3 SOA Graduates Cited in the Trujillo "Chainsaw" Massacre
WHAT IS THE MASSACRE OF
TRUJILLO?
Unlike many others in Colombia, the massacre of Trujillo did not
occur in just one day. The killing took place over 8 years due to
one single reason: during all that time the State acted as
instigator, supporter, and protector of criminals who turned
murder, forced disappearance, torture, arbitrary detention, and
threats, a systematic practice against a defenseless civilian
population.
During all that time, the Army and the
Police maintained a permanent alliance with two powerful drug
traffickers who settled in the region and acquired huge
properties. This alliance allowed the financing of a paramilitary
structure, constituted by armed civilians, who had license to
kill and commit all sorts of crimes with guaranteed impunity. All
other State authorities including inspectors, mayors, ombudsmen,
councilmen, attorneys general, governors, ministers, and
presidents, provided that criminal structure with the most
valuable support for their crimes by avoiding action against
them, declining to apply justice, and ignoring their acts.
This criminal structure persecuted peasants whose lands were
transited by guerrillas, those who were members of peasant or
union organizations, those who protested, those who created
community production cooperatives, those who saw a need to fight
injustice, those who were community leaders beyond the control of
the criminals, and those who criticized the criminal powers that
had taken over the region. Also persecuted were those who were
addicted to drugs, the young "thieves" who were so poor
that had to steal food, those who witnessed crimes, those who
"saw things and did not keep quiet," those who moved
around looking for work and looked "suspicious,"
drivers who were accused of "transporting guerrillas"
or supplying them with food, and those who were thought to
possess information that would endanger the safety of the
criminals.
The methods used by the criminals created a reign of
terror in the region:
* They delivered death threats through general messages warning
those who thought of getting involved in the foregoing practices.
Everyone knew that these threats were carried out ruthlessly.
* They detained anyone they wanted to. These people were taken to
police or military installations ignoring legal requirements..
Sometimes they were taken to private places where they no law had
any effect.
* They tortured and punished with cruelty and extreme fierceness,
subjecting their victims to unimaginable pain.
* They disappeared people in secret places to then murder them
and throw the bodies to the river.
Many families and people fled the region leaving behind their
means of subsistence. Others stayed but at the expense of
destroying their social life. Their preservation instinct yielded
to their compulsive assimilation of their silent and forced
coexistence with morally repulsive feelings.
The massacre yielded nearly 300 people killed. Their images and
memories rise today to question State-sponsored terrorism, and
they clamor for their right to justice ... they only right left
to them.
BIOGRAPHICAL DATA FOR SOME OF THE VICTIMS
Orlando Orozco Londoño
Orlando was a 33-year-old school teacher and also a union
activist. On April 30, 1994, he was murdered by two
paramilitaries in the house of his sister, located in Trujillo.
The motive was that he had witnessed another murder that took
place a week earlier and was able to recognize the killers and
pass the information to friends of the victim's.
Many of the people in Trujillo were assassinated merely for
having witnessed other crimes.
Orlando Cabrera Rodriguez
He made a living doing deliveries in his jeep and traveling to
various communities near Trujillo and other municipalities
nearby.
In general, the Army, the Police, and the paramilitary groups
accused the great majority of the drivers in the area of
transporting and supplying guerrillas.
On November 17, 1990, Orlando was intercepted by a Police jeep.
They forced him to take an unknown passenger who, upon climbing
on the vehicle, fired a weapon and killed him.
Francy Adela Mejia Chilito
She lived with her family in the city of Trujillo. Her cousin
Pedro Antonio Mejia was severely wounded on July 26, 1991, when a
group of paramilitaries fired on people eating at a cafeteria in
Trujillo's main square. Pedro Antonio was taken to a hospital in
Cali. The next day, Francy went to Cali to visit him with his
father and another cousin. After the hospital visit, they all
disappeared, including Pedro Antonio. Even his clinical history
"disappeared." Members of the Armed Forces were in the
Board of Directors of the hospital. A day later, the four bodies
were found at the gates of the Puerto Tejada cemetery, a nearby
town in the department of Cauca.
Adolfo Gusarabe Niaza
He was a young Indian man who did odd jobs in the community of
Naranjal to support his family and help them out of extreme
poverty.
On August 17, 1991, he was forced into a vehicle whose owner was
a close friend of the local Police. Adolfo was never seen after
this day.
It is believed that he was eliminated because he had witnessed
other crimes perpetrated in the community by the Police.
Esther Cayapu Trochez
She was a 59-year-old Indian woman, mother of eight, who was a
nurse in the village of La Sonora, a short distance from the
urban area of Trujillo.
