Colombian ultra-right wing paramilitaries created mass graves in Venezuela

Venezuelanvoices.org

Picture: AFP

In May, former ultra-right-wing paramilitary chief Salvatore Mancuso made four appearances before magistrates of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace in Colombia, in which he admitted his close relationship with Uribista politicians such as former vice-president Francisco Santos, in agreement with whom a bloc of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) was created in Bogotá. He testified from U.S. territory, where he was extradited in 2008 to serve a sentence for drug trafficking, which he completed. Mancuso reaffirmed that the AUC supported electoral campaigns such as those of the liberal Horacio Serpa, the conservative Andrés Pastrana and the fascistic Álvaro Uribe. To a large extent, information already denounced and known before in Colombia, given the historical links between the bourgeoisie and its politicians with narco-trafficking and paramilitarism. He also reiterated information on paramilitary methods such as the use of crematorium ovens or the coordination with civil and military authorities when carrying out attacks and extermination operations. However, there was a novelty during the second session, on May 11: Mancuso admitted the creation of mass graves in Venezuela to bury more than two hundred victims.

According to the testimony, since the AUC ultra-rightists had infiltrated the Prosecutor’s Office in Cúcuta, on the Colombian border, they knew about the preparation of a search for victims and crematorium ovens, so they decided to destroy one of the ovens and use Venezuelan territory to disappear the victims. These crimes were carried out by the so-called Catatumbo Bloc of the AUC. Mancuso admitted that there was coordination with Venezuelan military, burying hundreds of corpses in graves around San Cristóbal, Ureña, San Antonio, La Fría and Boca de Grita, in the border state of Táchira.

The use of Venezuelan territory to bury victims of right-wing paramilitarism occurred between 2000 and 2001, according to Mancuso. At the end of May, the Colombian and Venezuelan governments signed an agreement to carry out a joint search for the mass graves. What has not been announced is whether the Venezuelan Attorney General’s Office, which is totally subordinate to the Maduro government, will investigate the Venezuelan military officers involved in this forced disappearance scheme.

Chavismo and the Colombian internal war

The profuse use of Venezuelan territory for drug trafficking routes and the existence of a largely unpopulated binational land border of more than two thousand kilometers, facilitated the transfer to Venezuela of confrontations between ultra-right-wing paramilitaries, allied to the Colombian political regime, and guerrillas, over the course of decades. One case that gained notoriety was the Táchira Massacre in October 2009, when nine young Colombian men, a Peruvian and a Venezuelan were killed. The massacre was apparently perpetrated by the ELN under the assumption that the group was part of a paramilitary squad.

The right-wing tradition and corruption of the Venezuelan armed forces contributed to facilitate the operation of Colombian ultra-right paramilitary groups in the Venezuelan border. As for the guerrillas, during the 90’s they carried out extortive kidnappings of Venezuelan citizens, but this practice was abandoned in the face of a tacit recognition of the belligerent character of the guerrillas by the Venezuelan government in the last years of the Caldera administration and the first years of the Chavez administration.

In more recent years, FARC dissident groups that did take part in the 2016 demobilization agreements have made alliances with Venezuelan armed gangs to exploit illegal gold mines, in agreement with the Venezuelan military in the southeast of the country, near the border with Brazil.

Although the FARC considered the Chavista government as politically exemplary, and even as a concretion of its polyclassist government project, and that in 2010 Uribe accused Chávez of providing refuge to the ELN and the FARC, which led to the rupture of diplomatic relations, after several years of friendly relations between both governments, the truth is that before, during and after the Uribe period, the Chavista government captured and handed over dozens of guerrillas to the Colombian authorities. A high point of this collaboration was the capture of activist and political refugee Joaquin Pérez Becerra, arrested in 2011 in the Maiquetía Airport and handed over to the Colombian regime. This act generated protests inside and outside Venezuela, as well as diplomatic complaints from Sweden, where Pérez Becerra was living as a refugee. In the face of criticism to his Chancellor, Nicolas Maduro, Chavez clarified that the decision to hand over Pérez Becerra was made by him personally. As a consequence, Pérez Becerra was imprisoned in Colombia until 2014, when he was absolved of the charges against him.

According to the Final Report, presented by the official Truth Commission in 2022, the internal war in Colombia between 1958 and 2018 left between 450,000 and 800,000 people killed and between 121,000 and 210,000 people forcefully disappeared, mostly victims of ultra-right-wing paramilitarism and the Colombian State.