Jesús Cabrera Jaramillo is a citizen and resident of Colombia and the eldest son of Alma Rosa Jaramillo. Read an interview with Jesús featured in our Fall 2014 newsletter.
Alma Rosa Jaramillo, an attorney practicing in Morales, a small town in the department of Santander, Colombia, was sub-regional coordinator for the Program for Peace and Development in the Middle Magdalena (“PDP”). Alma Rosa brought several high-profile land-rights cases on behalf of displaced communities and one notable case against a local hospital for corruption and money laundering. She openly opposed the paramilitaries and their allies.
In 2000, looking for an alternative to the violent paramilitary control of the area, Alma Rosa went to work for the campaign of a mayoral candidate who opposed the candidate from the Bloque Central Bolívar (“BCB”), a paramilitary group within the umbrella organization AUC, under the command of Carlos Mario Jiménez Naranjo, also known as Macaco. Her candidate lost the election to the BCB candidate. In the months that followed the election, a BCB soldier came to Alma Rosa’s home and threatened her and her family, ordering them to leave the town or be killed. Alma Rosa refused to leave her home and the life she had built there.
On June 28, 2001, armed BCB soldiers pulled Alma Rosa from a public service vehicle. Macaco’s soldiers removed Alma Rosa in front of several other passengers. The soldiers made a list of the passengers’ names, threatened them, and told them to keep silent about the abduction. Alma Rosa’s body was recovered from the river in the same area a few days later on July 1. They found only her torso, which showed terrible signs of torture.
Alma Rosa is survived by her two sons. The younger son was nine years old at the time she died. Alma Rosa’s eldest son, Jesús, was 18 years old at the time.
Jesús brings claims for extrajudicial killing; torture; cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; war crimes; and crimes against humanity.
Sara González Calderón and Alonso Estrada Gutiérrez are citizens and residents of Colombia and relatives of Eduardo Estrada. Eduardo was a founding member of the PDP, and a pillar of the community of San Pablo, where he lived with his common-law wife Sara and his daughter. Eduardo was starting a community radio station in San Pablo and, with the help of a local university, set up the Political School for Campesinos. He also owned a well-known restaurant that served as a meeting place for locals, particularly in the evenings after meetings of the Political School. Many people in San Pablo thought he was well-positioned to oppose the paramilitary candidate for mayor.
On the night of July 16, 2001, Eduardo and his common-law wife left a party not far from the Estrada home in San Pablo. A BCB paramilitary soldier approached them from the back and fired three rounds into Eduardo’s head.
Sara briefly lost consciousness. When she awoke, the soldier was standing over them with a gun. The soldier left her there, with Eduardo bleeding on the ground next to her. Eduardo was shot approximately 300 meters from the local police station. Despite the proximity to the police station, no assistance was provided by the local police. Eduardo died from the gunshot wounds to his head later that night at the hospital.
Sara González and Alonso Estrada bring claims for extrajudicial killing and torture under the TVPA.
