Ex-Soldier:Colombia Passed Off Dead Civilians As Rebels-AFP

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones Newswire, AFP

Ex-Soldier:Colombia Passed Off Dead Civilians As Rebels-AFP
(01-24-080001ET)

BOGOTA (AFP)--The Colombian army last year killed at least five civilians and passed them off as rebel fighters during an anti-guerrilla operation, an ex-army sergeant told broadcaster TV Caracol on Wednesday.

"Members of the army carry out murders this way, making people appear to have died in combat by placing weapons on them," said Alexander Rodriguez, adding that he witnessed at least five such killings in northeastern Colombia.

The 17-year army veteran reported the incidents to the Attorney General's Office, which opened an investigation and placed Rodriguez under a witness- protection scheme after he received death threats, the television channel said.
(snip)

The Colombian military has lately been involved in a series of scandals including alleged "friendly fire" incidents, torture, intelligence leaks, human rights violations and links to drug traffickers.





Read more: http://www.nasdaq.com/aspxcontent/NewsStory.aspx?cpath=20080124\ACQDJON200801240001DOWJONESDJONLINE000002.htm&selected=9999&selecteddisplaysymbol=9999&StoryTargetFrame=_top&mkt=WORLD&chk=unchecked&lang=&link=&headlinereturnpage=http://www.internation

[LynnTheDem]

1. No way!!! Noone would ever do such a sick thing!!!

Reuters AlertNet - Iraqi civilians believed dead in US strike-military

The U.S. military rarely admits killing Iraqi civilians in strikes against suspected insurgents...
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IBO636521.htm

[hobbit709]

2. If they're dead, then they're insurgents.

After all, they don't contradict the "official" statements, do they?:sarcasm:

[Judi Lynn]

3. Here's a link if the one posted doesn't work:

http://news.morningstar.com/newsnet/ViewNews.aspx?article=/DJ/200801240001DOWJONESDJONLINE000002_univ.xml

[Judi Lynn]

4. Wikipedia: U.S. Involvement in guerrilla policy (Colombia)

~snip~
U.S. Involvement in guerrilla policy

In 1990, the United States formed a team that included representatives of the U.S. Embassy's Military Group, U.S. Southern Command, the DIA, and the CIA in order to give advice on the reshaping of several of the Colombian military's local intelligence networks. The official reason for this restructuring was to aid the Colombian military in their counter-narcotics efforts.<2>

Advice on the same subject had also been solicited from the British and Israeli military intelligence, but the U.S. proposal was eventually selected by the Colombian military.<3> The result of these meetings was Order 200-05/91, issued by the Colombian Defense Ministry in May 1991.<4>

Human Rights Watch (HRW) obtained a copy of the Colombian Armed Forces Directive No. 200-05/91.<5> The order itself made no mention of drugs at all. The document stated that the Colombian military, "based on the recommendations made by a commission of advisors from the U.S. Armed Forces, "presented a plan to better combat what they called "escalating terrorism by armed subversion."

The document called for setting up intelligence networks made up of military personnel and "civilians or retired non-commissioned officers with sufficient experience and status" as agents and informants under the control of active-duty officers, with the goals of gathering intelligence for military commanders and coordinating with local military units . Order 200-05/91 also stated that the entire intelligence chain of command as well as the networks themselves must remain secret. Once the reorganisation was complete, all "written material was to be removed", with "open contacts and interaction with military installations" to be avoided by all active members of the intelligence networks.

Human Rights Watch concluded that the resulting military intelligence networks, organized and operating according to the US suggestions incorporated by Order 200-05/91, subsequently laid the groundwork for continuing an illegal, covert partnership between the military and paramilitaries. HRW argued that the restructuring process solidified linkages between members of the Colombian military and civilian members of paramilitary groups, by incorporating them into several of the local intelligence networks and by cooperating with their activities. In effect, HRW believed that this further consolidated a "secret network that relied on paramilitaries not only for intelligence, but to carry out murder".

Human Rights Watch argued that this situation allowed the Colombian government and military to plausibly deny links or responsibility for paramilitary human rights abuses. HRW stated that, far from diminishing violence, the military intelligence networks created by the U.S. reorganization appeared to have dramatically increased violence, citing massacres in Barrancabermeja as an example.<6>

Former civilian Defense Minister Rafael Pardo Rueda, who took office three months after the intelligence reorganization had already started, told HRW in 1996 that in his opinion the new structure "was not intended to incorporate illegal groups or to carry out illegal activities". Despite this, HRW pointed out that the text of Order 200-05/91 failed "to make any mention of Decree 1194 {which had made paramilitarism illegal in 1989} or exclude paramilitaries from the ranks of the new intelligence networks," leaving a document that could well be used as a practical "blueprint" for such activities.

