Alias El Tigre did not receive pardon from the JEP for the guerrilla takeover of Gigante (Huila) in 1999

Abraham Tovar Salazar, who was known to the extinct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) by the alias El Tigre, did not receive amnesty from the JEP for his responsibility in the guerrilla takeover of the municipality of Gigante, in the department of Huila, where several civilians died.

Precisely, the peace court found that Tovar Salazar, being then one of the subversive chiefs of the mobile column Teófilo Forero, commanded the armed incursion into that town on December 3, 1999 and indiscriminately attacked the civilian population.

On La W Radio they reported that in the Amnesty and Pardon Room that this benefit could not be granted to him since public entities, banks, shops and even homes of the inhabitants of the municipality were looted in that attack. They even kidnapped one of the villagers.

“This Office will declare the non-amnestiability of the conduct of extortive kidnapping, aggravated homicide, homicide in the form of attempt, terrorism and qualified and aggravated theft for which Mr. Abraham Tovar Salazar was convicted in the criminal proceedings,” they quoted in that station of the JEP document.

The former guerrilla chief was even told to order an attack on two former Florence councillors and a journalist, because they were allegedly close to the paramilitary groups that committed crimes in that area of the country.

In the newspaper El Tiempo, they published at the time a chronicle about what happened in Gigante on the night of December 3, 1999, in which it was evident that the attack had no contemplation with the inhabitants.

They narrated that children, adolescents, women and men had to seek refuge in the village church, to the point of having to take shelter under the parish benches, when the guerrillas attacked with explosives.

In the Bogotá newspaper, they recorded that the municipality's police station was hit by 22 tatucos, an unconventional weapon used in that guerrilla group in which propane gas cylinders were filled with explosives and thrown without precision at targets.

It is also narrated that a young cameraman just 21 years old and recently graduated from the Seine, identified as Pablo Emilio Medina Motta, was killed by the subversives when he was in search of images of the raid with two bullets in the head when he was transporting in a vehicle in the company of a police officer, who managed to flee after the attack.

The subversives ransacked the village's drugstore and threw explosive devices at neighboring homes. Then they robbed the bank and other shops, it was collected in the chronicle of El Tiempo.

After six hours, the guerrilla takeover was repelled by the Army, which required the support of armed helicopters of the Air Force and soldiers of the Chieftain Piguanza Battalion, of the Ninth Brigade.

In the report of that newspaper, they also pointed out that after order resumed in the municipality, they found the bodies of five civilians, including that of a 14-year-old girl. They got one of the tattucos used by the guerrilla group. Two older adults even died of heart attacks after the violent outbreak of subversives.

In total, they reported in El Tiempo, 25 inhabitants and two police officers were injured. Forty homes and 10 vehicles were completely destroyed. They looted 30 commercial establishments and stole an undetermined amount of financial institutions based in the municipality.

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