45 Brigade, under the command of Colonel Lino Hernando Sánchez Prado, without being stopped. 96.33 On July 14, 1997 the AUC entered the village of Charras, assembled the inhabitants in the town square, and handed out the magazine “Colombia Libre”, including a leaflet entitled “To the people of Guaviare,” signed by the “Guaviare Front” of the AUC, threatening to kill anyone who “paid taxes” to the FARC. 96.34 At dawn on July 15, 1997, more than 100 armed men surrounded Mapiripán by land and river. The members of the paramilitary group wore uniforms whose use is restricted to the military forces, bore short- and long-range weapons, also restricted to the State, and used high frequency radios. 96.35 When they arrived in Mapiripán, the paramilitary took control of the town, of communications, and of the public offices, and intimidated its inhabitants, kidnapping and killing other inhabitants. The statement by Edison Londoño Niño, a member of the 2d Mobile Brigade, on collaboration between the members of the Army and of the AUC, shows that they not only refrained from impeding their arrival in Mapiripán, but also provided munitions and communications. 96.36 Leandro Iván Cortés Novoa, who was then the municipal judge with jurisdiction in both civil and criminal cases in Mapiripán, alarmed by the arrival of the AUC, contacted the Deputy Attorney for Human Rights and the High Court of the Court Circuit of Meta, who refrained from conducting investigations. Cortés Novoa also reported the situation and the presence of Carlos Castaño Gil to Colonel Hernán Orozco Castro, commander of the “Joaquín París” battalion. A statement by Leonardo Iván Cortés Novoa rendered in confidence before the Attorney General’s Office asserted that: On July 14, 1997, at four thirty a.m., approximately 120 armed individuals arrived, saying that they came [...] from the Urabá region of Antioquia, that they were the selfdefense groups of Urabá and Córdoba, under Carlos Castaño Gil, and that they had arrived in San José del Guaviare in a Hercules plane of the Armed Forces. [...] Every day, about 7:30 p.m. these individuals, through mandatory orders, had the electric generator turned off and every night, through cracks in the wall, I watched kidnapped people go by, with their hands tied behind their backs and gagged, to be cruelly murdered in the slaughterhouse of Mapiripán. Every night we heard screams of people who were being tortured and murdered, asking for help [...] they killed several people who were well known in the town; Sinaí Blanco, a gasoline merchant who charged a tax that the FARC forced him to collect; Ronald Valencia, an employee of the mayor’s office, […] they tortured him, murdered him and beheaded him, and they left his head in the middle of the street that goes to the secondary school, and left the body near the road; and Anselmo Trigos, for (collaborating with) the guerrillas.48 96.37 On July 15, 1997 General Jaime Humberto Uscátegui Ramírez learned of the presence of the AUC in Mapiripán and of the imminent attack against the lives of its inhabitants. Major Hernán Orozco Castro sent Brigadier General Jaime Humberto Uscátegui, Commander of the VII Brigade, a memorandum with urgent information 48 See statement by Leonardo Iván Cortés Novoa, rendered before the Office of the Attorney General on August 21, 1997 (file with appendixes to the brief containing pleadings and motions, appendix 30, pages 3400 and 3401).