JEP reveals that the UP genocide left at least 5,733 victims

This Friday, April 22, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) revealed that the genocide perpetrated against the left-wing political party of the Patriotic Union (UP) left 5,733 victims, of which 4,616 were killed and 1,117 disappeared, in events that were mostly executed by paramilitary groups and agents of the State.

This was established by the JEP's Chamber of Recognition of Truth and Accountability through Order 75 of 2022, in which it evidenced that the violence committed between 1984 and 2016 against the collective formed during the peace talks between the government of Belisario Betancourt and the demobilized FARC guerrilla left a total of 5,195 victims who were part of the UP and 538 victims who were not members of the left-wing party.

“Based on this analysis, the Chamber established that violence against the UP militancy was predominantly lethal, since approximately two out of three acts of violence against that party resulted in assassinations and enforced disappearances. However, non-lethal violence was far from marginal. In fact, the second most reported form of victimization was forced displacement, with 2,217 victims,” said transitional justice.

In turn, the courtroom showed that in 32 years of violence against members of this collective there was a pattern of violence sustained between 1984 and 2007, which was carried out mainly by state agents in collusion with paramilitary groups “who acted in a massive, widespread, systematic and selective manner against the collectivity “, which would have been presented especially in five regions of the country.

The five critical regions that were prioritized by the JEP were Magdalena Medio and Northeast Antioquia between 1985 and 1993; the Ariari Guayabero and the plains foothills between 1985 and 1993 and, between 1999 and 2006; Cundinamarca and Sumapaz between 1991 and 2001; the municipality of Apartadó in Urabá between April and December 1996; and the Department of Tolima, between 2003 and 2006, which showed “systematic contribution of State agents belonging to operational units of the security forces, even though the material execution of the crimes was carried out by paramilitary groups”.

“The Chamber identified a set of facts illustrating the involvement of State agents belonging to civil and military intelligence bodies in collusion with paramilitary groups and hitmen's offices who carried out crimes against the UP. These events are not concentrated in a single region, but mostly occurred in departmental capitals during the first period of victimization,” said transitional justice.

Among the speakers linked to the UP genocide are members of the extinct Administrative Department of Security (DAS), who would belong to the National Directorate, Public Order and Protection Directorate and the departmental branches of Antioquia and Santander, as well as members of the Operational Command of Intelligence and Counterintelligence of the XX Brigade and the intelligence sections of the XIII and XIV Brigades of the National Army.

For its part, the JEP indicated that to date in case 06, called “Victimization of members of the Patriotic Union (UP)”, 212 individual victims belonging to the community, the Colombian Communist Party (PCC) and the Syntramenergetic Union have been accredited as collective subjects, and has more than 150 speakers including 95 members of the Army; 22 former members of the DAS; and 13 members of the National Police. In addition, 26 speakers were members of other civil and military intelligence agencies.

“The Chamber considers that the case of violence against UP militants, unlike other macro-cases, is 'determined by the fact that all of its victims shared as a central feature of belonging, military or sympathizing' with a political party”, concluded the JEP, in a case in which two were killed political candidates in one of the most troubled times in Colombia.

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