Terror in Colombia - http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/americas/

[concerned]

Authorities plot to rescue survivors of bloody Colombia battle
108 dead, including dozens of infants, women and elderly

QUIBDO, Colombia (AP) -- The death toll in an isolated village where rebels and paramilitaries are fighting for control rose to 108 Sunday as authorities continued to debate how to rescue the survivors.

U.N. officials said they warned the government that a tragedy was about to occur before the fighting started.

"It's lamentable that the government authorities ignored the early warning," the United Nations said in a prepared statement.

Among the dead were dozens who had taken refuge in a church in the village of Bojaya on Thursday. Authorities said the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, fired homemade mortars into the church. It was unclear if they were aiming for the church.

People fleeing the violence began trickling into Quibdo, the capital of Choco state, some 58 miles south of Bojaya, on Sunday.

Juan Evaristo Mosquera, 70, abandoned his small farm in the village of Puerto Conto to flee with his son, daughter-in-law and four grandchildren on Friday. The family took two days to reach Quibdo by boat, stopping periodically because of fighting.

"We're good people, we've always lived in peace -- poor, but in peace," he said. "Now we're just poor."

Choco is the poorest, and one of the most conflicted states in Colombia. The rebels and paramilitaries are fighting in the region for control of strategic drug trafficking routes, officials say.

Minister of Interior Armando Estrada said troops would be heading to the area Sunday or Monday. Neither the military nor the police have outposts in the tiny riverfront village, which is reachable only by air or river.

President Andres Pastrana and high-ranking military commanders met with local authorities in Quibdo Sunday to plan a rescue mission.

After the meeting, he said 108 people had been confirmed dead, many of them infants, children and elderly people.

"What happened here was genocide on the part of the FARC," he said.

Rescue workers airlifted 18 seriously injured victims out of the village Saturday but officials worried that the small village hospital in Vigia del Fuente, across the river from Bojaya, was overwhelmed.

Authorities said at least 38 of the dead were infants and children.


Colombian soldiers gear up to be transported to the battle zone.
Albeiro Parra, spokesman for the diocese in Quibdo, said some 80 people, including the town priest, were still missing Sunday. Many have reportedly fled into the jungle around the village.

Parra urged the authorities not to send the military into the region, fearing that anyone who might have been taken hostage might be hurt or killed during a military operation.

"The response should be humanitarian, not military," he said.

Luis Angel Moreno, director of the government's Solidarity Network in Choco state, said his office was working with the Red Cross to send 5,000 individual rations from Quibdo eight hours up the Atrato River by boat.

There is no telephone communication and only limited radio contact with Bojaya, 235 miles northwest of Bogota.

Colombia's 38-year-civil war pits the FARC and a smaller rebel group against the paramilitaries and government forces. Roughly 3,500 people -- most of them civilians -- are killed in fighting each year.

[Son of Scargill]

Yes,something to be concerned about indeed.Another tradgedy happens in a long line of tradgedies.Civil war is never civil,a corny saying,but true none the less.
Maybe if previous governments protected the legitimate socialist opposition party(the UP),instead of standing idly by or even coluding in the murder of many of its candidates and supporters this scenario would not be happening.Instead,self interest and greed now rule supreme in Colombia,and the USA is giving bigger guns to the class that will more readily agree to its demands.
North America and the European Union DO have the power to influence for the better,for a truer democracy,for improved living conditions for the majority of the population.But the fact is that it doesn't suit their interests either.Self interest and greed,and turning a blind eye to the internal affairs of Colombia is killing innocents there,just as surely as the Paramilitaries,the FARC and the Government and their military are killing innocents,in Colombia and elsewhere on this planet.
You are right to be concerned.What do you suggest be done about it though?Because all I can see being done ,is the continuing fueling of a cycle of violence.

[Dhul Fiqar]

Those right-wing paramilitaries are by far the worst, they've been responsible for a huge amount of civilian bloodshed and revenge attacks against villages that have supported FARC. Also, I believe many of them are funded by the government, and big business, and have little popular support.

Not to mention the drug production, once I was discussing the possible FARC involvement in the Coca industry with my father and I pointed out that the right-wing paramilitaries do it too. He said: "Well, of course, it's not like that's ever even been in dispute, it's the core of their operation and always has been."

So, while it's certainly a vicious cycle, I'd prefer if it were broken on the right side of the political spectrum ;)

--- G. Raven

[vox]

Many bad things may be said about FARC, but it Dhul Fiqar is correct in saying that the paramilitaries are worse.

But don't worry, the USA is going to help out, and you know what that means, right?

US Finds a Palatable Word for Military Aid to Colombia
by Bryan Bender

WASHINGTON - Members of Congress and top Bush administration officials, seeking to broaden US aid to the Colombian military, are increasingly painting that country's battle against leftist insurgents and drug traffickers as part of the larger struggle against terrorism.

