Middle Magdalena (Fifth Brigade)

Christmas weekend and the new year will be pain and blood.

-AUC message to Barrancabermeja residents

In this city on the bank of Colombia's Magdalena River, rumors circulated insistently that the AUC planned to make good on its commander's word to "sip coffee" in a local café before the end of the year 2000. Over the previous eleven months, an AUC offensive had pushed UC-ELN guerrillas out of former strongholds in the mountains to the north. Even as Colombia's government attempted to establish a special area in the region to hold peace talks with the UC-ELN, the AUC, firmly opposed to any negotiation, laid claim to the towns of Yondó, Cantagallo, Puerto Wilches, and San Pablo, creating the facts on the ground that would eventually drag the negotiations into 2001, with dwindling hopes of success.¹⁷⁸

Though the AUC's presence was ubiquitous, army and police forces had few if any confrontations with them. In case after case, human rights groups, peasant organizations, religious leaders, and residents described a policy of tolerance and, in some cases, open collaboration between the AUC, local police, and units under the command of the Fifth Brigade, based in Bucaramanga.¹⁷⁹

As one international observer commented to Human Rights Watch, "Paramilitaries could not be doing what they are doing without the support of the military and police."¹⁸⁰

During a Human Rights Watch mission to the Middle Magdalena in January 2001, eyewitnesses described how paramilitaries had been able to maintain their command center in San Blas, outside the town of San Pablo, throughout 2000. Equipped with communications equipment, barracks, and a vehicle pool, this base was used to summon local leaders, collect and distribute weaponry and vehicles, and train hundreds of paramilitary fighters. After a visit to the region, the Office of the UNHCHR informed the government about this base.¹⁸¹ Yet it was not attacked a single time by the Colombian security forces in 2000, even after Colombians who had independently met with Carlos Castaño on its grounds informed Colombia's highest authorities, including President Pastrana, of its existence.¹⁸²

It was not until March 2001 that the Colombian security forces occupied the AUC command center at San Blas. At the time, Gen. Martín Carreño Sandoval, commander of the Fifth Brigade, announced that his troops had seized a paramilitary "fort," AK-47 rifles, munitions, and communications equipment. Soldiers also reportedly found five cocaine laboratories, sixteen kilos of raw cocaine, and 22,000 gallons of the chemicals used to crystallize it into export-grade powder. However, not a single paramilitary was arrested, suggesting, as Castaño had previously told visitors, that he received clear advance warning of the raid.¹⁸³

"When I traveled the Magdalena River recently with a humanitarian mission, it was completely controlled by paramilitaries," one journalist who asked for anonymity told Human Rights Watch. The first paramilitary checkpoint, he said, was only fifteen minutes north of Barrancabermeja. On one occasion, he said, he recognized a Colombian Army soldier wearing an AUC armband. "The ties between the Colombian Army and the paramilitaries are clear."¹⁸⁴

An Urban Assault

As home to Colombia's largest oil refinery and a busy river port, the city of Barrancabermeja is crucial to the country's economic health. For almost three decades, the UC-ELN controlled the eastern slums, using them to recruit new militants, extort money, and supply rural units. But that dominion frayed when the AUC began in 2000 to concentrate on forcing guerrillas -- and anyone believed to support or sympathize with them -- out of the region and out of the city itself.

During the year, city authorities registered an unprecedented 567 homicides among its population of 250,000, twelve more than the total number recorded in the same period in the city of Los Angeles, with a population of almost ten million. Most victims in Barrancabermeja died of gunshot wounds and were believed to have been killed by paramilitaries.¹⁸⁵ In 2000, Barrancabermeja had a homicide rate of 227 per 100,000, among the world's highest.¹⁸⁶

Bishop Jaime Prieto told Human Rights Watch that he believed most of the dead were not combatants, but were likely killed because of a perception that they had sympathies to guerrillas or paramilitaries. "For every one person who may have helped guerrillas, two are killed who had nothing to do with them," he said.¹⁸⁷

As the year's final weeks approached, Barrancabermeja residents alerted human rights groups and the authorities that the AUC had promised that "Christmas weekend and the new year will be pain and blood."¹⁸⁸

