COLOMBIA: Entire Battalion
Dismantled Over Killings of Civilians
By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA (IPS) - The purge of the Colombian army over killings
of civilians passed off as guerrilla casualties continues, this time
with the dismantling of an entire army brigade and the removal of 11
officers who served in another battalion.
The purge affected the 15th mobile counterinsurgency brigade, which
is active in the district of Catatumbo in the province of Norte de
Santander, and the La Popa Battalion based in Valledupar in the
province of Cesar. Both provinces are in northeastern Colombia along
the Venezuelan border.
The 15th mobile brigade was completely replaced Friday by a new
unit, the 23rd mobile counterinsurgency brigade, whose 1,400 members
have reportedly received training on human rights, according to
official reports.
It was in Catatumbo that the scandal initially broke out in
September over extrajudicial killings of civilians presented as
"results" in the counterinsurgency war – a practice that local and
international human rights groups had been denouncing for three
decades.
After the discovery of the bodies of 11 young men who had gone
missing from a Bogota slum and appeared in a morgue hundreds of
kilometres away registered as battlefield casualties, 30 officers
and noncommissioned officers were sacked in late October, including
three generals and 10 colonels.
Army chief General Mario Montoya stepped down a few days later. A
year ago, IPS had been told that in diplomatic circles, Montoya was
considered one of the promoters of the "body count" system, which
uses incentives like bonuses, promotions and trips abroad to reward
soldiers and officers for "results" in the counterinsurgency effort.
The La Popa Battalion also has a reputation for "false positives," a
military term referring to the corpses of civilians passed off by
the Colombian military as guerrillas or paramilitaries killed in
action.
La Popa was also accused of committing human rights abuses in
coordination with drug-running paramilitary groups that were
partially demobilised in 2006 after negotiating a deal with the
rightwing government of Álvaro Uribe.
Former La Popa battalion commander Colonel Hernán Mejía is in prison
on charges of carrying out joint operations with the far-right
paramilitaries. He is also under investigation for presenting, as
guerrilla battlefield casualties, 18 members of paramilitary groups
who were killed by their own colleagues.
The 10 officers and one noncommissioned officer who were sacked
Wednesday – in a decision that was not reported until Thursday –
formed part of La Popa in the past but were now serving in other
army units.
Armed forces chief General Freddy Padilla said legal charges have
not been brought against the officers. But the conclusions of the
internal military investigation will be turned over to the ordinary
courts, which have received complaints of 150 civilians allegedly
killed by the La Popa battalion.
The Colombian government, the third-largest recipient of U.S.
military aid after Israel and Egypt, has in fact been under heavy
diplomatic pressure since early 2008 because of the practice of
extrajudicial killings.
The 15th mobile brigade was accused of extrajudicial executions by
the U.S. State Department’s 2008 human rights report, which was
based on information from 2007.
Nevertheless, until recently, in meetings on international aid, the
U.S. Embassy in Bogota has merely repeated Colombia’s official
figures on the number of guerrilla casualties, deserters and
prisoners, and demobilised paramilitaries.
Adding up the figures provided by the Defence Ministry from the
February 2002 breakdown of the peace talks with the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) until August 2008, the results are
"surprising," stated the Consultancy on Human Rights and
Displacement (CODHES), a highly respected local human rights group.
According to these figures, the "democratic security policy"
followed since Uribe took office in 2002, in line with the "war on
terrorism" promoted by the U.S. administration of George W. Bush,
led to a total of 114,259 paramilitaries or guerrillas killed,
demobilised or imprisoned in that six and a half year period, said
CODHES.
CODHES obtained that total by adding up the statistics provided in
official reports on how many guerrillas have deserted or have been
captured or killed, and how many paramilitaries have voluntarily
demobilised or been seized or killed.
In the period in question, the Defence Ministry reported 12,713
"subversives killed," 2,602 paramilitary deaths, and 3,948
"murdered" members of the security forces.
This month, the Washington-based National Security Archive (NSA), a
non-governmental research and archival institution located at the
George Washington University, reported that declassified documents
showed that U.S. authorities were aware of the practice of civilian
killings by the army since at least 1990.
The declassified documents obtained by the NSA make it clear that
the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and former U.S. ambassadors
also knew about collaboration between the military and the largely
drug-funded paramilitaries, even as the U.S. government gradually
increased its support for the Colombian armed forces, stating that
the "war on drugs" was one of its top priorities.
A tone of indignation can be detected in some of the declassified
cables wired by ambassadors and other U.S. officials in Colombia.
U.S. expert Adam Isacson at the Centre for International Policy,
also based in Washington, said "there has been – and still is –
frustration among many U.S. officials over the repeated human rights
scandals in the (Colombian) armed forces.
"My impression is that, despite their indignation, they continue to
move forward in the belief, in first place, that the main interest
of the United States, whether it be the anti-drug or
counterinsurgency struggle, is more important than these
‘side-effects’," he wrote in an email interview with IPS.
In addition, the officials believe that "contact and training with
U.S. soldiers will lead to a reduction in these abuses," said
Isacson.
He added that "many officials have told me that the abuses by the
armed forces in the 1990s were partly due to a lack of contact with
the United States. I don’t know what they blame the abuses of this
decade on."
Isacson, an expert on U.S. policy towards Colombia, does not expect
a major shift in the priorities of the administration of Barack
Obama with respect to this civil war-torn South American country.
"I think there will be changes, but they won’t be very drastic," he
said.
The Obama administration "will continue working with the Colombian
armed forces, and Colombia will probably remain the top recipient of
military aid in the region," he said, although he added that as a
result of the escalation of drug trafficking and violence in Mexico,
that country "could eventually take over that position."
"However, the amount of aid (to Colombia) will be reduced, and it
will be attached to stricter human rights conditions." |
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