To bolster their argument, the officials are accusing the Colombian guerrillas of having links to some of the same global groups that are the target of Washington's expanding war on international terrorism.

The new aid for Colombia, being considered on Capitol Hill, would for the first time allow the US military to help and train forces in the battle against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the largest Colombian guerrilla group, which controls about 40 percent of the country. US law has limited American assistance to the Colombian government to fight the drug trade.

Full Article (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0505-05.htm)

vox

[Son of Scargill]

vox,Dhul Fiqar,I know of the disproportionate levels of violence regarding the paramilitaries(often with military or police colusion).Although I believe the AUC have been told to cut down the amount of massacres they perpetrate recently.Apparently it makes it more difficult for Uncle Sam to give them more money,training,helicopters and weaponary.Whether they are following this request or not remains to be seen.I doubt it though.

{qoute/Dhul Fiqar}
So, while it's certainly a vicious cycle, I'd prefer if it were broken on the right side of the political spectrum {unquote}

I couldn't agree more.

[concerned]

I hate to say this, but I strongly disagree with most of your comments.

It is a proven fact that most of the abuses against the defenseless population are done by the guerrillas, primarily Farc (Eln is somewhat less brutal). This article is just a tiny example of the many abuses of Farc against the population, which occur on a daily basis.

I feel Farc has lost all their original ideals and now are just into enjoying the millions of dollars they get each days from illegal activities and abuses, and the power they feel by having a terrorized population that does not know where to hide.

It is also a fact that Farc, is by far Colombia's biggest drug exporter, primarily to the US. Although Farc hates to admit it.

Yes it is true that the paramilitaries export drugs as well. They have never even tried to deny it. They tried banning drugs for years in their controlled areas but they found this to be impossible. They just got into local wars with drug lords and that was weakening them to the point of extintion. So they decided to let the drug lords do their thing in their land for a tax. They do not do it themselves though, as Farc does. The paramilitaries just realized it was imposible to maintain a war against a guerrilla that get huge revenues from drugs without doing the same. It's sad but true.

And also I believe there is a lot of misinformation about the supposedly "massacres" and human right abuses by the paramilitaries. Again, there is no question that Farc is by far the organization in Colombia that has performed the most massacres and human rights abuses. The paramilitaries never kidnapp innocent civilians which don't have anything to do with the conflict. or put car bombs into populated areas to kill random people, or contaminate the water supplies of towns (this are all things that Farc has used as a "tactic" of war repeatedly).

You have to recognize that an army as Farc is not an easy target. Specially because they some time blend with the people. They go as sleeper agants into Bogota's factories just to find out who is in charge, how much money he has, and how can they kidnapp him to get the most money out of it. They do that the same in towns too. In towns they usually just have people in town pretending to be peasants or regular citizens to find out who is doesn't like them so they can take him out later.

In my opinion, although there is no question the paramilitaries have made some mistakes, they are far less than those of Farc. And the only real thing is that when ever the paramilitaries make a mistake, they are upfront about it, unlike Farc whioch try to hide the facts. Carlos Castanno, the leader of the paramilitaries, has in repeated occations recognized that his troops comitted abuses and went into punishing them or kick them out of the AUC. It is imposible to have an irregular army of more than 10000 armed men and expect they are all going to behave nicely and do as they are told. But as I said, at least the paramilitaries take much more responsibility for their actions.

[concerned]

And one last thing. Let us not forget that the paramilitaries were a consequence of the guerrillas. Thus, if it wasn't for the guerrillas, the paramilitaries would have to dissolve as well because their very point of existence would be gone. Or they would have to turn into far-right guerrillas, which I honestly doubt they do because they have never done anything against the government or Colombia's institutions.

[Son of Scargill]

And the Farc/Eln are a result of the brutal repression of legitimate dissent from 1964 onwards.



Amnesty International report 2001./Colombia
Escalating conflict
Few areas of the country remained unaffected by the escalating conflict. The number and intensity of direct confrontations between the parties to the conflict increased. The principal victims continued to be civilians. The majority of killings were carried out by illegal paramilitary groups operating with the tacit or active support of the Colombian armed forces. All parties to the conflict, including the Colombian armed forces, routinely breached their obligation to allow and facilitate access by humanitarian organizations to conflict areas to aid civilian communities under attack or caught in the crossfire, and to assist wounded combatants. In separate incidents, wounded combatants under the protection of the International Committee of the Red Cross were summarily executed by the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), United Self-Defence Groups of Colombia, and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

Peace process
Peace talks which began in 1999 between the government and the FARC continued in the demilitarized zone for much of the year, but no substantive agreement was reached. In November the FARC indefinitely suspended talks demanding that the government demonstrate greater and clearer efforts to combat paramilitary groups.

