Thousands Come Out for Anti-Paramilitary March In Colombia

Of the 15,000 victims of forced disappearance reported between 1982 and 2005, at least 3,000 were buried in common graves, some of which have begun to be exhumed. It is impossible to know how many were thrown into rivers, a common paramilitary practice. According to testimony from numerous survivors and members of paramilitary groups, the latter frequently used chainsaws to cut their victims up alive. Jusice and Peace also reported that 1,700 indigenous people, 2,550 trade unionists and 5,000 members of the now-defunct leftist political party Patriotic Union were murdered between 1982 and 2005.

BOGOTA – “I will march against the members of the security forces who have betrayed the honour of the military and the police, and have betrayed their fatherland, by selling themselves out to paramilitaries and drug traffickers to serve their interests,” said Colombian Senator Juan Manuel Galán in a speech given at the spot where his father was assassinated in 1989.

He was addressing hundreds of protesters on their way to take part in Thursday’s demonstration that paid “homage to the victims of paramilitarism, parapolitics and crimes of the state” in more than 20 Colombian cities and another 100 around the world.

The peaceful nationwide demonstration took place without incident. But it basically went unreported by the mainstream media, by contrast with the heavy international coverage of the global Feb. 4 march against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas.

People displaced by Colombia’s four-decade civil war paid tribute Wednesday to former Liberal Party presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán in the main square of Soacha, a poor suburb south of the capital where he was killed in 1989.

Soacha was one stop along their march, which began Tuesday in the fishing village of Flandes, 150 km southwest of the capital. On Thursday morning…

Posted by ShiftShapers
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