In May 2021, the Chamber for the Definition of Legal Situations of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) granted temporary, conditional and anticipated release to Benito Molina Velarde, convicted of the crimes of concert to commit crimes and forced displacement in relation to paramilitary groups.
The Chamber considered that the information provided by the former chairman of the Livestock Fund “initially exceeds the facts for which he was investigated and convicted by the ordinary jurisdiction. He provides an account of the context of conflict and the interests of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia not only in the co-option of the Córdoba Livestock Fund but also in large strategic investments”, the sentence of transitional freedom reads.
Well, on the morning of this Thursday, April 7, a fragment of the voluntary version given by Molina Velarde before the peace court was released. In the audio revealed by W Radio, the former president of the Livestock Fund confessed that he met on several occasions with the paramilitary leader Vicente Castaño, at the fund's facilities and that he was appointed as the spokesperson for the self-defence groups before that livestock association, “which meant dialogues between this gentleman and members of the board of directors of the Fund”.
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It is important to note that Molina Velarde appeared as a civil third party to the transitional justice system at the beginning of 2020. Before the office of Judge Nadiezhda Henríquez, the farmer stated that one of his demands on Vicente Castaño was the change of the fund's statutes to become president and control the actions of Benito Osorio, the newly appointed manager.
The former president said that Vicente Castaño informed all the members of the board of directors of the agreements reached with the AUC, for which reason Luis Gonzalo Gallo Restrepo, advanced these changes to the statutes before the Superintendence of Companies and the Monteria Chamber of Commerce.
In the passage revealed by the media, the former president of the Córdoba Livestock Fund between 1997 and 2007, said that the alliance with the paramilitaries took effect on a farm known as La 52, in which the acquisition of 8,000 hectares was sealed through mass dispossession.
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Between 1994 and 1998, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia stripped and displaced 130 peasant families from more than 105 properties between the municipalities of Turbo, Necoclí and San Pedro de Urabá, in Antioquia, all with the complicity of the Livestock Fund. In his account, he reaffirmed that one of the techniques used by the paramilitaries to remove families and never return, was to burn their houses.
“Not only did they not return, it was for them to leave. The threat was that they told them “what are you doing here, take out your things”, they burned their houses so that the lords had nowhere to live and had to leave, that was known, it is the most forced displacement that can be imagined,” he explained to the JEP.
He also explained how nearly 700 hectares were legalized with title problems. At this point, Benito Molina seriously accused the former director of the Incoder Arturo Vega Varón of having led the titling of these lands, stating that “surprisingly he went from being a shareholder of the Fund to also holding that fundamental position for that purpose, appointed by President Álvaro Uribe Vélez.”
“Thanks to the management of Mr. Carlos Sotomayor and Mr. Luis Gonzalo Gallo Restrepo, the appointment of Mr. Arturo Vega Varón by President Álvaro Uribe Vélez as director of Incoder was achieved, a fact that was important in that a person of trust was needed to represent the interests of the Fund in the legalization of land acquired irregularly and much better if this person left the same board of directors of the fund,” Molina said.
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