Canal del Dique is recognized as a victim of the armed conflict by the JEP

The Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) This Friday, he credited the territory of the Canal del Dique, a body of water located in the north of the country, as a victim of the armed conflict in Colombia. where numerous people were thrown, killed mainly by paramilitaries.

The accreditation was made in response to a request submitted by the Cimarronaje Routea platform that brings together more than 200 ethnic organizations that inhabit this basin.

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The JEP magistrate María del Pilar Valencia said at an event in Cartagena de Indias that this recognition is due to the fact that the victims, mostly Afro-descendants who live in the Canal basin, presented reports that allowed “activate the powers of the JEP“.

“We received around 27 reports for the Montes de María region that investigate the responsibility of the public force, State agents and alliances with paramilitarism and third parties“said the judge.

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Valencia explained that “In the peace agreement signed by the national government with the extinct FARC, there was explicitly a differential ethnic approach that must recognize the disproportionate impact of the armed conflict and make visible the different violence to which they (the communities) have been subjected.“.

“We have a judicial precedent such as the precautionary measures for the Canal del Dique in order to find the greatest possible number of victims, in what the Truth Commission called the largest aquatic cemetery in Colombia“he added.

Special Jurisdiction for Peace

J.E.P.

The Canal del Dique, which covers part of the departments of Bolívar, Atlántico and Sucrein the Caribbean, is an artificial body of water built in the 16th century by indigenous people and enslaved blacks to connect Cartagena de Indias with the Magdalena River.

Crimes and threats

In a symbolic act, representatives of 20 municipalities in the Canal del Dique area played drums and poured over the Cartagena bay waters that they brought from different parts.

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Although the intensity of the armed conflict decreased in the area with the signing of peace with the FARC in 2016, The Canal del Dique continues to be used as a dumping ground for corpsesso terror has not been completely banished from the area.

“The victims have registered threats (…) they try to intimidate the community so as not to continue insisting, for this reason some of the victims who have requested protection at this time enjoy these measures through the State agencies that have that obligation“said Judge Valencia.

Dam Canal

Private file

The coordinator of the Cimarronaje Route, Aura Camargosaid that “From the black people who inhabit the territory we have insisted on recognizing the Canal del Dique as a subject of law due to the effects left by the armed conflict.“.

“The Canal del Dique is a territory that was affected by forced disappearance, displacement, homicide, but also by all those forms of control of paramilitarism and the forces that acted there in that territory.“Camargo explained.

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The leader of the Cimarronaje Route He said that the recognition that is being made today “means that development is advancing and that private companies that caused harm must continue to be recognized.”

Likewise, he asked “a recognition by the State that this territory was affected and has some effects on life, on economic development, on cultural development, on political development, but above all on environmental development.“.

EFE