The murder of more than 5,000 members and supporters of the Patriotic Union (UP) political party between the 1980s and 2000s is one of the most notorious atrocities of Colombia’s armed conflict. While those behind the killings have long benefited from impunity, a long-awaited investigation will now hear charges against 83 former paramilitaries accused of taking part in the violence.
The UP emerged in 1985 from a peace process enacted between the Belisario Betancur government and the FARC guerrillas. Its membership was largely drawn from former guerrillas, members of left-wing parties, trade unionists and other progressive sectors. Following UP electoral advances at local and regional levels, state security forces and their paramilitary proxies launched a so-called ‘campaign of extermination’ against the UP. In 2022, Colombia’s JEP transitional justice court found that 5,733 party members were killed or disappeared between 1984 and 2018. The vast majority of cases remain unsolved.
In 2023, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) ruled that the Colombian state had orchestrated violence against the UP. Now, an investigation by the Colombian Attorney General’s Office will bring evidence against 83 former paramilitaries over alleged involvement in killings and other violations such as forced displacement, kidnappings and threats. Also covered in the charges are the killings of non-UP members who were trade unionists, peasant farmers and activists. The investigation has detailed more than 500 violent actions allegedly carried out by the 83 accused though it is probable they were behind many others.
According to the Attorney General’s Office, the accused aimed ‘to impede the consolidation of the nascent political party, which involved directly attacking its local and national organising structures’. UP members in positions of influence, such as elected officials or community leaders, were particularly targeted, starting the year of the party’s foundation in 1985. Although UP members warned the Betancur government of military involvement in a systematic campaign against the party, little was done to prevent the violence.
The investigation details multiple atrocities such as the killings of 231 UP members or supporters in 1986 alone, the following year’s assassination of UP presidential candidate Jaime Pardo Leal and the murders of three UP congress members, Leonardo Posada Pedraza, Pedro Nel Jiménez Obando and Octavio Vargas Cuéllar. The violence was particularly concentrated in the departments of Meta, Caquetá, Antioquia, Córdoba and Chocó, where the UP had strong bases of support and had electorally outperformed the traditional Liberal and Conservative parties in 1988. Many UP members were forced into exile, with the party losing its political status due to the destruction waged upon its membership. This was only formally reinstated in 2013.
Relations between state forces and paramilitary groups going back to the 1970s are also believed to form part of the investigation. Among those named are notorious commanders such as Hernán Giraldo Serna (alias Taladro), Raúl Emilio Hasbún (alias Pedro Bonito), José Everth Veloza García (alias HH), Ramiro Vanoy Murillo (alias Cuco Vanoy), Ramón María Isaza (alias El Viejo) and Héctor Horacio Triana (alias El Zorro).