Fight for Justice Inches Forward for Victims of Massacre in Colombia
Fight for Justice Inches Forward for Victims of Massacre in Colombia
Friday, 22 April 2016 00:00
By Andalusia Knoll, Truthout | Report
The town of Trujillo in southwestern Colombia overflows with lush beauty. On its steep green hillsides hang banana plants, coffee bushes and picturesque trees with white flowers. Behind this beauty, however, lies a historic tragedy in which over 300 campesino farmers were massacred between 1989 and 1992, with the majority of people killed during March and April of 1990.
Neither the prospect of a peace accord being brokered in Havana, Cuba, between guerrillas from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Colombian government, nor the prospect of a future agreement with guerrillas from the National Liberation Army (ELN) has given these residents hope. The majority of the violence that they suffered was at the hands of drug trafficking paramilitary groups working in cahoots with the army and police. Paramilitaries still reign throughout Colombia, even though they were formally demobilized in the mid-2000s. Various campesinos have been threatened and murdered by these groups in Valle de Cauca State where Trujillo is located. Residents also say they have seen too many failed peace agreements to truly believe that the guerillas will cease to operate.
What does give residents hope, 25 years after terror reigned in their community, is their ability to reconstruct their communities' social fabric, activate agricultural productivity and also receive compensation from the Colombian government as they are officially recognized as victims of the armed conflict.
Since 1996, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has been examining the case, and on April 6, 2016, the court ordered the Colombian government to acknowledge the role it played in the massacre. The government has agreed to do so this Saturday, April 23, in the Trujillo Memorial Park.
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The Trujillo Monument Park is dedicated to preserving collective memory and honoring those massacred. (Photo: Andalusia Knoll)
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More:
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35755-fight-for-justice-inches-forward-for-victims-of-massacre-in-colombia
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