In preparation, paramilitaries reportedly recruited many local young people, offering status, weapons, a cellular telephone, and a regular salary that dwarfed those on offer for legal employment. Currently, Barrancabermeja registers an unemployment rate of over 30 percent. "They offered a monthly salary of U.S. $250 per month," explained Francisco "Chico" Campos, a member of the Regional Corporation for the Defense of Human Rights (Corporación Regional para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos, CREDHOS), a human rights group. "They paid store owners for supplies a month in advance and contracted with taxi drivers for a whole month of service."¹⁸⁹

On November 4, the long-rumored offensive began. According to human rights groups, an estimated fifty armed and uniformed men wearing AUC armbands appeared in the neighborhoods of Maria Eugenia, El Paraiso, Campestre, and Altos de Campestre. Lists in hand, they pulled out seven people, killing them on the spot. When the men were told that one of the people on the list was not home, they took brothers Oswaldo and Rodrigo Buitrago instead. The two men remain "disappeared." Residents frantically called police and the local army base, but got no effective response.¹⁹⁰

"Within fourteen hours of that assault, we had confirmed the information provided by CREDHOS," one high level government investigator told Human Rights Watch. "But there was virtually no response on the part of the police or military."¹⁹¹

Assault on Miraflores and Simón Bolívar

Over a month later, on the night of December 22, residents told human rights groups that dozens of uniformed and heavily armed men wearing AUC armbands made a second attempt to enter the city, in the eastern slums of Miraflores and Simón Bolívar. The men forced their way into people's homes, keeping residents virtual hostages. Families were obligated to feed and clothe paramilitaries under threat of death.¹⁹²

"I watched the paramilitaries enter these neighborhoods on December 24, and it was clear to me that it was the result of coordination between the AUC and the police," one eyewitness, who asked for anonymity, told Human Rights Watch.¹⁹³

Over the next twenty-four hours, the AUC asserted control street by street and house by house. On December 23, paramilitaries reportedly set up roadblocks in seven neighborhoods, requiring residents to show identification. That evening, an estimated 150 uniformed and heavily armed men circulated in the city's northeastern quarter. Gunmen reportedly killed Edwin Bayona Manosalva, a seventeen-year-old who had been entering his family home.¹⁹⁴

Although police patrolled nearby, stationed armored vehicles in the vicinity, and even carried out house searches, residents reported that they did not approach locations where known paramilitaries were keeping hostages. To the contrary, Human Rights Watch received numerous reports that after approaching armed paramilitaries, police would allow them to proceed unmolested.¹⁹⁵

"Residents felt abandoned by the authorities," said one international observer.¹⁹⁶

After midnight on December 24, armed men identifying themselves as paramilitaries forced their way into the home and store of Pedro Ospina, a Primero de Mayo resident. According to a declaration he later made to CREDHOS, the men told him they were taking possession of the building and he had to help them. "They proceeded to detain people who were walking in front of my house, and they forced them into the house where they were, and once there they would interrogate them, asking them about the Guerrillas."

That afternoon, Ospina told CREDHOS, a group of Colombian National Police arrived in armored tank No. 178, entered his store, and spoke with the men he assumed were paramilitaries. After inspecting their weapons, the agents apparently warned the men that they should leave for their safety.¹⁹⁷ Ospina later told a government investigator that in his view, the police had rescued the paramilitaries.¹⁹⁸

Nearby, presumed paramilitaries forced Gustavo Adolfo Lobo from his home and into a van. His family found his body the next day.¹⁹⁹

Col. Luis Novoa, the coordinator of the CNP Human Rights office, told Human Rights Watch that police had done an initial investigation of armored vehicle 178. The presumed paramilitaries, he claimed, were actually undercover police agents. "There was a clear error in not communicating this to the residents," he told Human Rights Watch.²⁰⁰

Left unexplained, however, was why these so-called undercover agents were interrogating residents about guerrillas even as paramilitaries were sweeping the area, detaining residents, and killing them.

