In 2016, the Tribunal Superior de Bogotá rendered a decision where it affirmed that the Bloque Capital of the AUC, which operated in the capital, was consolidated at the end of 1997. After the Mapiripán massacre, Carlos Castaño ordered the criminal structure to be expanded with the support of the (retired) military captain Jorge Rojas Read More
In the department of Boyacá there is a geographical distribution of diverse armed actors. While the guerrilla organizations have settled in the upper parts of the region, the paramilitary groups have settled in the flat and low areas of the Western part. As for the presence of paramilitary organizations, since 2001, the Frente Héroes de Read More
In 1996, when the AUC planned to expand to the Meta, the massacres of Mapiripán (July 1997) and Puerto Alvira (May 1998) occurred, according to the UNHCR diagnosis. This paramilitary bloc, commanded by Miguel Arroyave, managed to be present in most of the region with the support of alias ‘Pirata’ and ‘Camisa Negra’, of criminal Read More
The arrival of oil companies in Casanare at the end of the 1980’s coincided with a strengthening of the presence of paramilitaries in the area. On one hand the so-called Autodefensas Campesinas de Casanare (ACC) extended their actions to the Boyacá department with State acquiescence, producing a countless number of systematic human rights violations. On Read More
In Sucre a small number of people own the land. A great part of the political violence comes from their will to monopolize the territory by preventing the peasants from occupying it. Many peasant families in the region were victims of human rights violations and had to flee their homes, and the big landowners took Read More
In 1999, in the expansion plan of the Castaño brothers, a paramilitary group came to Nariño to form the Libertadores del Sur de las AUC bloc. Since this year and until 2004, according to reports of the Rutas del Conflicto, at least 11 massacres were perpetrated by this bloc. According to the decision of Read More
State criminality in the department of Cauca has been perpetrated through the persecution and assassinations of indigenous and rural leaders, as a response to the diverse historical movements of resistance in this region. Violent attacks were committed against rural people, indigenous, Afro-Colombian and poor urban communities often represented by unions or student or victims’ organizations, Read More
In the Eastern municipalities of Caldas, the Autodefensas del Magdalena Medio (ACMM) were present and closely linked with the dynamics that were developed in the Magdalena Medio region. The paramilitary group Muerte a los Secuestradores – MAS (Death to Kidnappers) carried out its actions in the department in the 1980’s. It is in the following Read More
Paramilitary intervention in this zone was carried out by the Autodefensas Campesinas de Córdoba y Urabá (ACCU). In addition to acts of terror against the rural society, they violently attacked the artisanal miners resistance which was organized through different local committees linked to the Federación Agrominera del Sur de Bolívar – Fedeagromisbol. In addition to Read More
The chapter is based in Barrancabermeja (Santander). Historically, this municipality’s economic growth came from the petroleum industry, the first well having been exploited in 1916. In Barrancabermeja there is the central office of Ecopetrol, the labor union of which is one of the most renowned in the country : the Unión Sindical de Obreros (USO). Read More
Some of the most famous cases of socio-political violence in Atlántico are the targeted killings in the 1980’s and 1990’s which were attacks against resistance movements. Historically, the city of Barranquilla was the epicentre of the rebellion of labor unions and saw the rise of a social and student movement. The latter had to face Read More
This department has known some of the most well-known cases nation-wide: massacres, targeted assassinations and enforced disappearance, with the actions or omission of the 4th Brigade of the National Army with the complicity of the AUC. In Medellin’s Tribunal sentence of 2017 relating the case of the murder of Jesús María Valle Jaramillo, human rights Read More
The first raid of the AUC (Bloque Calima) was on the 31st of July 1999 in the vereda La Moralia de Tuluá. According to the report of Univalle Historical Memory group, one of the triggers for the arrival of paramilitaries from Uraba to Valle del Cauca was the mass abduction perpetrated by the Ejercito de Read More
Paramilitarism arrived in Norte de Santander in 1982, year during which the high level of paramilitary raids committing crimes against humanity with the complicity of the Army and the National Police started to be revealed. The surge of violence became most evident with the arrival of the Autodefensas Campesinas de Córdoba y Urabá (ACCU) in Read More
In the 1960’s the inhabitants of Tolima witnessed the emergence of the first self-defense groups, helped by the Army, which 20 years later, formed an alliance with the drug traffickers arriving in the department from Valle and Antioquia. However, it was only at the end of the 1990’s that the two main paramilitary groups arrived Read More