Despite the suspension of talks, in December the government extended until the end of January 2001 the demilitarization of five municipalities in Meta and Caquetá departments which remained under the de facto control of the FARC.

The fragility of the peace process was further underlined by the government's failure to implement peace proposals in the face of opposition from sectors of the armed forces and paramilitary groups. Efforts to begin peace talks with the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), National Liberation Army, were systematically blocked by paramilitary-backed protests in the three municipalities in the central Magdalena Medio region which the government had agreed in April to demilitarize in order to facilitate talks. The designated area had not been demilitarized and formal talks had not begun by the end of the year.

Paramilitaries

Despite repeated government promises to dismantle paramilitary forces, no effective action was taken to curtail, much less to end, their widespread and systematic atrocities. In contrast to their declared aim to combat guerrilla forces, paramilitary actions continued to target the civilian population through massacres, torture, the destruction of communities and the displacement of the population.

In February, 200 paramilitary gunmen raided the village of El Salado, Bolívar department, killing 36 people, including a six-year-old child. Many victims were tied to a table in the village sports field and subjected to torture, including rape, before being stabbed or shot dead. Others were killed in the village church. During the three-day attack, military and police units stationed nearby made no effort to intervene. Instead, a Navy Infantry unit reportedly set up a roadblock on the access road to El Salado, thus preventing humanitarian organizations from reaching the village. Arrest warrants were issued against
11 paramilitary members, including AUC leader Carlos Castaño, in connection with the massacre. Marine Colonel Rodrigo Quiñones, commander of the Navy's 1st Brigade, was promoted to General while investigations into the possible criminal responsibility in connection with the massacre of troops under his command were still under way. Government investigations had previously linked General Quiñones to the murders of more than 50 people in Barrancabermeja, Santander department, in 1991 and 1992. However, the military justice system, which claimed jurisdiction in the case, dropped the charges.
Over 40 people were killed in November during an AUC attack on several fishing villages in the municipality of La Ciénaga, Magdalena department. A further 30 people reportedly ''disappeared''.
The government again failed to set up the specialist military units to combat paramilitary groups which it had repeatedly promised. The armed forces failed to attack or dismantle paramilitary bases, the majority of which were located in close proximity to army and police bases.

Armed forces
Six children aged between six and 15 on a school outing were shot dead by the army in August. Several others were seriously injured. An army patrol opened fire on the school party in Pueblorrico, Antioquia department, allegedly in the belief that they were guerrilla fighters. Fourteen soldiers were under investigation by a military court at the end of the year. None was arrested.
Collusion between the Colombian security forces, particularly the army, and paramilitary groups continued and, indeed, strengthened. Instances of collaboration included the sharing of intelligence information, the transfer of prisoners, the provision of ammunition by the armed forces to the paramilitary, and joint patrols and military operations in which serious human rights violations were committed.
A wide-ranging pattern of collusion between the national police, the army and paramilitary forces in the area of Puerto Asís, Putumayo department, was revealed to the authorities by a member of the national police and the local human rights ombudsman. According to their sworn testimonies, paramilitary groups consorted openly with army personnel and police in the town of Puerto Asís. On the outskirts of the town they maintained a base, where people who had been abducted were taken to be tortured and killed. The base was only a few hundred metres from the headquarters of the army's 24th Brigade and a base of the 25th Battalion. Army officers held regular meetings with paramilitary leaders in the base.
In September, President Pastrana, by decree law, delegated to the armed forces command discretionary presidential powers to dismiss offending armed forces personnel. This paved the way for the dismissal in October of 89 officers and 299 lower-ranking members of the armed forces. No details were released of the names of those dismissed or the causes. However, it was believed that fewer than 50 involved human rights offences. None of those dismissed was brought to justice and senior members of the armed forces implicated in human rights violations, by action or omission, continued in service. In December, the Minister of Defence acknowledged that 50 of the dismissed army officers had joined the AUC.

