Mapiripán. Photo: Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica.This article is a product of the partnership between ¡Pacifista! and democracia Abierta. Read the original text here.
From Tuesday July 15 to Sunday July 20, 1997, the population of Maripipán suffered one of the worse episodes in the history of this municipality bordering with Guaviare, in the southern central region of Colombia. Five days in which the heat of violence was felt in every corner of this village in the Meta department. Without mercy, coldly, 100 men belonging to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), dressed in National Army uniforms, cut up and dismembered several bodies with machetes and knives. Some say 27, others 49 people were killed, and there was an unknown number of missing persons who were probably executed and dumped into the Guaviare River, to be carried away into oblivion.
The aim of this 'operation' was to weaken fronts 7 and 44 of the FARC which, since the 1980s, had been responsible for maintaining order in the region. The so-called Buitragueños carried out the preliminary intelligence work in the sector to locate and identify the alleged collaborators of the guerrilla.
