26 and the guerrilla. The paramilitary groups began to arrive “years before” the events occurred in El Aro in 1997. In 1996, there was an incursion that reached Santa Rita. Approximately two months before the massacre, they reached the “La Esmeralda” sector, but they did not get to the urban capital of El Aro. The paramilitary groups came to El Aro via Puerto Valdivia. Prior to 1994, neither the Army nor any legal authority was present in Puerto Valdivia. The paramilitary groups had maps of all the municipal districts (corregimientos) and municipalities and marked with a red cross those they planned to destroy. El Aro was marked with a red cross on one of those maps, and the Mayor of Ituango and the other Councilors were duly notified. In view of this situation, “about two months before the incursion,” the El Aro Community Action Committee asked for protection from the state Governor’s office, but this was not granted. The local authorities began to call “on everyone, on the Fourth Brigade, on the Girardot Battalion, even on the Yarumal prosecutor’s office.” They all replied that “no troops [were] available,” because they had all been deployed in relation to the elections that were being held at the time. In October 1997, before the massacre, the paramilitary groups met daily with members of the Army in the zone of Cachirimé and Tarazá. Many families “said that it was the members of the paramilitary groups with the Army who raided El Aro.” Among the soldiers identified, were those known as “piña” [pineapple], “el burro” [the donkey] and Corporal Alzate, who was called “Rambo” or “Kamiski.” It was even said that the person in charge of the Army in Puerto Valdivia had joined a paramilitary group. The paramilitary group entered El Aro on October 25, 1997. The elections were programmed for Sunday, October 26, 1997. On Saturday, October 25 “shots [were heard and] many explosions.” During the morning of that Saturday “a white helicopter arrived” from which “bursts of machine gun fire” [were heard] and “it flew off towards northern Cauca.” Some armed men arrived and said: “We are the Auto Defensas Campesinas [Peasant Self-Defense Units] and we need you to accompany us a short distance, to the park.” The armed men accused the residents of El Aro of being guerrillas. They seized several people from the village and took them to the center of the village square; they insulted them and made them lie face down; then they proceeded to murder several people. Those assassinated during this paramilitary incursion included the following: Wilmar Restrepo Torres, Mario Torres, Mario Iván, Dora Luz Areiza, Aurelio Areiza, Arnulfo Sánchez, Luis Modesto Múnera, Nelson Palacio, Alberto Correa and Guillermo Andrés Mendoza. On Sunday, October 26, the paramilitary group gave permission to bury the dead. Those who died in El Aro were “honest, hardworking people, who […] had no connection with either the guerrilla or the paramilitary groups. They were farmers.” On the night the livestock were stolen from El Aro, two individuals accompanied the soldiers “they looked very odd, and were not wearing proper Army uniforms,” but wore “camouflage uniform and were heavily armed, and their haircuts and appearance [were] not military.” Lieutenant Bolaños ordered the closure all the establishments in El Aro. The two individuals accompanied the Army to close all the businesses in the area known as El Retén. At 4 a.m., they brought down the livestock from the “La María” farm to the “El Pescado” farm. The livestock came