Armed opposition groups
Violations of international humanitarian law by armed opposition groups increased significantly. Several hundred people,including scores of civilians, were deliberately and arbitrarily killed by armed opposition groups. In many cases the killings appeared to be reprisal or punishment killings of alleged military or paramilitary collaborators. Those killed included judicial officials, local politicians and journalists who were targeted because they were investigating guerrilla abuses or opposed their policies.
Eighteen-year-old Irish national Tristan James Murray was killed with his Colombian friend, Javier Nova, by FARC urban militia in July. The two youths were beheaded after being captured in the town of Icononzo, Tolima department.
The FARC and the ELN carried out numerous disproportionate and indiscriminate attacks on military targets which caused significant civilian casualties. Police and military bases in scores of towns and villages were attacked, frequently with loss of civilian life. Some communities were attacked successively by paramilitary and armed opposition groups. FARC combatants reportedly summarily executed seriously wounded soldiers and police.
Further reports emerged of serious violations of international humanitarian law by the FARC in the demilitarized area. There were also credible reports that people, including children, kidnapped by the FARC had been taken to the demilitarized area.
In July the Attorney General said he had evidence that three-year-old Andrés Felipe Suarez was being held in the FARC-controlled demilitarized zone. Andrés Felipe Suarez had been kidnapped in April. Although a senior FARC commander pledged to investigate the allegation, the whereabouts of the child remained unknown at the end of the year. No independent investigation of the allegations of abuses within the demilitarized area was permitted by the FARC.
Children as young as 13 continued to be recruited by the FARC.

Kidnapping
Kidnapping and hostage-taking reached unprecedented levels. Of a reported 3,000 cases, more than half were believed to have been carried out by armed opposition groups and paramilitary organizations. Children accounted for 200 of the victims.
In September the ELN abducted more than 50 people from roadside restaurants outside the southern city of Cali. While most were eventually released, two hostages died as a result of injuries they sustained in captivity and one died because of lack of adequate medical treatment for an ulcer.
In October, AUC paramilitary forces abducted six congressional representatives to protest about the debate in Congress of a government proposal to exchange FARC political prisoners for soldiers and police held captive by the FARC. The representatives were released following a meeting - described by the government as ''humanitarian'' - between AUC commanders and the Interior Minister.

hrw.org.
In the first ten months of the year, the office of the Public Advocate (Defensoría del Pueblo) recorded ninety-two massacres, which they defined as the killing of three or more people at the same place and at the same time. Most were linked to paramilitary groups, followed by guerrillas. Both paramilitaries and guerrillas reportedly moved with ease throughout the country, including via helicopter.

One of the year's worst massacres occurred on January 17, in Chengue, Sucre. Witnesses told government investigators that several Colombian navy units looked the other way as heavily armed paramilitaries traveled past them to the village. Paramilitaries assembled villagers in two groups, the Washington Post later reported. "Then, one by one, they killed the men by crushing their heads with heavy stones and a sledgehammer. When it was over, twenty-four men lay dead in pools of blood. Two more were found later in shallow graves. As the troops left, they set fire to the village."

The authorities subsequently arrested Navy Sergeant Rubén Darío Rojas and charged him with supplying weapons to paramilitaries and helping coordinate the attack. Colombia's Internal Affairs agency (Procuraduría) filed disciplinary charges against Navy Brig. Gen. Rodrigo Quiñones and five other security force officers for allegedly ignoring detailed information received in advance about paramilitary movements near Chengue. At the time, Quiñones was the commander of the first Naval Brigade. Despite the charges, he was later promoted to the post of navy chief of staff.

As the Chengue case showed, certain military units and police detachments continued to promote, work with, support, profit from, and tolerate paramilitary groups, treating them as a force allied to and compatible with their own. At their most brazen, these relationships involved active coordination during military operations between government and paramilitary units; communication via radios, cellular telephones, and beepers; the sharing of intelligence, including the names of suspected guerrilla collaborators; the sharing of fighters, including active-duty soldiers serving in paramilitary units and paramilitary commanders lodging on military bases; the sharing of vehicles, including army trucks used to transport paramilitary fighters; coordination of army roadblocks, which routinely let heavily-armed paramilitary fighters pass; and payments made from paramilitaries to military officers for their support.

Overall, President Andrés Pastrana and his defense ministers failed to take effective action to establish control over the security forces and break their persistent ties to paramilitary groups. Even as President Pastrana publicly deplored atrocities, the high-ranking officers he commanded failed to take steps necessary to prevent killings by suspending security force members suspected of abuses, ensuring that their cases were handed over to civilian judicial authorities for investigation and prosecution, and pursuing and arresting paramilitary leaders.

Paramilitaries allied under the umbrella United Self Defense Group of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, AUC) expanded their radius of action and troop strength in 2001. In June, AUC commander Carlos Castaño announced that he had relinquished military leadership and dedicated himself to organizing its political wing. Since 1996, the group had grown by over 560 percent, according to Castaño, who claimed a force of over 11,000 fighters. In some situations, as with the temporary seizure of a community of displaced people in Esperanza en Dios and Nueva Vida, Chocó, paramilitaries reportedly operated with as many as eight hundred troops at a time. Large concentrations of paramilitaries were rarely challenged by the Colombian security forces.

