Senator Efrain Cepeda, the Senate Chief of Colombia’s Conservative Party, has been accused of ties to the now-defunct paramilitary organization AUC.

In his testimony before the warcrime tribunal JEP, former senator Alvaro Ashton alleged that Cepeda of the Conservative Party and other politicians of the Caribbean region maintained contact and made agreements with the paramilitaries’ front companies and organizations.

In a single hearing to contribute to the full truth, the witness mentioned that Senator Efrain Jose Cepeda Sarabia had allegedly maintained contacts and indirect electoral agreements with sectors supported by paramilitaries, especially in the context of departmental alliances and vote redistribution in Barranquilla and Soledad, in Atlantico.

JEP

Ashton voluntarily appeared before the JEP and named several politicians and businessmen, including himself, who “supported and helped secure funding from the national budget to finance” local development projects that were used to strengthen paramilitary structures in other municipalities.

“This is very important because these funds were used by them to continue committing crimes in other municipalities,” in the Caribbean region, the former senator added.

A 2003 constitutional reform, which was supposedly meant to reorganize the political landscape, in fact sought to infiltrate and fragment the traditional political parties in order to create dissident factions that could include candidates who counted on paramilitary support, according to Ashton.

The constitutional reform, enacted under former president Alvaro Uribe, made it possible for senators to break away from their parties and establish new ones ahead of the 2006 elections.

This act paved the way for Uribista parties such as Alas Equipo Colombia and Colombia Democratica, to effectively become paramilitary parties.

All the parties that were organized following the 2003 constitutional reform were precisely geared toward the fundamental purpose of the self-defense groups, which was to refound the country and seize power from above.

Alvaro Ashton

According to Ashton, the agreements between the AUC and Caribbean politicians facilitated the co-optation of public institutions, the promotion of paramilitary interest in elections in Caribbean municipalities.

Dozens of politicians from all over Colombia made deals with paramilitaries to secure their election to Congress in 2002 and 2006.

The JEP ordered the declassification and publication of Ashton’s testimony to facilitate criminal investigations into the alleged parapoliticians and corrupt government contractors mentioned by the former senator.