Subsequently, the AUC confirmed its intentions in a public statement signed by "Esteban," who identified himself as the commander of a regional branch of the AUC that calls itself the United Self-Defense Forces of southern Bolívar and Santander (Autodefensas Unidas del sur de Bolívar y Santander). In a statement faxed to human rights groups and distributed by hand in the city, "Esteban" confirmed the presence of "our military units and intelligence operatives in the rural and urban areas of Barrancabermeja."²⁰¹

A Strategy of Inaction and Delay

What police later characterized as an "intensification" of their patrols proved no obstacle whatsoever to a paramilitary offensive that resulted in a dozen murders between December 22 and January 5, 2001.²⁰² Among the men believed to be directing the paramilitary offensive was Wolman Saír Sepúlveda. Like other AUC members, Sepúlveda had reputedly been a UC-ELN guerrilla who switched allegiance. A month before the offensive began, soldiers belonging to the "Nueva Granada" Antiaircraft Battalion No. 2 arrested Sepúlveda, who was believed responsible for circulating a death list containing the names of ten people. When detained, Sepúlveda reportedly was carrying weapons and identified himself as a member of the AUC.²⁰³

Nevertheless, Sepúlveda was not charged and was released. He returned to the city's northwest slums to terrorize residents until he was arrested a second time in January 2000.²⁰⁴

On December 24, after literally dozens of telephone calls to police and army commanders from local, national, and international human rights groups, the Bogotá office of the UNHCHR, and the U.S. ambassador, the Colombian security forces finally took some action in the city. By the time their forces were deployed, however, paramilitaries had held the Miraflores and Simón Bolívar neighborhoods for almost twenty-four hours.²⁰⁵

"There is no interest and they let the conflict continue," commented one high level Colombian government investigator who visited Barrancabermeja during the Christmas offensive. "The state forces can intervene, but they are not willing to."²⁰⁶

Military and police authorities interviewed by Human Rights Watch denied that they ignored evidence of a paramilitary advance, and argued that they had established a "general presence" to prevent attacks and capture paramilitaries. However, they acknowledged that despite this "presence," political violence was virtually unaffected.²⁰⁷

During the Human Rights Watch visit to Barrancabermeja in January 2001, CREDHOS leaders spent most of their time using portable telephones, receiving detailed information about paramilitary movements and relaying that information immediately to the authorities. "We pass information constantly," Francisco Campos said, "but the violence has not stopped."²⁰⁸

The UC-ELN responded to the paramilitary offensive with its own violence. Human rights groups estimate that two thirds of the people murdered between December 22 and January 17 were killed by guerrillas, as suspected paramilitary collaborators.²⁰⁹ Among the attacks was a January 6, 2001 attempt to activate a bomb next to a Colombian National Police armored vehicle. While four police agents were wounded, the bomb killed passers-by Mérida Contreras and her twelve-year-old son, Braulio. Another daughter lost her right arm. Thirteen other civilians were wounded, including a three-year-old boy.²¹⁰

In January 2001, 200 people were murdered in Barrancabermeja according to government authorities, double the number of people murdered during the same time period in 2000.²¹¹ "Here there is a state of absolute impunity," commented Bishop Jaime Prieto.²¹² This represents a shocking increase in a city already stunned by violence.

Responding to the AUC offensive, President Pastrana called an emergency security meeting on January 10, 2001, seventeen days after the AUC offensive began. Included were members of his cabinet along with Deputy Attorney General Jaime Córboba Triviño, Procurador Jaime Bernal Cuéllar, Peace Commissioner Camilo Gómez, and Colombian National Police commander Luis Gilibert. Afterwards, Interior minister Humberto de la Calle announced that the government was sending army special forces to the city to "stop the massacres, end terrorism and the type of territorial war that the city is living."²¹³

De La Calle claimed that over 150 troops were sent. However, Barrancabermeja military authorities told Human Rights Watch that the number deployed was actually forty-five Special Forces soldiers.²¹⁴

Subsequently, the government announced the formation of a ministerial committee with the stated goal of pursuing and capturing paramilitary groups. In the past, similar steps have been announced but have come to nothing. Indeed, President Pastrana previously announced in February 2000 that he would organize such a committee after a similar series of massacres. However, this committee never even met.²¹⁵

Targeting Human Rights Defenders

Human rights defenders have been among the main targets of the paramilitary advance in Barrancabermeja. Although threats have been a constant for several years, they took on new urgency at the end of 2000, when the AUC began its effort to take the city.

