Palace of Justice siege
Encyclopedia : P : PA : PAL : Palace of Justice siege
| Colombian conflict ''' |
|---|
| General Overview: |
| Armed Conflict |
| Plan Colombia |
| Guerillas: |
| FARC-EP'' |
| ELN |
| EPL |
| Paramilitaries: |
| AUC |
| Paramilitarism |
| Former groups: |
| AAA |
| M19 |
| MOEC |
| Historical Events: |
| Santa Marta Massacre (1928) |
| La Violencia |
| Marquetalia Republic |
| Dominican embassy (1980) |
| Palace of Justice (1985) |
| Patriotic Union Party (UP) |
| Bojayá massacre (2002) |
| Lawsuits: |
| Sinaltrainal v. Coca-Cola |
| Rodriquez v. Drummond |
| Political parties: |
| Conservative Party |
| Liberal Party |
| Communist Party |
The Palace of Justice siege was a 1985 attack against the Supreme Court of Colombia, in which members of the M-19 guerrilla group took over the Palace of Justice in Bogotá, Colombia, and held the Supreme Court hostage, intending to hold a trial against Colombian President Belisario Betancur. Hours later, after a military raid, the incident left all the rebels and 11 of the 25 Supreme Court Justices dead.[#endnote_dead]
The siege
On November 6, 1985, 35 guerrillas burst into the Palace of Justice after arriving there in a stolen truck. The rebels killed the building's administrator and its few security guards, taking 300 people hostage, including the 24 justices and 20 other federal judges. The President of the Supreme Court, Alfonso Reyes, was among those taken. About three hours after the initial seizure, government troops rescued about 100 hostages from the lower three floors of the courthouse; the surviving gunmen and remaining hostages occupied the upper two floors.A recording was delivered to a radio station soon after the seizure, saying that the M-19 group had taken over the building "in the name of peace and social justice". From the Supreme Court, the M-19 members demanded via telephone that President Belisario Betancur come to the Palace of Justice in order to stand trial and negotiate. The president refused and ordered an emergency cabinet session.
After the first hours of the siege, a fire broke out and burned numerous court records on the fourth floor, destroying the files of every extradition case.[#endnote_files]
The assault
The operation to retake the building began that same day and finally ended on November 7, when Colombian Army troops stormed the Palace of Justice, after having already occupied some of the first floors during the first day of the siege. After surrounding the building with EE-9 Cascavel armored cars and soldiers with automatic weapons, they stormed the building sometime after 2 pm. The EE-9 was employed to knock down the building's massive doorway, and even made some direct hits against the structure's external walls.There is still confusion as to the exact details of the assault, specifically as to what happened inside. Many of the hostages were said to have died in the crossfire between the rebels and government forces. It is believed that many of the hostages, at least 60, were moved to a public restroom in one of the upper floors by the guerrillas, and may have died when a group of government troops used explosives to enter the building via the rooftop.
It is believed that at least some of the justices were executed by the rebels when, according to some surviving witnesses, they realized the situation was "hopeless". The guerrillas used machine guns to shoot into the room where some of the justices were held, killing them all, allegedly including President Reyes.
More than 100 people died during the final assault on the Palace. Those killed consisted of the hostages, government workers, and soldiers. All of the guerrillas, including their leader Andres Almarales and four other senior commanders of M-19, were killed. After the raid, another Supreme Court justice died in a hospital after suffering a heart attack.
Aftermath
The siege of the Palace of Justice and the subsequent raid was one of the deadliest attacks in Colombia in its war with leftist rebels. The M-19 group was still a potent force after the raid, but was severely hampered by the deaths of five of its leaders. In March 1990 it signed a peace treaty with the government.President Betancur went on national TV on the night of the seventh, saying he took full responsibility for the "terrible nightmare." He offered condolences to the families of those who died—civilians and rebels alike—and said he would continue to look for a peaceful solution with the rebels. Exactly a week later, on November 14, he would offer condolences for another tragedy: the eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano, which killed 25,000 people. "We have had one national tragedy after another," he said.