Over a period of a week in early July, in the town of Peque, Antioquia, over five hundred armed and uniformed paramilitaries blockaded roads, occupied municipal buildings, looted, cut all outside communication, and prevented food and medicines from being shipped in, according to the Public Advocate's office. Over 5,000 Colombians were forced to flee. When the paramilitaries left, church workers counted at least nine dead and another ten people "disappeared," several of them children. As a local official said: "The state abandoned us. This was a massacre foretold. We alerted the regional government the paramilitaries were coming and they didn't send help."

During much of 2000, the AUC paid monthly salaries to local army and police officials based on rank in the department of Putumayo, where U.S.-funded and trained counternarcotics battalions were deployed. In the state of Cauca, soldiers moonlighting as paramilitaries earned up to $500 per month. These salaries far exceeded the average Colombian's monthly income.

Mayors, municipal officials, governors, human rights groups, the Public Advocate's office and even some police detachments regularly informed the appropriate authorities about credible threats by paramilitaries or even massacres that were taking place. An early warning system paid for by the United States and administered by the office of the Public Advocate registered twenty separate warnings nationwide between June, when the system began to function, and September. But rarely did the government take effective action to prevent atrocities. Of the warnings that were received, eleven incidents resulted either in killings being committed or the continued, pronounced presence of armed groups that threatened civilians.

Paramilitaries were linked to the murders of Colombians working to foster peace, among them three congressmen. On June 2, armed men believed to be paramilitaries seized Kimy Pernia Domicó, a leader of the Emberá-Katío community in the department of Córdoba, who remained "disappeared" at this writing. Three weeks after he was abducted, another Emberá-Katío leader who had been active in calls for Domicó's release was abducted by presumed paramilitaries and later killed. As these killings showed, certain groups faced special risks, among them indigenous groups, trade unionists, journalists, human rights defenders, and peace advocates.

The security forces were also directly implicated in abuses. In May, it was revealed that a combined police-army unit had illegally tapped over 2,000 telephone lines in the city of Medellín, many belonging to nongovernmental and human rights groups. The police officer who apparently helped place the taps was killed in April in circumstances that remained unclear.

Prosecutors implicated a former Colombian army major and an active duty police captain along with Carlos Castaño in the December 21, 2000, attack on trade union leader Wilson Borja, who was seriously wounded. In the first ten months of 2001, 125 trade unionists were murdered according to the Central Workers Union (Central Unitaria de Trabajadores, CUT), which represents most Colombian unions.

With the stated goal of furthering peace talks, the government continued to allow the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército del Pueblo, FARC-EP) to maintain control over a Switzerland-sized area in southern Colombia. During the year, the two sides agreed on a prisoner exchange that led to the release of 364 captured members of the police and military forces, and fourteen imprisoned FARC-EP members. Several freed officers reported that FARC-EP guerrillas abused them during captivity. Colombian National Police (CNP) Col. Álvaro León Acosta, captured on April 5, 2000, suffered from serious ailments and excruciating pain stemming from an untreated back injury. Other captives reported jungle diseases, including malaria, fungi, constant diarrhea because of contaminated water, and leishmaniasis, which can be fatal if untreated. Guerrillas never allowed the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) or other independent groups to visit captured combatants, dozens of whom remained in the group's custody.

Criticism of the FARC-EP intensified as evidence mounted that the group used its area of control not only to warehouse prisoners and kidnaped civilians, but also to plan and mount attacks, including assaults that caused civilian casualties. The FARC-EP frequently used indiscriminate weapons, specifically gas cylinder bombs.

The FARC-EP continued to kill civilians throughout Colombia, with human rights groups reporting 197 such killings in the first ten months of the year. Among the victims was former culture minister Consuelo Araújo Noguera, abducted by the FARC-EP on September 24. The wife of Colombia's Internal Affairs director, Araújo Noguera was apparently executed by guerrillas during a Colombian army rescue attempt. Other victims included Paez leader Cristóbal Secué Escué, a former president of the Cauca Indigenous Regional Council (Consejo Regional Indígena del Cauca, CRIC), who was shot on June 25 near his home in Corinto, Cauca. The FARC-EP accused Paez communities of forming "civic guards" that were like paramilitary groups, a charge indigenous leaders denied. Secué was, at the time of the killing, serving as a judge investigating several alleged murders by FARC-EP guerrillas.

Kidnaping remained a source of income and political pressure for the FARC-EP. In July, the group carried out its first mass kidnaping from an apartment building, seizing sixteen people after blowing the doors off a residence in Neiva, Huila. Among those kidnaped were children as young as five years old. Six people were later released.

After Human Rights Watch wrote to FARC-EP leader Manuel Marulanda to protest these violations, he dismissed the letter as "Yankee interventionism, disguised as a humanitarian action."