A few months earlier, when she was taking part in a peasant
protest, a soldier wanted to brutalize one of her sons and she
defended him confronting the soldier with a wooden club. The
soldier labeled her "guerrilla" and threatened her with
retaliation.
On April 1, 1990, at dawn, she was forcibly taken out of her
house by a mixed group of soldiers and paramilitaries, along with
other peasants from the same community. She was led to the estate
of a drug trafficker which at the time housed the Army's center
of operations. She was dismembered with a chainsaw by Army Major
Alirio Antonio Urueña, a graduate of the School of the Americas.
According to a witness, the corpses of all of the victims were
thrown to the Cauca river but the Police repeatedly prevented the
rescue.
Luis Fernando Fernandez Toro
He was the Inspector, the principal civil authority, of the
village of Tabor, located a short distance from the urban area of
Trujillo. Together with two other Inspectors from neighboring
communities, he had publicly protested the Army's conduct when,
on March 30, 1990, soldiers fired on road workers who were taken
for guerrillas. Several of the workers had been seriously
wounded.
On April 1, 1990, at dawn, he was forcibly taken out of his house
by a mixed group of soldiers and paramilitaries, along with
peasants from the village of La Sonora. He was led to the estate
of a drug trafficker which at the time housed the Army's center
of operations. He was dismembered with a chainsaw by Army Major
Alirio Antonio Urueña, a graduate of the School of the Americas.
Two days before, seven soldiers had been killed in combat with
guerrillas nearby. The Army took revenge by disappearing a group
of peasants from communities in the vicinity of the combat area.
Father Tiberio Fernandez Mafla
He had been the priest of Trujillo since 1985. He had great
social consciousness and was concerned with developing community
participation and organization. He created 20 community
businesses that benefited the poorest strata.
After supporting a peasant protest in April, 1989, he was
targeted by soldiers, policemen, and paramilitaries for being a
"guerrilla collaborator."
In 1990, from the pulpit, he denounced the violence that the
people of Trujillo was suffering and pointed to some of the
culprits. In order to capture him and disappear him, the criminal
apparatus in Trujillo (soldiers, policemen, drug traffickers, and
paramilitaries) killed a friend of his who was also a parish
supporter and who had moved recently to the neighboring city of
Tulua. The criminals planned to abduct him on the way from the
funeral. In effect, he disappeared on April 17, as he returned
from delivering the funeral mass for his friend Abundio Espinoza.
A niece of the deceased and two other parishioners were also
detained. They were all subjected to cruel torture and then
murdered. On April 24, 1990, Father Tiberio's was found in the
waters of the Cauca river, horribly mutilated.
Gilberto Berrio Osorio
He was a 71-year-old man with no family, who lived in the nursing
home of Trujillo. He walked the streets begging for money and
often slept on the sidewalk. He was a popular local character,
who was affectionately known in town with the nickname of
"Maracucho."
On July 21, 1992, while he slept on the sidewalk, he was murdered
by one of the town's paramilitary leaders, who wanted to
"cleanse" the town from this "garbage."
The paramilitaries of Trujillo, together with the Armed Forces,
did not target guerrillas or their sympathizers only but acted as
"cleaning squads" to eliminate "undesirable"
social elements.
Jose Alvem Cano Valencia
He belonged to a family of farmers and worked with his
father and bothers in his family's land, located in the village
of La Sonora, on the municipality of Riofrio which borders
Trujillo.
Like most of the neighboring farms, on several occasions the
family's property was raided by the Army which had labeled the
area as "guerrilla sympathizer." During the last raid,
three days prior to the massacre, the soldiers repeatedly
inquired who slept in each of the rooms of the house.
On the evening of March 23, 1990, the Army came to the house and,
in the presence of their mother and of a farm worker, killed the
three brothers Jose Dorniel, Rubielider, and Jose Alvem.
The rest of the family had to leave the farm immediately. Jose's
79-year-old father fell in deep depression and died on June 1,
1990.
Fernando Arias Prado
He and his family were peasants living for many years in the
village of La Sonora, a short distance from Trujillo.
On April 1, 1990, at dawn, he was forcibly taken out of his house
by a mixed group of soldiers and paramilitaries, along with three
of this brothers and other peasants from the village. They were
led to the estate of a drug trafficker which at the time housed
the Army's center of operations. They were all dismembered with a
chainsaw by Army Major Alirio Antonio Urueña, a graduate of the
School of the Americas.
Two days before, seven soldiers had been killed in combat with
guerrillas nearby. The Army took revenge by disappearing more
than 12 people from the community closest to the combat area.