According to an August 1994 report, "the Communist Party has been losing support in recent years, and won less than one percent of the vote in presidential elections in May [1994]" (AP 9 Aug. 1994). The party had, as of late 1994, one senator and one congressman in the legislature (ibid.). The senator and leader of the Communist Party, Manuel Cepeda, was elected in March 1994 as a candidate of a coalition between the Communist Party (PCC) and the Patriotic Union (UP) (ibid.; NotiSur 12 Aug. 1994).

However, a recent report refers to the UP as a coalition of former guerrillas, left-wing groups and the Communist Party (Christian Science Monitor 26 May 1994). Joint UP/PCC headquarters in Medellin were the target of an attack by gunmen in a moving vehicle on 17 November 1994, which resulted in the death of a man who was a member of both the UP and the PCC (AI 22 Nov. 1994). Information on the UP can be found in previous Responses contained in the Refinfo database.

An early 1994 article on a massacre of Hope, Peace and Freedom (EPL) party supporters in the banana-growing northern area of Apartado states that the PCC and the UP "control many municipal posts, but risk losing political control of the region to the [EPL] in elections scheduled in March [1994]" (AP 23 Jan. 1994). The EPL party was formed by former guerrillas of the Popular Liberation Army, whose acronym was also EPL (ibid.; Keesing's Jan. 1994, 39812). Various groups were named as possible authors of the massacre, including the UP and the PCC, both of which the EPL suggested "had acted to maintain political hegemony over the region" (ibid.). Results of the March 1994 elections in the Apartado region were not researched for this Response to Information Request.

On 9 August 1994 senator Manuel Cepeda was killed outside his house as he drove to work (AP 23 Aug. 1994; ibid. 9 Aug. 1994). The group claiming responsibility for the killing, calling itself Death to Communists and Guerrillas, also threatened two Catholic bishops, "left-wing congressmen and union leaders who had taken part in peace talks with leftist guerrillas" (AP 18 Aug. 1994). PCC leaders threatened by the group included Aida Abella, Hernan Motta, Alvaro Vasquez del Real and Jaime Caicedo (AI 26 Aug. 1994). Cepeda's assassination occurred during a nationwide guerrilla offensive that resulted in the killing of "dozens of police and soldiers," apparently to pressure the government to accept negotiating terms (AP 18 Aug. 1994).

Four men and a woman were arrested in connection with the killing of the Communist senator in a police raid that "found weapons and documents listing Communist offices that were apparently to be targeted by terrorist attacks" (AP 23 Aug. 1994).

Cepeda had been a congressman for eight years and was the director of Voz (Voice), the weekly Communist newspaper, at the time of his death (AP 9 Aug. 1994). He was also a spokesman for the orthodox wing of the PCC and a personal friend of recently-elected President Ernesto Samper, who publicly condemned his murder (IPS 9 Aug. 1994). Alberto Acevedo, head of the Voz editorial staff, stated that "Cepeda was on a death list that his party discovered in late 1993 (ibid.). Acevedo also stated that other communist leaders, including Alvaro Vasquez, the PCC secretary-general, and Carlos Lozano, the weekly's director, were on this list (ibid.).

Miller Rubio, who was murdered in late 1993 while he was secretary-general of the PCC, was also apparently included in the list (ibid.). According to Acevedo, the PCC ascribed the list to General Julio Gil Colorado, commander of the army's Fourth Brigade, who was killed in a 19 July 1994 attack attributed to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) (ibid.).

Soon after Cepeda's assassination, the secretary-general of the Communist Party, Alvaro Vasquez, stated that the crime was "part of the high ranking military officers' Coup de Grace campaign, which has already murdered several prominent compañeros [companions or comrades]" (BBC 11 Aug. 1994). One report states that

[e]arlier, the PCC Central Committee had asked the previous government to investigate this charge and had conveyed its concern about such threats to the OAS [Organization of American States], an organization that asked the Colombia government to issue protection warrants to adequately safeguard left-wing leaders. Nevertheless, only Cepeda's driver, who was carrying a revolver, was accompanying him at the time of the murder" (ibid.).