This siege lead to the creation of the AFEUR unit within the Colombian Army to manage this kind of situations.
Alleged Mafia Links
The U.S. and Colombia governments shortly after the siege asserted that druglords masterminded the operation in order to get rid of several criminal files lost during the event. The Special Commission of Inquiry, established by the Betancur government after intense public pressure[#endnote_268], released a June 1986 report which concluded that this was not the case.[#endnote_279] Most later observers have tended to undermine the claims of any close operational links between those parties and the M-19.Author Ana Carrigan, who quoted the June 1986 report in her book on the siege and originally dismissed any such links between the M-19 and the drug mafia, confusingly told Cromos magazine in late 2005 that she now believes that the mafia may have financially supported the M-19. [#endnote_cromos]
On the same day of the siege, the Supreme Court's "order of the day" apparently called for the beginning of pending deliberations on the constitutionality of the Colombia-United States extradition treaty. The M-19 was publicly opposed to extradition on nationalist grounds. Several of the magistrates had been previously threatened by drug lords in order to prevent any possibility of a positive decision on the treaty. One year after the siege, the treaty was declared unconstitutional. [#endnote_extradition]
Mauricio Gaona and Carlos Medellín Becerra, the sons of two of the murdered Supreme Court magistrates, have recently pushed for further investigations into the presumed links between the M-19 and the Medellín Cartel drug lords, arguing that they have evidence that may prove relevant upon judicial review. Congressman Gustavo Petro, a former M-19 guerrilla, has denied these accusations and dismissed them as based upon the inconsistent testimonies of drug lords. Petro says that the surviving members of the M-19 do admit to their share of responsibility for the tragic events of the siege, on behalf of the entire organization, but deny any links to the drug trade. [#endnote_elpais]
Impunity
Later investigations and commentators have considered both the M-19 and the military as responsible for the deaths of the justices and civilians inside the building. Some have blamed President Belisario Betancur for not taking the necessary actions or for failing to negotiate, and others have commented on the possibility of a sort of de facto "24 hour coup", during which the military was in control of the situation.According to Ana Carrigan's 1993 book "The Palace of Justice: A Colombian Tragedy", Supreme Court Chief Justice Alfonso Reyes would have been burned alive during the assault, as someone incinerated his body after pouring it with gasoline. The book also asserts that, after the siege was over, some twenty eight of the bodies were dumped into a mass grave and apparently soaked with acid, in order to make identification difficult. Carrigan argued that the bodies of the victims of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano eruption, which buried the city of Armero and killed more than 20,000 people, were dumped into the same mass grave, making any further forensic investigations impractical. [#endnote_washington]
Despite numerous investigations and lawsuits to date, no one has ever been punished for the carnage at the Palace of Justice, and no definite responsibility has been fixed either on the government, the M-19, or on both parties. Ana Carrigan asserts in her book that "Colombia has moved on...Colombia has forgotten the Palace of Justice siege," in much the same way that, in her opinion, Colombians have also forgotten or adopted a position of denial towards other tragic events such as the 1928 Santa Marta Massacre.
The Missing
| The eleven missing [link] [Photos of the missing] | ||
|---|---|---|
| Name | Occupation | |
| Bernardo Beltrán Fernández | ||
| Héctor Jaime Beltrán Fuentes | ||
| Ana Rosa Castilblanco* | ||
| David Celis | ||
| Norma Constanza Esguerra | pastries in cafeteria[#endnote_275] | |
| Cristina Guarín Cortés | Teller in cafeteria | |
| Gloria Stella Lizarazo Figueroa | Cafeteria employee | |
| Luz Mary Portela León | ||
| Carlos Augusto Vera Rodríguez | ||
| Gloria Anzola de Lanao | Niece of Aydee Anzola, state official | |
| Irma Franco Pineda | Law student, M-19 member | |
At least 11 people disappeared during the events of the siege, most of them Cafeteria workers, and their final fate has yet to be determined. It has been speculated that their remains may be among a number of unidentified bodies, one of which was identified* through DNA testing done by the National University of Colombia, leaving the fates of the other 10 still in question. [link]
One of the disappeared was a law student and M-19 guerilla named Irma Franco. Franco was seen by several hostages. She left with several hostages and was never seen again.[#endnote_269] The Special Commission of Inquiry confirmed the disappearance of Frano, and the judges requested that the investigation of her case be thorougly pursued.[#endnote_280]
One week after the siege, M-19 released a communique to the press claiming that six leaders, including Franco, and "seven other fighters" had all been "disappeared" and murdered by the army. From the tapes of the military and police inter-communications it is known that army intelligence arrested at least seventeen people in the course of the two day siege. None of the M-19 leaders, with the exception of Andrés Almarales, were ever identified in the city morgue.[#endnote_270]
Members of the military have claimed that they could have been guerrilla operatives in disguise which were working in the building under fake identities.
