army only a few days previously According to local FARC commander Julian, many of those killed during the attack on the bases had in fact been Colombian Army Special Forces troops who were serving as paramilitary fighters. The Colombian government, the armed forces and their U.S. backers all continue to deny that the paramilitaries and the army are working together. Yet the recent attack on the Cimitarra Valley paramilitary bases has been completely ignored by them. It is very likely that this is due to the fact that an investigation would show that these bases were regularly supplied by army and paramilitary helicopters and that it is impossible that the army radar base in nearby Barrancabermeja was not aware of this. The question of why the paramilitary helicopters that used the bases were never intercepted would obviously also arise. Furthermore, an investigation would show that while military aircraft regularly flew over the area on their way to bomb alleged guerrilla camps deep in the forests and mountains, they never once attacked the paramilitary camps that were easy targets on low and open land and that, more importantly, housed the real criminals of the Cimitarra Valley. The Colombian government also claims that it is cracking down on paramilitarism in and around the city of Barrancabermeja, yet the the paramilitaries that survived the guerrilla offensive met, on January 21, 2001, with army commanders from that city. The meeting was held at a place known as Cuatro Bocas at the end of the Cimitarra Valley and, according to observers, involved talk of a future joint effort to retake the region. The next few months, unfortunately, will no doubt see a lot more united action from the paramilitary-military alliance. It appears that by the first week of February 2001, the surviving paramilitaries in the Cimitarra Valley region had set themselves up in the area around Cuatro Bocas -- the place where they had met with the army. In the last few days guerrilla units have arrived in the area and the paramilitaries have again had to go on the defensive. On February 5, troops of the Colombian Army`s 4th Brigade appeared in the area for the first time and have gone into battle with the guerrillas in an effort to give the paramilitaries an opportunity to regroup. When the troops arrived, planes and helicopters accompanied them and these have begun to saturate the region with bombs and machine gun fire, forcing numerous residents to leave the area and join other displaced people in Barrancabermeja and other places. During the past months of paramilitary terror in the Valley the troops of the 4th Brigade never once made an appearance. Furthermore evidence has emerged that when the guerrillas retreat into the mountains, rather than pursue them, these troops spend their time doing the paramilitary's work for them. A February 5, 2001, statement the Cimitarra River Valley Peasant Farmers' Association denounced "the Colombian State and its Armed Forces" as "directly responsible for the current massacres, disappearances, ransacking, burning of small villages, destruction of harvests and killing of livestock that is occurring as part of this new military operation" in the area. On the morning of Feb 7, 2001, reports began coming through of at least 3,000 more counter-insurgency troops, from both the Colombian Army`s 5th and 14th Brigades, arriving at the airport in Barrancabermeja to reinforce those already in the south of Bolivar. Heavy combat with both FARC and ELN units has also been reported and a large number of U.S.-made Blackhawk helicopters have been seen in the area. Liam Craig-Best is an independent journalist who focuses on Colombia. Copyright 2000. Colombia Report is a publication of the Information Network of the Americas (INOTA), a non-profit organization. All rights reserved. _______________________________________________ Marxist-Leninist-List mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/marxist-leninist-list