Cepeda's assassination had been, "like many of Colombia's political assassinations ... foreshadowed by death threats" (Reuters 9 Aug. 1994). Ivan Cepeda, the senator's son, stated that his father had "complained to the government about the death threats he had received and asked for protection but got no help" (ibid.).

As recently as May 1995 the FARC were described as the "military wing" of the Communist Party (TASS 19 May 1995). However, two August 1994 sources describe the UP as the political arm of the FARC (AP 9 Aug. 1994; Reuters 9 Aug. 1994), while another report states that the FARC support both the PCC and the UP (AP 23 Jan. 1994). Another recent report refers to the autonomy with which some FARC groups operate and engage in drug trafficking, stating the following:

The guerrillas control huge areas of southern Colombia and some [of] the 50-odd Farc fronts are, by all accounts, actively involved in drug production and marketing and have sufficient autonomy to care nothing about the political aims of the veteran Communists in the national leadership (Latin American Weekly Report 22 June 1995, 266).

One report of late 1994 refers to the Pijao Indians of central Tolima department who had been allied with the Communist Party, "which has ideological links to the FARC" (National Catholic Reporter 4 Nov. 1994). The report states that the Pijaos' "growing political and economic autonomy under the new [1991] constitution challenged the political and geographic hegemony of the Communist Party and the rebels" (ibid.). Commenting on the murder of six Pijao leaders in 1994, the source states that the Pijao attribute some of the murders to "an attempt by extremist FARC factions to block the independent political development of the Pijaos" (ibid.). However, the report does not mention the Communist Party in the context of these killings.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the DIRB within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum.

Amnesty International. 22 November 1994. Urgent Action: Colombia: Possible Extrajudicial Execution/Fear for Safety. (AI Index: AMR 23/88/94). London: Amnesty International.

_____. 26 August 1994. Urgent Action: Colombia: Further Information on UA 295/94 (AMR 23/62/94, 10 August 1994)-Possible Extrajudicial Execution/Fear for Safety. (AI Index: AMR 23/66/94). London: Amnesty International.

Associated Press (AP). 23 August 1994. "Police Arrest Five Members of Group Linked to Assassination." (NEXIS)

_____. 18 August 1994. "Right-Wing Group Says It Killed Communist Leader." (NEXIS)

_____. 9 August 1994. "Gunmen Kill Leader of Colombia's Communist Party." (NEXIS)

_____. 23 January 1994. Andrew Selsky. "At Least 33 Slain in Massacre in Northwest Colombia" (NEXIS)

BBC Summary of World Broadcasts. 11 August 1994. "Communist Party Says Senior Officers Are to Blame for Senator's Murder." (NEXIS)

Christian Science Monitor [Boston]. 26 May 1994. Ken Dermota. "The Death of a Colombian Party." (NEXIS)

Inter Press Service (IPS). 9 August 1994. "Colombia: Communist Party Senator Assassinated." (NEXIS)

Keesing's Record of World Events [Cambridge]. January 1994. Vol. 40, No. 1. "Colombia: Assassination of Former EPL Guerrillas."

Latin American Weekly Report [London, UK]. 22 June 1995. "How Cali Noose Was Pulled Tight."

National Catholic Reporter [np]. 4 November 1994. Leslie Wirpsa. "140 Indigenous Leaders Killed Since 1990: Landowners Fight Indian Legal Claims to Land; Indians in Columbia [sic]." (NEXIS)

NotiSur-Latin American Political Affairs. 12 August 1994. "Colombia: New President Ernesto Samper Faces Tough Challenges." (NEXIS)

Reuters. 9 August 1994. BC Cycle. Gilles Castonguay. "Colombia Killing a Grim Reminder of Rights Abuses." (NEXIS)

TASS. 19 May 1995. "Colombian President Announces Terms for Talks with Rebels." (NEXIS)