VOICES OF WOMEN
ÒThe evil of bad people no
longer grieves me so much. It is
the indifference of good people that terrifies me.Ó Martin Luther King
Every death is an assault on
humanity Ð all the more when it is a murder, a violent death. And even more so when this crime is
committed against a person who is just beginning to live, to focus on her
future, who is in the process of discovering her personhood, her womanhood and
to build dreams, to dream of her ideals and utopias.
Childhood and adolescence are the stages in which
the personality is molded. And
this is when one most needs support, friendly hands, mother and father,
relatives and friends to help one develop as a person, to give guidance. At such a time, the Government of
Colombia should offer support and protection through its institutions. It is a period for growth and
inclusion, not exclusion and intolerance.
For this reason, as women and
mothers, we are once again horrified in the face of the acts of the
totalitarian project, the project of death that presumes to impose itself with
blood and fire and impunity in Barrancabermeja and the region, and we denounce
the systematic annihilation of the young people, the children of our city. As a way of exercising power and
control over the most defenseless
victims, the paramilitaries are imposing punishments on all the younger
boys and all the girls 20 and
younger who are viewed as violating the Òsocial normsÓ which have been
established for the city by the AUC (United Self-Defense Groups of
Colombia). The punishments include
such tasks as sweeping the streets, being publicly whipped, incarcerations,
being tied for 24 hours exposed to the sun, the rain, and the dark of night,
cutting their hair with sharp
weapons, shaving their eyebrows and hair and, finally, if they do not reform, they are murdered.
This systematic violence against women is
bloody. There are several cases of
young and/or adult women being assassinated after cruel tortures such as
forcing them to kneel down and ask for forgiveness, cutting off their breasts,
introducing objects into their vaginas, tearing apart their bodies, removing
eyes and internal organs from the cadavers and then tossing them into common burial pits, into the
rivers, or into the nearby swamps.
18/3/2002 Yolanda Quintero Ð Seamstress
18/3/2002 Unidentified body
25/3/2002 Unidentified body
7/4/2002 Delcy Gabriela Cuesta
Cordoba, 45, F, teacher, President of JAC, from
Pto. Matilde, murdered in Vereda Yondo, had been disappeared and
was tortured beginning 4 April.
30/4/2002 Rosalba Jaimes Guerra, 20, F,
mudered in Yondo, found in the river.
2/5/2002 Unidentified body, 21, F, showed
signs of torture.
7/5/2002 Maria Eugenia Garcia Amaya, 30, F,
domestic worker, lived in Corr. La Fortuna, found murdered in Pte. Las
Margaritas, Lizama,
15/5/2002 Unidentified body, age unknown, F, found
mudered in the Magdalena river,
body showed various bullet wounds, in state of decomposition.
30/5/2002 Maribel Rueda Iglesias, 26, F, lived in
Danubio, found murdered in Rio Magdalena, taken out of Bocatoma San Silvestre
with bricks tied to her body, showed signs of stab wounds.
6/6/2002 Yulaine Garzon Galeano, 17, F,
student, from Versalles, found murdered in B. Cincuentenario, taken in taxi to
Cincuentenario, where they shoved her out of the car, shooting her several
times, to date is listed as unidentified body.
In addition to the horrors of these acts by the
paramilitaries, there are other matters that are also disturbing:
What is the role of the families? Where are the State institutions
charged with giving support to the families in their efforts to give direction
to their children and to guarantee that their mission not be supplanted by the
illegal armed actors? What
strategies are these institutions developing to preclude these various forms of
violence?
What plan do the authorities have
to correct and stop the paramilitary acts which are committed daily in plain
sight and which continue in the communities of our city? How do they plan to guarantee the
exercise of democracy in Barrancabermeja?
As women, and as residents of the communities of
Barrancabermeja, we demand: that
the civil and military authorities, and local, regional and national police
fulfill their sacred mission granted to them by the Constitution to protect the
life and honor of the citizens of Colombia, men and women alike.
We implore that the International Community be
watchful over the exercise of democracy in Barrancabermeja and the region.
We implore that womenÕs organizations and all women
in general, at both a national and
an international level, promote actions before the Government of Colombia to
defend our rights as women.
We implore that organizations dedicated to the
defense of the rights of children speak out forcefully about these facts and
promote investigations, transparency, judgment and punishment of those
responsible for these crimes.
We request that the appropriate State organizations
be permanently vigilant over the actions of the State in this area, especially
that the local legal officers and the Attorney General of the Nation carry out
investigations of the civil and military authorities and the police who,
because of their action or inaction, have allowed this situation to develop and
spread in the region.
Barrancabermeja Ð Magdalena
Medio, 13 June 2002