Tymoshenko recognizes the massacre of 34 people in Catatumbo: “we are ashamed”

On June 15, 2004, a group of men from the Front 33 of the Farc He arrived at a farm on the hill of Pico de Águila, in the village of La Gabarra, in Tibú, in the Catatumbo region, and murdered 34 peasants.

On the facts, this Friday Rodrigo Londoño Echeverry, known as “Timochenko”, During a Truth Commission event with the victims of this massacre, he accepted his guilt and asked for forgiveness.

“We are in Cúcuta with the Truth Commission, reconstructing the context of the unfortunate death of 34 coca workers in La Gabarra in 2004. It is an atrocious act which we as revolutionaries are ashamed of and which we hope to repair one day. damage. caused “, said the former guerrilla leader.

In an interview with RCN Radio, Tymoshenko added: “It is an episode that has become a black spot, due to the death of 34 people under the age of 45 where we are seeking redress for the victims, it is a process that has been carried out in different parts of the country”.

The victims of this massacre were a group of coca leaf “raspachines” who worked on a farm in the hands of paramilitaries from the Catatumbo de las Auc bloc. The guerrillas arrived at dawn at the lodgings of the farm, They took the men out, tied them up, and shot them in the head one by one. At the time of the massacre, there were no paramilitaries guarding the crops.

The veteran assured on RCN Radio that for August will take place in the Catatumbo area a public event, with the presence of those who belonged to the FARC as well as the relatives of the victims, where many questions that the fathers, mothers and children of those who died in the violent action recorded in June 2004 will be answered. .

A few days ago, the JEP recognition room charged 11 people with war crimes and crimes against humanity, including a brigadier general, two colonels, two lieutenant-colonels, a major, a captain, two sergeants and a corporal, and a civilian third in the Norte de Santander sub-file of “false positives”.

For his decisive participation in the murder of at least 120 defenseless people in Catatumbo (Norte de Santander), presented as wounded in combat between January 2007 and August 2008, and thus criminally increase the official statistics of military success, the Recognition Chamber charged them with the war crime of homicide of a protected person and crimes against humanity, murder, and enforced disappearances, in the face of the widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population.

The defendants, identified as the most responsible in the leadership modality for issuing orders without which criminal conduct would not have taken place in a systematic and widespread manner, are Brigadier General Paulino Coronado Gámez, who was the commander of the brigade 30; Colonels Santiago Herrera Fajardo and Rubén Darío Castro Gómez, former commanders of Mobile Brigade 15 (BRIM15); Lieutenant-Colonel Álvaro Diego Tamayo Hoyos, former commander of Infantry Battalion No. 15 “General Francisco de Paula Santander” (BISAN) of Ocaña, Lieutenant-Colonel Gabriel de Jesús Rincón Amado, former operations officer BRIM15 and Major Juan Carlos Chaparro Chaparro, former commander of BISAN.

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