In September 2000, two members of CREDHOS, Mónica Madero and José Guillermo Larios, were forced to leave the city for their safety. On September 30, a flyer signed by the AUC declared that all of the board members of CREDHOS and the local chapter of Association of Relatives of Detainees and Missing Persons (Asociación de Familiares de los Detenidos-Desaparecidos, ASFADDES) were considered "military targets," effectively giving paramilitaries authorization to consider them guerrillas and murder them.²¹⁶

CREDHOS board member Francisco Campos began receiving telephone threats on December 29. Presumed paramilitaries called Campos on the special telephone issued to him by the Ministry of the Interior, for his safety. Several days later, men known to belong to the AUC came to the homes of Larios and CREDHOS board member Iván Madero to threaten them and their colleagues.²¹⁷

Women's organizations that undertake human rights work have also been attacked. The Popular Women's Organization (Organización Popular Femenina, OFP) has been the target of physical violence and threats. On January 19, Audrey Robayo, a CREDHOS member and employee of the Women, Family and Community Corporation, a nongovernmental group, received a telephone call from a neighbor in the Maria Eugenia neighborhood. The neighbor said that he worked for the AUC. According to testimony Robayo gave to CREDHOS, the neighbor told her, "If you want to save your skin, retire from all of this shit, close [the Corporation] there, work for yourself, for your personal benefit and that of your family, don't work for others and not at all for the left." Later, the neighbor invited her to resume social work "after we take over you can return and we'll talk about the social work you can do."²¹⁸

For her safety, Robayo visited the house in the city maintained by Peace Brigades International (PBI). Members of CREDHOS, the OFP, and ASFADDES are accompanied virtually twenty-four hours a day by Barrancabermeja-based PBI volunteers, whose non-profit organization seeks to protect threatened defenders by maintaining a constant, physical presence.²¹⁹

In the PBI house, Robayo described what had happened to her. Within thirty minutes of entering the PBI house, which is unmarked and in a distant neighborhood, an unidentified man called the Women, Family and Community Corporation house in María Eugenia and said, "Tell Audrey that because she is asking for help, that she should ask for help when we kill her for being a snitch."²²⁰

The persecution continued in March. On March 7, two OFP members were handing out leaflets to promote International Women's Day when a group of men approached them and identified themselves as AUC members. The men snatched the leaflets and burned them. They also threatened the women, and told them to leave the area.²²¹

But PBI protection appears increasingly tenuous. On February 8, 2001, paramilitaries entered a house run by a social welfare group affiliated with the OFP and located in the city's El Campestre neighborhood. The men seized the cellular telephone of a PBI volunteer and told the volunteer and Jackie Rojas, an OFP member, that they were considered "military targets."²²²

"The paramilitaries are not just killing us physically, they are also killing our ability to organize, to be community leaders," said Yolanda Becerra, president of the OFP. "We have been forced to shut down projects outside the city, because the paramilitaries have banned us from traveling by river."²²³

The CNP has investigated allegations of police complicity in the paramilitary advance in Barrancabermeja, but has yet to make those results available. General Gilibert acknowledged in an interview with Human Rights Watch that "errors were made" when paramilitaries mounted their offensive and said he was committed to correcting them.²²⁴

Nevertheless, human rights groups concluded that overall, "Despite the expressions of good faith on the part of some government functionaries, the paramilitary offensive continues and the authorities do nothing to stop it."²²⁵

Far from moving effectively to protect threatened defenders and arrest paramilitaries, the commander of the CNP's Middle Magdalena Special Operative Command (Comando Operativo Especial del Magdalena Medio, COEMM), Col. José Miguel Villar Jiménez, attacked human rights groups. In reply to those groups' letter detailing evidence of police complicity with paramilitaries, he wrote that the groups had "their origin in [guerrillas], which attempt to throw mud on the good work that is done constantly with reports and information that also has an echo in the different international Non-Governmental Organizations. It is possible to conclude that this is simply a trap to make the Police agents appear inoperative and possibly tied to self-defense [paramilitary] groups."²²⁶

^226. Letter to Lt. Col. Luis Alfonso Novoa Díaz, coordinator, GRUDH-INSGE, from Col. José Miguel Villar Jiménez, commander, COEMM, January 6, 2001.