Masacre de Barrancabermeja, May 1998

Foto por: Archivo Semana

Actualizado el: Vie, 10/11/2019 - 10:59

On the 16 th of May 1998, a group of paramilitaries belonging to the armed group Autodefensas de Santander y el Sur del Cesar, Ausac, assassinated 7 people and kidnapped 25 others in the surroundings of the city of Barrancabermeja, in the region of Santander. The two following days, the “paras” killed the detained people and made the corpses vanish.

According to the testimonies of demobilized paras, two ex-guerillas pointed out to them whom and where they could find the suspected militiamen of the Eln in the surroundings of the oil harbor. After they kidnapped four people and assassinated one, the “paras” reached the soccer court of the suburb “El Campin”, where the community was gathered for a bazaar. They made everyone lay down, approximatively 100 people. The informants pointed out the suspected subversive men who were made tied up and taken away in several trucks.

One of them who was resisting got slaughtered in front of the crowd. The “paras” took out of the city the 30 people remaining, but when they passed by the Patio Bonito sidewalk they assassinated five of them because they were “too heavy in the trucks”. The paramilitaries took the 25 left to a base they had in San Rafael de Lebrija and on the following days they allocated them in different groups. They ended up murdering them even though they had the evidence that they were not guerrillas.

According to some demobilized who were part of this group, one of the informants confessed that they pointed out the victims at the wrong time and thus the majority of those had nothing to do with the submersion.

During a binge, the top-ranking leader of the Ausac group, called Guillermo Cristancho Acosta, alias “Camilo Morantes”, ordered to kill the last 11 victims. According to the testimonies of former paramilitaries, “Camilo Morantes” perpetrated this massacre to show his power in the area and to get out of the guerilla of the gas smuggling business. In 1999 Carlos Castaño ordered to kill the leader of the Ausac and to merge them with the Bloque Central Bolivar. Several testimonies of former guerrillas noted that members of the public forces took part in the killing. However, in October 2003, none of them has been judged for these crimes. The OAS Inter-American Commission on Human Rights accepted to fill a law-suit against the Colombian State five years after the crimes were perpetrated.

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Grupo armado relacionado:

Autodefensas de Santander y del Sur del Cesar (1993-1999)

pThis block started in 1993 with 100 paramilitaries under the command of Guillermo Cristanchonbsp;Acosta, alias ldquo;Camilo Morantesrdquo;. They committed exactions in Magdalena Medio in the region of Santander and assassinated peasants whom they suspected of collaboration with the guerilla. In 1998 the paramilitary group called ldquo;Juancho Pradardquo; merged with the Autodefensas de Sentander. In the same year the Ausac entered Barrancabermeja and killed social leaders, but since the group remained outside of the Auc, Carlos Castantilde;o ordered the murder of ldquo;Camilo Morantesrdquo; and the dissolution of the Ausac in 1999. This structure became part of the Bloque Central Bolivar./p