It has been 10 terms of government, truth commissions, dozens of academic productions, documentary pieces, and national and international expert reports, and there are still pieces of the puzzle to unravel what happened on November 6 and 7, 1985 at the Palace of Justice in Bogotá.
Part of the truth we still don’t know about the restoration of the palace is contained in documents kept secret by the United States. The Southern Command, Pentagon, and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) files are the key missing pieces to clearly define the decisions made by Colombian and North American intelligence and their consequences, as well as those directly responsible for them.
In September 2023, the North American NGO National Security Archive (NSA) published 12 declassified documents from the State Department and intelligence reports from the Pentagon detailing actions taken by the Colombian military on the advice of North American intelligence. For example, the United States responded quickly and effectively by sending a C-130 plane, three explosives specialists, and three intelligence agents, with C4 explosives and a detonation cord. Another document says US embassy staff were in telephone contact with two people inside the palace, including one in the Supreme Court office, who provided a real-time update on the appeal.
Several doubts arise after reading the first documents. Did the military use US military materials to blow up the metal door on the third floor, an event that left people dead? It’s an unanswered question for the victims, who have insisted in Colombian and U.S. agencies that the files be completely declassified and key sections removed from those that have already become public knowledge.
Helena Uran, one of the strongest and most consistent voices in defense of the truth of the Holocaust, in her latest book Undo the node He asks about the report on the results of the aid provided by the United States, the result of communications between the embassy and people inside the palace, and the role of American intelligence agents. In his first book, My life and the palace: November 6 and 7, 1985I have previously raised the need to search for the truth that lies in those archives.
Part of these answers were given in various interviews conducted by former intelligence agent José Dorado Gaviria, who admitted to extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances during the reconquest, and detailed the military distribution of the operation and the decisive role of the intelligence agency. He also confirmed that explosives sent by the Southern Command were used to “break down the wall where civilians were being held on the other side.”
According to Dorado, even uniformed soldiers like Colonel Plazas Vega responded to the military intelligence plan, and were responsible for controlling the first episode of action during the reconquest. “There were no people at the point or inside who had nothing to do with intelligence. They must have been from intelligence.” His analysis focuses on linking the actions of the military leadership to the training they received at the School of the Americas and aligning them with North American policy.
In an interview published by Cambio magazine, Helena Urán’s former agent admitted that after the murder of his father, Judge Carlos Urán, intelligence ordered an operation to make it appear that an M-19 plane killed him inside the palace. “He was someone being watched by Colonel Alvaro Velandia, as well as Ivan Ramírez, Harold Bedoya and Mario Montoya, who were intelligence officers. Several non-commissioned officers followed him. Military intelligence wanted him not to leave alive,” he said in the interview.
The former agent’s testimony confirms what the Public Prosecution proved in 2018, when he admitted that Oran was subjected to torture and murder, and then his body was transferred between military units and forensic medicine. It also coincides with what the Colombian Truth Commission and Forensic Engineering documented in their project. Black boxes of enforced disappearancewhich details the journey of a group of people who were labeled “suspects,” were arrested, tortured, and in some cases executed, and in others were forcibly disappeared.
An army officer admitted before a truth commission that he ordered and participated in the torture of approximately 20 people, between November 7 and 15, 1985. With his testimony he helped rebuild the detention and torture centers of the Cavalry School, the 13th Brigade, the Chari Solano Battalion, DIJIN, SIJIN, or Casa del Florero, all guarded solely by intelligence agents. Hence the forensic report that made it possible to establish coordination between different state institutions, and the participation of army, police and intelligence agents, judges, forensic doctors and other officials, to legitimize crimes of murder, torture and enforced disappearance with the impunity that still covers the majority of cases today.
It should be noted that although the responsibility included civilians, it was the military leadership that took charge and carried out the orders, as confirmed by the then Minister of Communications, Noemi Sanin, 40 years after the events: “I did what I could. What happened is that there was no cabinet on the day the Palace of Justice was seized. We were ministers and the seizure was a military operation. We were looking for a political solution, but with a military solution we never had room.”
Just as the files were crucial in filling judicial loopholes and identifying the alleged perpetrators and direct perpetrators, they also opened new questions about the seizure, the re-capture, and what happened in the weeks that followed. The outcome of the relations between the executive authority, the military leadership, and the North American agencies has gray areas that must be clarified.
Among the cables published by the National Security Agency, there is a military report from the United States, dated November 6, which states that President Belisario Betancur has asked to adopt a tough stance towards the rebels, not to negotiate, and to give a “green light” to what is “necessary” to do to resolve the situation. Weeks later, another CIA cable confirmed that Bettencourt was reluctant to confront the M-19, fearing that his relationship with the military would deteriorate. In December of the same year 1985, the American Embassy sent a letter entitled “After Black November“He asserted that all the country’s forces believed that negotiations with M-19 would harm the government’s legitimacy. These are three nearly contemporary versions, demonstrating the lack of a unified standard.
Despite the Colombian state’s requests from the United States to decalcify the files, progress has been zero. Silence prevailed in both the Biden and Trump administrations. What is striking is that the same American institutions cooperated with truth commissions from Central American countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala, and declassified the same type of material.
Although the truth remains hidden in the United States, no tangible progress has been made in Colombia regarding justice and reparations. Since 2014, when the Inter-American Court declared international state responsibility for the crimes of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial executions, torture and violations of judicial guarantees, victims have been waiting for enlightened progress that respects human dignity. Instead, they have suffered repeat events, such as those of April 26, 2024, when President Gustavo Petro, during a ceremony commemorating the assassination of Carlos Pizarro, asked the former rebels to come up to the stage and wave the M-19 flag.
Before his term as president ends, Petro must abandon his romantic story of palace seizures and move toward a clemency request, in the name of M-19, that honors the victims, recognizes violations of international humanitarian law and human rights abuses, and makes amends to the relatives of the victims. In return, it should call on the State to acknowledge its responsibility for the extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances and massacres committed by the national army.
State and M-19 responsibility for the Holocaust will continue to fade into history as long as there is no effective justice. Declassifying the archives will be crucial and will play an important role in clarifying the facts and preserving memory. Currently, the executive branch continues to carry a historic debt.
About The Author
