San José de Apartadó

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

San José de Apartadó is a village in the Urabá region of Colombia . It gained national recognition as a peace village for its work for peace in the armed conflict in Colombia and was awarded the Aachen Peace Prize in 2007 . In 2011 it was proposed by the left-wing group GUE / NGL for the Sakharov Prize of the European Parliament.

population

San José has 1350 inhabitants.

history

Coordinates: 7 ° 52 ′  N , 76 ° 35 ′  W

Map: Colombia
marker
San José de Apartadó​
Magnify-clip.png
Colombia

1350 residents of the village of San José de Apartadó declared themselves a peace village on March 23, 1997 and adopted rules of non-violence: weapons are not tolerated, alcohol is forbidden in the village, and no information is passed on to armed groups. Although the village is located in the highly contested province of Urabá, San José refused to join the military , paramilitaries and guerrillas. Since then, the place has paid a high price for its work for peace, over 180 people were murdered by the various armed groups.

In 2007, San José de Apartadó was awarded the Aachen Peace Prize. Two representatives of the San José de Apartadó Peace Community were murdered on May 13 and July 14, 2007 after the award winners were announced.

2005 massacre

In 2005, the village spokesman, Luis Eduardo Guerra, his partner and his 11-year-old son were murdered. The peace activist Alfonso Tuberquia, his wife and their two young children were also murdered. Many of the victims were mutilated and showed signs of torture.

On July 18, 2008, the Colombian Attorney General signed the indictment against nine responsible military personnel. They are accused of having committed serious human rights abuses and of allowing the AUC paramilitaries to penetrate the massacre , some have admitted the allegations. In February 2012, the public prosecutor had eight bodies exhumed from a mass grave and autopsied. In June, four servicemen who were acquitted in the first instance were sentenced to 34 years in prison. Three perpetrators received 40-year imprisonment, 15 others received 20 years imprisonment each after previous confessions.

Paramilitary invasion 2011

In November 2011, the community complained to the Colombian authorities that 200 paramilitaries had entered their area and set up four bases there. The Colombian army is allowing the paramilitaries to move freely in the municipality of Apartadó. The paramilitaries had detained 50 people for several hours and threatened to take over the residents' lands "with or without their consent". The paramilitaries set certain regulations for the residents, hindered the free movement of food and cordoned off zones. Although the government knew this, it kept silent, approved it and turned a blind eye.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Aachen Peace Prize 2007
  2. ↑ Javier Giraldo: San José de Apartadó - the massacred peace . ZNet . April 7, 2005. Retrieved September 6, 2008.
  3. ↑ Verdades de la masacre de San José de Apartadó ( Spanish ) elespectador.com. August 1, 2008. Archived from the original on September 6, 2008. Retrieved on September 6, 2008.
  4. ↑ Procuraduría destituye a cuatro soldados por masacre de San José de Apartadó , in: Semana of October 8, 2012, accessed on December 12, 2012 (Spanish)
  5. ↑ Ratifican condenas contra cuatro militares por masacre , in: El Espectador of June 12, 2012, accessed on December 12, 2012 (Spanish)
  6. ↑ Hans Weber: Colombia: Paramilitary murders in Friedensdorf. In: amerika21. December 26, 2011, accessed December 27, 2011 .

Web links