Some 300 right-wing paramilitaries from the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) seized control of Peque municipality in the northern central region of Antioquia department on July 4 and ordered residents to leave by July 7.
The paramilitaries blocked roads into the municipality and demanded that government forces be garrisoned in the town to stop guerrilla incursions into the area, according to Peque's mayor, Jose Luis Usuga. There has not been a police force in Peque since August 7, 1999, when the National Police Commission pulled its forces, saying the town was too remote and lacking in security guarantees.
The paramilitaries abducted a number of young men from Peque during the July 7 incursion; many of the men were later found dead. At least 11 people were massacred by the paramilitaries in Peque and another 22 have been reported missing. Some 6000 people were forced from their homes in rural areas of the municipality; by July 7, most of those displaced remained in the centre of the town of Peque, while at least 2000 had left for neighbouring Buritica municipality, to the south.
In a July 9 communique, the Jose Maria Cordoba bloc of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) charged that the paramilitaries who attacked Peque were working in combined units with troops from the Colombian army's 11th Brigade, and that these combined forces were transported into the town by helicopter with assistance and coordination from the army's 11th and 4th brigades. According to Reuters, local residents also reported that paramilitaries were being transported by helicopter around the area.
The FARC said its forces attacked the paramilitaries in the village of La Papaya in Peque on July 8, forcing them to flee and recovering some of their weapons and other equipment. The FARC also claimed it was able to return 700 head of cattle which paramilitaries had stolen from local campesinos. Press reports indicated that FARC rebels entered Peque on the night of July 10 and delivered a speech to the town's residents and the displaced campesinos who were gathered there, promising to battle the paramilitaries. The army regained control of Peque on July 12.
In a July 6 communiqu‚, the FARC's Jose Maria Cordoba bloc reported that paramilitaries working with the army's 4th, 11th and 17th brigades had massacred five campesinos on July 1 in the Ituango municipality, just north of Peque in Antioquia department. On July 7, paramilitaries massacred at least 14 people in the rural village of Canaveral, in Remedios municipality, in the eastern area of Antioquia.
The latest violence came as most Colombians are distracted by their country's hosting of South America's top soccer tournament, the 12-nation Americas Cup, which began on July 11.
[From Weekly News Update on the Americas.]