On November 6 and 7, 1985, the center of Bogotá became a battlefield.
The M-19 guerrilla group stormed the Palace of Justice, and the State responded with a military offensive. The result of the takeover and retaking left more than one hundred dead, including magistrates, soldiers and combatants.
But among the rubble there was a silent tragedy: Eleven people left the building alive and were never heard from again.
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According to the National Center for Historical Memory (Cnmh) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Inter-American Court), the victims recognized as missing were:
- Cristina del Pilar Guarín Cortés – Employee of the Palace cafeteria.
- Carlos Augusto Rodríguez Vera – Cafeteria administrator.
- Bernardo Beltran Hernandez – Palace Waiter.
- Héctor Jaime Beltrán Fuentes – Cafeteria waiter.
- David Suspes Celis – Chef or kitchen assistant.
- Gloria Stella Figueroa Lizarazo – Cafeteria employee (also cited as Gloria Stella Lizarazo Figueroa).
- Luz Mary Portela León – Temporary cafeteria employee; He replaced his mother on the day of the shoot.
- Norma Constanza Esguerra Forero – Visitor of the Palace.
- Ana Rosa Castiblanco Torres – Kitchen employee.
- Irma Franco Pineda – Member of the M-19, captured alive and disappeared in military custody.
- Gloria Isabel Anzola of Lanao – Occasional visitor to the Palace.
This list matches the sentence Rodríguez Vera and others vs. Colombiaissued by the Inter-American Court in 2014, which condemned the State for forced disappearance and extrajudicial execution.
Videos and photographs from media such as The Time and Crypton News They showed several of them leaving the Palace alive, guarded by soldiers.
However – as documented by the Cnmh on its commemorative microsite Palace of Justice: 30 years— None were brought before judicial authority nor reappeared alive.
Carlos Rodríguez, administrator of the Palace of Justice cafeteria, disappeared during the seizure when his daughter Alejandra was only 35 days old.
His family, who were preparing the baptism, experienced the anguish of never seeing him again. Although his father was identified in a television video and the restaurant was found in good condition after the resumption, he was never heard from.
Anonymous calls claimed that he was detained and tortured in the North Canton. His mother searched tirelessly for him, clinging to the hope of finding him alive, according to reports from the National Radio of Colombia.
Also missing was Bernardo Beltrán, 24 years old, a waiter at the Palace, remembered by his sister Sandra as a hard-working, happy and dreamy young man. Although his body was found years later, his family never knew the circumstances of his death. Sandra insists that neither Bernardo nor his companions had ties to the M-19 and that they were falsely accused.
Another victim was Irma Franco, a law student and M-19 activist. Her brother Jorge remembers her as a sensitive and socially committed woman.
She was seen leaving the Palace and taken to the North Canton, where witnesses claim that she was tortured and murdered by the military. Jorge searched for her for decades, despite threats, and remembers that days before the operation Irma told him that he would undertake “a very long trip.”
For years, families of the missing scoured cemeteries and archives without getting answers.
In 2015, the Attorney General’s Office announced the identification of the remains of Cristina Guarín Cortés, Luz Mary Portela León and Lucy Amparo Oviedo Bonilla through genetic comparisons, as reported The Time in October of that year. In 2016, the Victims Unit confirmed the formal delivery of Portela León’s remains to her family, according to its historical portal.
But relatives insist that identification does not equal justice. “The delivery of a body without the truth does not satisfy us,” he told National Radio of Colombia a brother of Carlos Augusto Rodríguez Vera during the 2020 commemorative events.
The case of Luz Mary Portela León was especially painful. As they remembered Week and the Cnmh, The 22-year-old was replacing her mother in the cafeteria that day. She was seen leaving the Palace alive; Later, his trail was lost.
The ruling of the Inter-American Court established that several civilians were detained by the military and transferred to the North Canton and the Cavalry School, where they were lost. The ruling concluded that the State violated the rights to life, personal liberty and judicial protection of the victims, and ordered reparation, search and identification measures.
In the case of Irma Franco Pineda, member of the M-19, The Court determined that her disappearance also constitutes a state crime, since she was in military custody when she was last seen.
“Even captured combatants must receive protection under the norms of International Humanitarian Law,” the judicial text states.
In Colombia, the processes advanced slowly. In 2021, the Superior Court of Bogotá ratified sentences against five retired soldiers for aggravated forced disappearance, as reported by the media. Legal Area. However, relatives maintain that high-ranking responsibilities have not been clarified.
Every November, relatives of the missing gather in Plaza de Bolívar to light candles and read the names of their loved ones. “Forty years later, we are still waiting for the State to tell us where they are,” repeats Beatriz Rodríguez, daughter of Carlos Augusto Rodríguez Vera, in statements to The Time.
The Cnmh preserves the testimonies of these families in its audiovisual archive, along with photographs and press clippings that give an account of the search. According to the entity, eight people are still not fully identified.
The names of Cristina, Carlos, Héctor, David, Bernardo, Gloria Stella, Luz Mary, Norma, Ana Rosa, Irma and Gloria Isabel are repeated year after year in symbolic acts that seek to keep memory alive and prevent oblivion from prevailing over impunity.
