The day Luis Eduardo Guerra died was hot. It was the dry season. The river that separates the village from his small cocoa plot was almost dry. For this reason, the easiest way to go was through the river itself. The stones made the journey uncomfortable, but not as much as venturing into the forest.

Luis Eduardo was crossing the threshold of middle age. He had three sons and his wife had recently died. With a black mustache and a beard cut with care, he’d looked death in the face many times. The first time he saw a corpse he was when he was perched on his father’s shoulders, running towards the coast, away from the war.

He was a peasant with little education, but he had vision and political intelligence. He had not read many books, but could speak in front of large audiences that used to listen, amazed by his stories. He travelled around the world telling the story of his people, the violence, the desperation and their resistance.

He was a simple person, with soil under his nails. Stubborn, direct, deep, sharp and dark, but reassuring at the same time. Luis Eduardo Guerra was a man of quality and the day he was killed was in his plot of land in Mulatos, where he grew up. He wanted some cocoa fruit to sell in town to pay a medical treatment for his son, Deiner, who was with him at the time.

His people looked for him for five days and then, between the pebbles and stones of the river, they found the head of his son Deiner, 11 years. A little further, a bloody machete. Not far away, his father, tortured before being killed.

It was February 21 2005 and until that day, Luis Eduardo Guerra was one of the most influential leaders of the Community of Peace of San José de Apartado, a farming community created to avoid desplazamiento – displacement of people affected by the conflict in Colombia.

The Urabá in 1997 was one of the most violent areas of the Colombian conflict. That year, the ”Moza Cabeza” (The Head Cutter), the most murderous paramilitary groups on the continent, first made their appearance. The municipality of San Jose de Apartadó is located in what was then a strategic corridor for the military in the clash between the FARC guerrilla and the Colombian army and paramilitary bloc. The corridor was also an important channel for drug trafficking.

Those peasants who decided to stay and declare themselves a Peace Community didn’t cooperate with any of the armed groups. During these 13 years, they lost hundreds of people, killed like Luis Eduardo, because in a country like Colombia, a person proposes a peaceful solution is a problem.

5 years after the massacre, the community met with international organization to remember the anniversary of their last ferocious massacre (even if another 17 people have been assassinated since then). At present, the massacre is being investigated, primarily due to the strong international attention of the NGO, as well as interest from international organizations and human rights courts.

The Colombian authorities have convicted 18 militaries that operated together with paramilitaries to commit the massacre, soon there will be a sentence.




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