In 1996, Human Rights Watch referred to US advice and Order 200-05/91 by stating that "{United States} recommendations were given despite the fact that some of the U.S. officials who collaborated with the {intelligence restructuring} team knew of the Colombian military's record of human rights abuses and its ongoing relations with paramilitaries". Although "not all paramilitaries are intimate partners with the military," HRW added that the existing partnership between paramilitaries and the Colombian military was "a sophisticated mechanism, in part supported by years of advice, training, weaponry, and official silence by the United States, that allows the Colombian military to fight a dirty war and Colombian officialdom to deny it." <13>


More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramilitarism_in_Colombia

[Judi Lynn]

5. SOA graduates implicated in Bogotá "false attacks"

SOA graduates implicated in Bogotá "false attacks"
Submitted by WW4 Report on Thu, 01/24/2008 - 00:58.

A director of Colombian military intelligence and another officer implicated in a series of false attacks and a bombing that killed a civilian and injured 19 soldiers in Bogotá in 2006, attended the US Army School of the Americas, an examination of records shows. The Colombian Public Ministry is investigating Colonel Horacio Arbelaez, former director of the Army’s Joint Intelligence Center; Major Javier Efrén Hermida Benavides; and Captain Luis Eduardo Barrero for orchestrating placement of bombs in a Bogotá shopping mall and other sites in July 2006, on the eve of President Uribe's inauguration for his second term. At the time of the bombing and false attacks, they were attributed to guerrillas of the FARC. In most cases, the bombs were not detonated, but were denounced by the accused officers and deactivated to demonstrate the FARC threat and show military intelligence was doing its work. {Procuraduría General de la Nación, Oct. 12. 2006}

Hermida took two courses at the School of the Americas, including a three-month military intelligence intensive in 2000, while Arbelaez took an infantry course at the School in 1981. A statistical study by sociologist Katherine McCoy found that the more courses Latin American officers took at the School, the more likely they were to commit abuses. (Latin American Perspectives, 2005)

In addition, the Army Joint Intelligence Center that Arbelaez directed receives US aid, according to a State Department list of units vetted to receive assistance. (CIP Colombia Program, 2006)

The officers reportedly collaborated with a FARC deserter on placing the bombs, according to tapes, videos and documents. The officers reportedly collaborated with a FARC deserter on placing the bombs, according to tapes, videos and documents. {El Tiempo, Sept. 6, 2007}

More:
http://www.ww4report.com/node/4975

[Judi Lynn]

6. Open letter to President Uribe from Human Rights Watch, mentioning his Army's habit of dressing up

Letter to President Álvaro Uribe
dead Colombians they've slaughtered, and pretending they were rebels:


May 2, 2007

President Álvaro Uribe Vélez
Presidency of the Republic of Colombia
Palacio de Nariño
Bogota, Colombia

Dear President Uribe,

~snip~
Overall Killings

You state that the overall official homicide rate in Colombia has declined substantially since you assumed office—a fact you attribute to your Democratic Security policies. We recognize that the security situation in several major cities and highways has improved, and that your government appears to have pushed the FARC guerrillas out of many regions, such as San Vicente del Caguán, where they were committing abuses.

However, the official homicide rate, which lumps together deaths from common crime as well as killings committed by all sides in the conflict, is too broad to serve as a useful indicator of human rights abuses. To focus only on this general number masks several very troubling trends.

The number of extrajudicial executions committed by the Army, for example, is skyrocketing—a fact that your own Minister of Defense admitted in meetings with me and other colleagues. The United Nations has a list of over 150 cases of extrajudicial executions of civilians committed by the Army throughout the country in the last two years. The Colombian Commission of Jurists, one of Colombia’s most respected human rights organizations, is reporting over 200 cases a year. In many of these cases the civilian has been killed, and later dressed up as a combatant, apparently to inflate the official enemy body count of the military unit in question.

The number of selective killings committed by paramilitary groups is also cause for alarm. Starting in 2000, according to official statistics, the number of massacres by paramilitary groups started to decline sharply. As described to us by paramilitary commanders themselves in Medellin, this decline reflected a shift in tactics by paramilitaries, who had already taken over control of vast regions of the country, and were starting to focus on consolidating that power. In their view, enforcement of their control no longer required large–scale massacres, but rather only selective killings of persons who they considered enemies.

Thus, the number of paramilitary massacres has dropped substantially. However, the number of selective killings attributable to paramilitaries has remained virtually unchanged for more than a decade, since 1996, despite your demobilization program. According to the Colombian Commission of Jurists, to this day paramilitary groups commit between 800 and 900 selective killings per year.
(snip)

Once again, we want to help Colombia to confront the grave threat that paramilitary power is posing to its democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. Given the high stakes involved, I urge you in the strongest possible terms to adopt the many recommendations we have made—such as blocking communications between imprisoned paramilitary leaders and their mafias and extraditing to the United States those commanders who fail to turn over assets and cease their criminal activities—to ensure the effective dismantlement of paramilitary groups.
(snip/)

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/05/02/colomb15833.htm