For its part, the Camilist Union-National Liberation Army (Unión Camilista-Ejército de Liberación Nacional, UC-ELN) violated international humanitarian law by launching indiscriminate attacks and committing kidnapings. After the government suspended talks with the group on August 7, the UC-ELN set off a series of car and package bombs in the department of Antioquia, including the city of Medellín, killing passers-by and destroying electrical towers and public buses. Two weeks earlier, over fifteen UC-ELN guerrillas died when bombs they were placing along a road exploded in the truck carrying them.

There were some advances on accountability, principally by the office of the attorney general under the direction of Alfonso Gómez Méndez, who completed his four-year term in July. On May 25, prosecutors seized valuable information related to paramilitary financing networks and communications in the city of Montería, Córdoba, long considered an AUC stronghold. During the raid, prosecutors searched the home of Salvatore Mancuso, a Montería native who was said to be the AUC's military commander. In part, the investigation focused on how landowners and business people in the region donated heavily to the AUC.

[concerned]

Son of Scargill: Yes, I remember reading that controversial Amnesty International report.

Amnesty International has been accused more than several times for being biased towards the guerrillas and for letting themselves get manipulated by guerrilla controlled NGOs. However I was glad for the fact that in this report they actually talk a little about the atrocities the guerrilla comits as well, and not only od the paramilitaries actions as had been the case in previous reports.

It is not surprising to anyone that some human rights organizations, Amnesty International and parts of the European Union favor the guerrillas over the paramilitaries. Just receantly the EU included in the terrorist list the AUC but failed to include either Farc or Eln.

This is clearly a mistake, there are thousands of examples of terrorists acts by the guerrillas, and it just get to show how little knowledge the Europeans really have about the Colombian conflict. Or maybe they are just very utopian and naive in believing that the guerrilla is really fighting for justice in Colombia.

As I said in another post. It is really unfortunate what happened with the UP. But that cannot continue to be a reason for the guerrillas to keep violating human rights and terrorize the population in this way. Also, it seems that the only argument the guerrilla has to justify all their massacres is to immediately divert attention to the paramilitaries. The paramilitaries cannot be also an excuse for the guerrillas to commit these insanities. There is no possible way to justify all the car bombs in crowded areas, mass kidnappings of innocent civilians, use of children as bombs, and all the really regreatable guerrilla tactics.

Maybe the guerrilla really started for justifiable reasons, and I am sure in the beginning they had very noble ideals. But reality right now is different and they are just behaving like terrorists.

Nothing positive has come out of the guerrillas, even if they did had a noble cause, right now it is only destruction, more poverty, insecurity, fear, terror...

[Moskitto]

From Gendercide Watch (http://www.gendercide.org)

The complicity of the army and other security forces in the Colombian gendercide is well-established. "I can't count the number of times I've been stopped at a joint army-paramilitary roadblock," a humanitarian aid worker reported in May 1997. "The soldiers are there with their green uniforms and the paramilitaries with their blue uniforms. It's like different units of the same army." (Human Rights Watch, War Without Quarter.) According to Human Rights Watch, however, "types of army violations vary according to region and unit":

For instance, in eastern Colombia, where paramilitaries are weak or have yet to fully penetrate, the army is directly implicated in the killing of non-combatants and prisoners taken hors de combat, torture, and death threats. In the rest of the country, where paramilitaries have a pronounced presence, the army fails to move against them and tolerates their activity, including egregious violations of international humanitarian law; provides some paramilitary groups with intelligence and logistical support to carry out operations; and actively promotes and coordinates with paramilitaries and goes on joint maneuvers with them. ... Though high-ranking officers deny that units under their command organize and promote paramilitary activities, the evidence is overwhelming that such activity is commonplace.
It is the paramilitaries that are directly responsible for the bulk of the killings: "In cases where a perpetrator is known, 67 percent of [political] killings in 1997 were attributed ... to paramilitaries, 20 percent were attributed to guerrillas, and 3 percent to state agents. Many of the paramilitary killings, however, were carried out with the tolerance or active participation of the security forces, particularly the army." (Human Rights Watch, War Without Quarter.)

In 1995, Col. Carlos Antonio Velasquez found himself assigned to the 17th Army Brigade in Apartado, in atrocity-ridden Antioquia province. "He was shocked to discover that right-wing death squads were operating in the region with impunity. Velasquez decided to speak out. He officially accused his brigade commander, Gen. Rito Alejo del Rio, of ignoring human-rights abuses committed by Carlos Castaño's Peasant Self-Defense Force [see below] ... 'The paramilitaries were murdering people, and the army wasn't protecting them at all,' says Velasquez. 'Their measure of success was dead guerrillas, and the thinking was, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."' The report backfired. Velasquez was charged with disloyalty and insubordination, then dismissed from the army last November after a 30-year career. 'They said I was a liar,' Velasquez recalls bitterly. He now runs security for a bank in Bogotá. The Velasquez affair drew fresh attention to one of Colombia's ongoing scandals: the alliance between military commanders and right-wing death squads." (Steven Ambrus and Joshua Hammer, "A Few Good Killers," Newsweek, June 2 1997.)

