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Impunity and broken promises
One year and over one hundred deaths later, justice still proves elusive.
John Ludwick
LatinAmerica Press
Boats arrive on the muddy banks of Bellavista, the urban center of the Bojayá municipality in the Pacific department of Chocó. They carry with them government and non-government officials, members of the diplomatic corps and journalists, but also scores of survivors returning to the humble township for the first time since fleeing a year earlier, many still too traumatized to return for good.
All have come to commemorate the first anniversary of the deaths of more than 100 people in the town’s tiny church on May 2, 2002, and to confront a year of broken promises and impunity that has seen numerous army officers and paramilitary commanders elude justice.
More than a year after a propane cylinder packed with explosives — launched during a battle between leftist guerrillas and rightwing paramilitaries — crashed through the roof of the church, killing 119 Bellavista residents who sought refuge there, little has been done to repair the lives of local residents or pursue justice.
This despite the promise of US$3.3 million — funds that have largely failed to materialize — to help alleviate the extreme poverty, social problems and insecurity plaguing the municipality of Bojayá and other communities in the Middle Atrato region. The region’s population, mostly of Afro-Colombian or indigenous descent, says they are no better off than they were before and doubt their condition will improve in the future.
"A lot of people are coming now, because it’s the first anniversary. What we don’t know is if they’ll remember us next year, or if we’ll be forgotten again," one Bellavista resident said.
There is also indignation that the crime’s authors have not been brought to justice, or in some cases, have never been investigated. The attorney general’s office has indicted three commanders from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the insurgent group that fired the homemade mortar. Nonetheless, these guerrilla leaders remain at large.
But the paramilitary and army troops identified by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) and the national Human Rights Ombudsman’s office as sharing responsibility for the deaths have so far escaped indictment.
A UNHCHR report says that paramilitaries violated international humanitarian law for using civilians as human shields by taking up defensive positions in their midst. The report also named state security forces responsible for allowing the arrival of paramilitaries at Bellavista, failure to respond to early warnings that a tragedy was imminent, failure to arrest several paramilitaries that remained in the region in the days following the massacre, and for an indiscriminate attack on a nearby village.
The non-governmental Corporación Jurídica Libertad (CJL), which promotes human rights and represents the Bellavista community’s legal process, says the attorney general has overlooked evidence identifying specific paramilitary commanders of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), including a former police officer, and ignored calls to investigate six high ranking military officials for their involvement in what amounts to a war crime.
"We’re talking about impunity," said CJL’s Liliana Uribe, a lawyer. "The attorney general’s office has the duty to investigate all those individuals involved, including the guerrillas, the paramilitaries and militaries. One year later, the attorney general has done absolutely nothing."
On April 21, 2002, eight fast launches carrying 350 heavily armed AUC members left the port city of Turbo in the Antioquia department bound for Bellavista and the neighboring community of Vigía del Fuerte, both FARC strongholds. On route, the flotilla passed through no fewer than four army or naval checkpoints.
Days later the UNHCHR, the procurator general and the human rights ombudsman issued early warnings advising security forces of impending clashes between the outlawed forces that would most likely impact civilians. The alerts were ignored and in the early hours of May 1, fierce fighting erupted in Bellavista, continuing until the next day. The fighting prompted 450 residents, about half the town’s population, to seek cover in the church.
During the battle, paramilitary positions close to the church became a target of the FARC pipetas, crude, inaccurate mortars made from gas cylinders loaded with explosives and shrapnel. According to witnesses, a pipeta crashed through the church’s roof at 10am, causing carnage inside.
The security forces say the failure to detect the several hundred paramilitary troops was an unfortunate omission, but human rights defenders call it another stark example of state collaboration with paramilitaries. Colombian armed forces are also accused of indiscriminately attacking the neighboring village of Napipí from helicopters and a gunboat on May 7, causing the death of one person and wounding two others.
In July 2002, the procurator general’s office opened a disciplinary investigation against six high-ranking military officials for presumed non-fulfillment of their responsibility to protect the people of Bojayá. Among them figure Maj. Gen. Leonel Gómez, then commander of the army’s First Division and Brig. Gen. Mario Montoya Uribe, then commander of the Medellin-based IV Brigade.
However, the procurator general lacks the mandate to prosecute officials and so far the attorney general has failed to take any action, leading many to believe that justice will never be served.
Father Antún Ramos, a young parish priest who endured the attack and is credited with leading hundreds of other survivors to safety in the aftermath, says he thanks God every day for sparing his life and giving him a second chance to serve Bojayá’s inhabitants. But he, like most of the region’s residents, has been frustrated by a year of broken promises and impunity. "The very least that can be done is to open an investigation to identify those responsible," Ramos said. "The people fear that last year’s events could repeat themselves because the same illegal armed actors are still in the area and the same risks prevail."
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