Topologies of the Dead and the 2016 Peace Accord in Colombia: Mass Graves, Forensic Inhumations, and Illegal Burials

Abstract

This paper (number 3) in the research project “Burying the Dead” follows the introductory comments and typology of previous papers ( Aguilar, 2024a ; Aguilar, 2024b ) with a background of a global study of burials and their sociological trends in a global perspective. Its objective is to complement an ethnographic comparative of the previous papers that explore burials in India and Chile. This paper’s findings are diachronic, covering fifty years of Colombia’s history but also synchronic, expanding on the ongoing findings of bodies and memory at La Escombrera in Medellín. The methodology is historical and comparative, including sociological trends of memorial disruption and forensic anthropology. The findings of the paper come from archival materials, allied with an ethnographic experience of Colombia as a diverse nation that experienced fifty years of generalised violence until 2016. This paper identifies some of the cemeteries in Bogotá, Medellin, and Cali but concentrates on the topology of the dead, the mapping of mass graves, forensic inhumations, and illegal burials that have taken place within Colombia in the past fifty years of internal violence. The location of those sites of the dead and enforced disappearances have been regulated by the 2016 Peace Accord signed between the state of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armes Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP) and the creation of state institutions such as the Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz (JEP). This paper outlines how the 2016 Peace Accord has worked institutionally by following the excavations in Medellin, Area 13, particularly in La Escombrera, where human remains corresponding to Operation Orión (2002) were found in 2024. This paper considers the Peace Accord a very positive one but contests the possibility that a time limit can be given to such a massive national operation of finding the dead, assessing responsibility, burial, and legal compensations. Indeed, the paper is only an introduction to further papers on the topology of the dead and enforced disappearances in different regions of Colombia.