As this account indicates, one of Colombia's most prominent paramilitary leaders is Carlos Castaño, who leads the Peasant Self-Defense Force of Cordoba and Uraba (ACCU), "and has been fighting since the age of 16 to avenge the death of his cattle-ranching father at the hands of FARC rebels":

Castaño has become a law unto himself on his home turf, a rich region where wealthy landowners and cocaine traffickers gladly support his force of 2,000 men. But the costs are heavy. Fighting between paramilitary armies and left-wing rebels has driven at least 1 million Colombians out of their homes during the past decade. Now, a rising tide of extrajudicial killings by Castaño's men is making Colombia a bloody exception to the rule in Latin America, where such irregular wars are largely a thing of the past. According to Human Rights Watch ... Castaño's forces executed more than 300 civilians between July and December 1996 ... The victims of his army include shopkeepers, mayors, union members, farmers -- all suspected of collaborating with the leftist insurgents. Targets are often seized in the middle of the night, tortured, mutilated and then decapitated -- earning Castaño's forces a grim nickname, "the Head Cutters." ... Human-rights experts say Castaño's war is growing more indiscriminate, not less. After guerrillas killed a policeman in the village of Caicedo last year, witnesses say, 20 gunmen in ACCU caps and uniforms marched into town, rounded up four [male?] merchants, accused them of selling food to the guerrillas and shot them dead in the town square. Castaño's troops executed a half-dozen [male?] butchers in the town of Monteria in 1996 for allegedly buying cattle rustled by FARC. ... [In May 1997] Castaño dispatched 25 masked troops carrying lists of names into the village of Los Brasiles in northwest Colombia. As relatives screamed for mercy, they pulled eight accused [male?] guerrilla collaborators from their beds and shot them dead in the street. (Joshua Hammer, "Army of an Angry Son," Newsweek, June 2 1997.)
Other paramilitary leaders of note include Victor Carranza, "a legendary emerald dealer, rancher, and paramilitary chieftain linked to hundreds of political killings in the department of Boyaca and Colombia's eastern plains." (Human Rights Watch, War Without Quarter.)

The Colombian government, which claims to be the sovereign authority in the country, must take a large share of the blame for the state terror in the country. "Impunity remains the rule for [army] officers who operate with or without paramilitaries. In general, the government has failed to exercise minimum control over its armed forces by properly investigating and punishing individuals who commit abuses. ... In cases of human rights and humanitarian law violations, allegations against officers are rarely investigated. Historically, the few officers who face a formal inquiry see the charges dropped or are acquitted." (Human Rights Watch, War Without Quarter.)

Among Colombia's international sponsors, the United States plays a leading role in arming and funding the state terror. The involvement must be seen in the context of the long U.S. struggle against leftist and dissident movements, in its hemisphere and worldwide. With the Soviet "bogey" gone, the struggle against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) -- in effect, a struggle against all "left-wing" activism and dissidence (human-rights groups, union activists, peace movements, etc.) -- is now presented under the guise of "The Drug War." The U.S. knows full well the widescale involvement of its regime and paramilitary clients in drug-trafficking and largescale killing. Yet Colombia has become the third-largest recipient of U.S. military aid in the world (after Israel and Egypt). The following commentary by The Economist makes clear the U.S. connection, and its underlying logic:

Colombia is home to a large left-wing guerrilla force, the FARC (and a lesser one, the ELN [National Liberation Army]. The Americans badly want the FARC defeated, supposedly because it plays a big part in the drugs trade. So they pile up invective and military hardware against it, in the guise of anti-drugs support. A recent $290m aid package includes the equipping of the Colombian helicopter fleet with 20mm cannons, supposedly for use in crop eradication. Previous military aid was listed in Washington as "category 4," for operations not involving hostilities. The 1998 package went through as category 2, for military operations short of war.
Strangely, no such hardware is being aimed at these guerrillas' bitter foes, the right-wing paramilitary groups. Yet they and the traffickers they protect are far deeper into drugs -- and the DEA [U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency] knows it. But repeated paramilitary atrocities draw only a political rap on the knuckles when things get out of hand. The United States is blind neither to drugs nor to atrocities. But those who commit such crimes -- they include, under both heads, some of the official armed forces -- are fighting the Marxist guerrillas, and the paramilitaries (not only the army) are seen as the only people remotely capable of containing these. ... There is solid evidence that the United States does indeed wink at the drug-running of the only forces that look effective against the insurgency of the far left." ("Policy, which policy?," The Economist, February 20 1999.)
"Two facts about Colombia are crucial to bear in mind," writes Noam Chomsky, who has made the country a focus of his recent writing and activism. "The first is that Colombia has a horrendous human rights record, the worst in the hemisphere -- not an easy prize to win. Political killings are variously estimated at 5 to 10 a day, mostly by the state security forces or their paramilitary associates. The second fact is that Colombia receives about half of U.S. military aid for the hemisphere, increasing under President Clinton ..."

