The Court ordered Colombia to “initiate, promote, reopen and continue” within a maximum of two years “investigations” to “establish the truth”, “determine responsibilities” and punish the culprits
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights determined this Monday that Colombia is “responsible” for the “extermination” of thousands of leftist militants in the 1980s and 1990s, and ordered the reopening of investigations into those crimes.
“Colombia is responsible for the human rights violations committed to the detriment of more than 6,000 victims who are members and militants of the Patriotic Union (UP) political party,” the sentence states.
The UP appeared in 1985 in the framework of a failed peace process between the FARC communist guerrillas and the Colombian government, but its militants were left at the mercy of armed groups that insisted on eliminating them.
On March 22, 1990, UP presidential candidate Bernardo Jaramillo was shot and killed at the Bogota international airport. The party’s candidate in the 1986 elections, Jaime Pardo, suffered the same fate while driving along a rural road on October 11, 1987.
The Court also determined that the judicial investigations into the crimes of the thousands of UP militants “were not effective and were characterized by high rates of impunity.”
“This ruling does justice to three decades of struggle by the victims,” Colombian Senator Iván Cepeda, son of communist leader Manuel Cepeda, assassinated in 1994, told the Bogotá newspaper El Espectador.
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“systematic plan”
The Court ordered Colombia to “initiate, promote, reopen and continue” within a maximum of two years “investigations” to “establish the truth”, “determine responsibilities” and punish the culprits.
As reparation measures, the Court asked to search for the disappeared, publicly acknowledge the responsibility of the State and establish a national day to commemorate the victims, among others.
The Court said that as a consequence of the “rapid rise” of the UP in Colombian politics, “acts of violence began” by “an alliance” between paramilitaries, traditional politicians, police and businessmen.
Violence against UP militants “manifested itself through acts of a different nature such as forced disappearances, massacres, extrajudicial executions and murders, threats, attacks, various acts of stigmatization, improper prosecutions, torture, forced displacement, among others,” detailed the Court based in San José.
According to the ruling, it was “a systematic extermination plan against the Patriotic Union political party, its members and militants,” which constitutes “a crime against humanity.”
“Because I’m from the left”
Erika Antequera, daughter of UP leader José Antequera, assassinated in 1989, wrote in a “reflection” in El Espectador: “The first lawyer who wanted to investigate the murder was killed or his wife and children disappeared. I don’t remember, but I know my mother told me many years ago. The second said that he advised her, but that he did not commit himself. He was afraid. My mother decided not to insist.
“It is recognized that in a supposed democracy they murdered our compañeros and compañeras,” tweeted UP senator Aída Avella, a survivor in 1996 of a bazooka attack that led her into exile for almost two decades.
The ruling was handed down by the Court during the mandate of President Gustavo Petro, the first left-wing ruler of Colombia, who stated that the people of the UP were assassinated “just because they were from the left.”
«Today an American court of justice will say that the State helped to assassinate thousands of militants of a political party, just because it was from the left. A murderous State that should not return anymore, a society of privileges that murders rather than allowing change,” the president tweeted shortly before the ruling was published.
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