Some of their relatives and some human rights organizations have claimed that they could have been taken alive by the military and then killed outside or inside the building, possibly after being interrogated and tortured.
Ana Carrigan, investigative reporter and author of "The Palace of Justice: A Colombian Tragedy" was given a cassette tape in May 1991 from the Bogotá Attorney Generals office. The cassette tape, according to its own audio content, appeared to be from dissident B-2 agents, dropped off anonymously in the Attorney General's Office a week after the siege. The authors identify themselves on the tape as a group of noncommissioned officers in the B-2 army intelligence service. The dissident B-2 agents assert that seven prisoners were taken to a nearby military compound and tortured by the Intelligence and Counter Intelligence Battalion and these B-2 agents were forced to watch. The authors of the tape identify four of the cafeteria workers and claim they saw one prisoner drowned by interrogators. [link]
2005-2006 Truth Commission
The events surrounding the Palace of Justice siege received renewed media coverage in Colombia during the 20th anniversary of the tragedy. Among other outlets, the country's main daily El Tiempo, the weekly El Espectador, and the Cromos magazine published several articles, interviews and opinion pieces on the matter, including stories about the survivors, as well as the plight of the victims' relatives and those of the missing. [link][link]The Colombian Supreme Court created a Truth Commission in order to restart the investigation, in an attempt to provide as much closure as possible to the impunity still surrounding the tragic events of the siege. The Commission officially began its work on November 3 2005 and according to one of its members, Judge Jorge Aníbal Gómez, results are expected by November 2006. [#endnote_eltiempo] Congressman Gustavo Petro of the former M-19 has welcomed the decision and asked all surviving members of the M-19 to collaborate with its work. [link]
Many of the surviving individuals involved are to be interviewed by the Commission. Several private hearings had already taken place by March 2006, including one in which former President Belisario Betancur participated. Betancur has also willingly testified before the Attorney General's office.
According to the newsweekly Semana, the Truth Commission may have found surprising new details about the tragedy, and the sessions may be being recorded on video in order to preserve as much accuracy as possible. [#endnote_semana]
Notes
- ↑
- ↑ Volume two contains "China," "India," and "Colombia."
- ↑ p. 268, "Judicial workers are on strike nationwide. The families of the slain advised the government to stay away from the funerals. President Betancur sends wreaths to the Church, the families return them to the Presidential Palace. The twelve surviving Supreme Court Justices announce a boycott of the official government memorial service."
- ↑ Carrigan, p. 263-264, 266, 281
- ↑ Carrigan, p. 272
- ↑ Carrigan, p. 279
- ↑ Carrigan, p. 265
- ↑ Carrigan, p. 269-270
- ↑ Carrigan, p. 280
- ↑ Carrigan, p. 270-271
- ↑ Carrigan, p. 275
- ↑
- ↑
- ↑
- ↑
* - ↑
Further reading
- (Book review)
- (Spanish)
- (Book review)
- (Book review)
- (Book review)
- (Book review)
External links
- [Photos of the siege] [Alternate]
- [Translation of Spanish Wikipage (Toma del Palacio de Justicia de Colombia en 1985)]
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