[Menshevik]

The paramilitaries are no good, but the FARC is a bunch of murdering drug traffikers, they don't deserve any support. They lost any political persuasion long ago when they started in the coca business.

[concerned]

I hope I haven't send the wrong impression. I am not here to defend the paramilitaries. I am aware they are responsible for the escalation of the conflict and they have made mistakes.

However compared to the guerrillas, to me, they are almost "saints". Farc in particular, have used the most sadistic war methods ever imaginable.

Thanks to them, there has been a huge exodus from Colombians in the past years. More than 3 million colombians are now living in the US, a great deal of them because of incidents with Farc and fear for their life. And that is only counting the US, which is the country I have figures for, but a ton of them have escaped to neighboring Venezuela, Ecuador, to Spain, pretty much everywhere.

I am one of them. I had to leave Colombia a year ago with my family after continuous extortions and threats from Farc, because they somehow believe we had more money than we actually had (and to Farc having money is a crime, except if they are the ones who have it, then it is ok, they are the only ones allowed to have any money).

The AUC at least don't kidnapp civilians which do not have anything to do with the conflict. They also don't commit random terrorists acts, like the guerrilla do (car bombs for instance). Of all the people that I know here, that has had to leave Colombia, Farc was the reason.

Make no mistake about it, Farc are the main responsible for terrorizing the vast majority of the population and the exodus. This has also affected the country very negatively in the way that foreign investment is not coming in, and some of the people that were already in there are pulling out, because Farc is just not allowing anyone to work peacefully. If i go bakc to Colombia, is Farc I fear, not the AUC, and that is the case for millions of colombians.

[CheGuevara]

Hmmmmm....that's interesting ;) all the Colombians I know left because of the paramilitaries or both...

It doesn't get much more sadistic than killing someone with a chainsaw...I'd rather get it from a propane bomb

[concerned]

I have not met 1 colombian that has left because of the paramilitaries. And believe me I hang out with colombians all the time and I know alot of them. The situation when I was back in Colombia was like that too, people feared Farc, they weren't really concerned about the paramilitaries, and they weren't really concerned about ELN either, this being such a small group with very limited scope of action.

What is it about a chainsaw? Just what are you talking about?

And we are not discussing here what the nicest way to be killed is. It is wrong, period, with a chainsaw, with a bullet or with a propane bomb, it is wrong, VERY wrong.

Don't expect me to sit here and say, oh how nice of Farc, they killed them with a propane bomb so they wouldn't suffer too much, great guys these Farc people...

[CheGuevara]

No, but I imagine a death by propane bomb would be instantaneous.

The paramilitaries cut up suspected guerrilla sympathizers with chainsaws. And the bodies were found in pieces, not just decapitated, so unless the paramilitaries like mutiliating dead bodies, it was probably a slow, horrifying, awful death.

[concerned]

CheGuevara:

I really have no idea what you are talking about. But anyway, it just seems to me that you are doing the same old thing the guerillas have done for years. And that is, not taking responsibility for their actions and use the paramilitaries as an excuse to massacre the population.
I don't know about the chainsaw thing you are talking about, but it is quite known in Colombia that the guerrilla gathered some peasants to tell lies to European reporters, and they published a book with all these lies in various language in Europe, saying about how terrible the paramilitaries were and how the innocent victims the guerrillas were in the whole ordeal.

C'mon CheGuevara, you are talking with a colombian here, you can't fool me, I know what is going on. Fool Europeans, they'll believe you.

[CheGuevara]

http://www.soaw-ne.org/trujillo.html

Here's just one link out of many I found. Do a search on yahoo like the below and you'll find a shitload

"chainsaw" + "paramilitaries"

[concerned]

So Che, I see you still insist with the same attitude of justifying guerrilla terrorist behavior with the same old diversions.

Well ok.
Yes che, you can find a lot of shit on the internet. For the simple fact that something is posted on the internet doesn't necessarily means it is true. I am a Colombian and I have personally never heard anything in this respect.

I have really no information on the chainsaw thing so as to establish its veracity or not. Quite honestly I highly doubt that this chainsaw thing is true at all. And even if it were, guerrilla people have it well deserved. Farc members deserve nothing but a painful agonizing death. They need to get a taste of their own medicine to see if one day they leave colombian people live in peace.