Disappearances, Dismemberment & Chop-Up Houses in Colombia (Graphic imagery) [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

Disappearances, Dismemberment & Chop-Up Houses in Colombia
March 21, 2014

A recent 30-page report by Human Rights Watch documents how many of Buenaventura’s neighborhoods are dominated by powerful criminal groups that commit widespread abuses, including abducting and dismembering people, sometimes while still alive, then dumping them in the sea. The groups maintain “chop-up houses” (casas de pique) where they slaughter victims, according to witnesses, residents, the local Catholic church, and some officials.

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The successor groups have “disappeared” scores—and possibly hundreds—of Buenaventura residents over the past several years. They dismember their victims and dump the body parts in the bay and along its mangrove-covered shores, or bury them in hidden graves, according to residents and officials. In several neighborhoods, residents report the existence of casas de pique—or “chop-up houses”—where the groups slaughter their victims. Several residents we spoke with report having heard people scream and plea for mercy as they were being dismembered alive. In March 2014, after criminal investigators found bloodstains in two suspected “chop-up houses” in the city, the police said they had identified several locations where perpetrators had dismembered victims alive before tossing them in the sea.

More than 150 people who were reported to have gone missing in Buenaventura between January 2010 and December 2013 are presumed by officials to have been abducted and “disappeared,” twice as many as in any other municipality in Colombia. Interviews with authorities and residents, as well as official reports, strongly suggest that the actual number of people who have been abducted and killed by paramilitary successor groups in the city is significantly higher.

One of the main sources of under-reporting is the fear of reprisals. For example, one resident told Human Rights Watch he heard the screams of a man he believed was being dismembered, but did not report the crime.

“No matter how much screaming you hear, the fear prevents you from doing anything,” he said. “People know where the ‘chop-up houses’ are but do not do anything about it because the fear is absolute.”

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Many residents of Buenaventura have lost all faith in the ability of the government to protect them. On September 13, 2013, hundreds of them participated in a march for peace led by the local Catholic bishop. The march wound through several of the city’s neighborhoods and ended on a soccer field, where the participants prayed for an end to the violence. The next day, a 23-year-old man’s head appeared on the field, with parts of his body scattered through nearby neighborhoods. When his family sought justice for the murder, they began receiving death threats and fled the city, joining the ranks of Buenaventura’s displaced.

http://revolution-news.com/disappearances-dismemberment-chop-houses-colombia/