WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS
ISSUE #413, DECEMBER 28, 1997
NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK
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*3. COLOMBIAN ARMY PROMOTES PARAMILITARY MASSACRES
Details of the violence that left at least 45 people dead in the
northern Colombian region of Uraba on the weekend of Dec. 20 [see
Update #412] remain somewhat unclear. The 57th Front of the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) reported in a
communique that 45 people died in a paramilitary attack and in
the subsequent rebel response on Dec. 17 and 20 near the rural
zone of Pavarando, on the border of Antioquia and Choco
departments in the jurisdiction of Mutata, Antioquia. According
to the FARC, members of rightwing paramilitary "self-defense"
groups, with the complicity of the army, murdered 16 campesinos
on the Canoclaro, Remacho, Llanorrico and Urada estates. The
paramilitary groups were then burning the Buenavista farm when a
column of the FARC's 57th Front ambushed them, killing 28
paramilitary members. One rebel was killed, according to the
FARC. A commission of the Attorney General's office traveled on
Dec. 23 to Pavarando in an effort to verify the reports of the
massacre. [El Colombiano 12/24/97] Since Dec. 17, 670 people have
arrived in the town of Pavarando after fleeing paramilitary
violence in the surrounding area in Choco department; they join
3,500 other displaced campesinos who have been in Pavarando for
nine months. [EC 12/28/97]
The FARC's Jose Maria Cordoba bloc charged in a Dec. 16
communique that troops from the Colombian army's First Division
participated along with rightwing paramilitary forces in a
massacre of campesinos on Nov. 17 in Dabeiba municipality,
Antioquia department [see Update #411]. Nearly all the campesinos
from the La Pita, Lalo, Galilea and Remolino estates were killed
in the massacre, and most of their bodies were thrown in the
river. The assailants then burned their farms and stole the
cattle.
"President Ernesto Samper has made a big fuss and has
hypocritically promised to pursue the murderers `all the way to
hell,'" writes the FARC. "We say: if he really wants to pursue
them there, we can tell him that paramilitary hell is located at
the headquarters of the 11th and 17th Brigades of the First
Division of the Official Army. If Samper's words were sincere,
instead of promoting generals Ivan Ramirez Quintero, Rito Alejo
del Rio and Javier Hernan Arias Vivas --commanders of the First
Division and 17th and 11th Brigades, respectively--to new state
responsibilities, he should hand them over to the courts so that
they can be tried, without special treatment, for their crimes
against humanity." [FARC communique 12/16/97]
Widespread collusion between paramilitary groups and the army
was
confirmed in November when the magazine Cambio 16 published
Judge
Ivan Cortes Novoa's account of a paramilitary massacre of 30
people in July in his village of Mapiripan, in the south central
Colombian department of Meta [see Update #391]. Novoa reported
that two planeloads of heavily armed individuals arrived two days
before the massacre from the paramilitary stronghold of Uraba,
and were cleared through an army-controlled airport in San Jose
de Guaviare, on the border between Meta and Guaviare departments.
[The Observer (UK) 12/7/97; Peace Brigades International (PBI)
Colombia Team Informacion-Catorce Dias #88, 11/3-16/97]
On the early morning of Dec. 21, a group of some 300 FARC rebels
attacked a military base on Patascoy hill on the border between
the departments of Narino and Putumayo in southern Colombia. The
base was guarded by 36 troops: the army has recovered four
survivers and 14 bodies; it is believed that the rebels are
holding the remaining 18 soldiers captive, although the FARC have
not officially confirmed this. [Notimex 12/25/97, 12/26/97]
Italy's Institute of Culture and International Relations has
awarded its "International Peace Prize" to the Colombian
government. The Institute is a nongovernmental organization
sponsored by Italy's Foreign Relations Ministry, the Naples
mayor's office and the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for
Refugees. [EC 12/28/97]
*4. US RENEWS MILITARY AID TO COLOMBIA
The US has stepped up its military aid to Colombia, the
Washington Post reported on Dec. 27. An agreement worked out over
the summer will allow US aid totalling about $37 million in
fiscal year 1998 to be used by the Colombian military for
counterinsurgency activities as part of a larger program against
drug trafficking. The aid mainly consists of spare parts,
communications equipment, ammunition and maintenance for
helicopters, boats and other vehicles.
The aid is supposed to be used only in a geographic area defined
as "the box," whose exact boundaries are classified but which
covers roughly the southern half of Colombia. The US and
Colombian governments claim that "the box" is virtually free of
paramilitary influence, but human rights groups say there is
strong evidence that paramilitary organizations were behind
several recent massacres of civilians in southern Colombia, the
Post reports.
And while the Colombian army continues to officially deny any
involvement with paramilitary groups, the Post refers casually to
human rights violations committed by "the Colombian army and the
rightwing paramilitary groups it sponsors..." The article also
notes that "leaders of the army-backed paramilitary groups have
been implicated in large-scale drug trafficking, but have not
been singled out as targets of the anti-drug efforts in the same
way that the guerrillas have."
Eduardo Gamarra, a political science professor and narcotics
expert at Florida International University, told the Post: "There
is strong evidence that both [paramilitaries and guerrillas] are
involved in drug trafficking. But the US determination on the
guerrillas is that if some are involved, then all are involved.
With the paramilitaries, the determination is that if some are
involved, not all are involved. It is a perverse assumption."
According to the Post, an Aug. 1 memorandum of understanding
between Colombia and the US specifies that only Colombian army
units vetted by the US can use US equipment in the designated
area. The US can monitor use of the aid, and the Colombians must
certify every six months that any suspected human rights
violations are being investigated and prosecuted. [WP 12/27/97]
Colombian ambassador to the US Juan Carlos Esguerra responded to
the Post article on Dec. 27, the same day it appeared, telling
the press that US military aid will only be used against those
drug traffickers who are linked to the guerrillas, and
emphasizing that the aid will not be used exclusively against
rebel groups. Esguerra indicated that on Dec. 29 he will request
that the Post print a correction to the article, because it
contained what he considered to be inaccuracies, including that
the military aid accord was signed in secret and that half of
Colombia is under rebel control. According to Esguerra,
information about the accord was given to the press of both
countries when the accord was signed last June. [Notimex
12/27/97]
*6. PANAMA: COLOMBIAN REBELS DENY 1993 KIDNAPPING
In a communique dated "December 1997," the Mexico-based
International Commission of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC) denied that any FARC units were responsible for
the Jan. 31, 1993 kidnapping on the Panama-Colombia border of
three US missionaries from New Tribes Mission. The FARC says that
its own investigation into the kidnapping of David Mankins, Mark
Rich and Richard Tenenoff has led it to believe that the action
was carried out by a group of common criminals, made up of former
agents of the Colombian security forces and deserters of the
FARC's fronts in Uraba and Antioquia. According to the
communique, the group used the name of the FARC in order to hurt
the rebel organization and confuse its victims. [Communique
posted 12/28/97 by FARC International Commission]
A year ago Tim Wyma, director of the New Tribes Mission in
Panama, had told Spanish news service EFE that the three
missionaries were suspected to have been kidnapped by the FARC in
Panama's Darien province. In December of last year, some 3,500
evangelical leaders from 27 nations in the Americas met in Panama
and signed a petition asking Costa Rican president Jose Maria
Figueres to act as a mediator for the release of the three
missionaries. Two years earlier the Costa Rican government had
offered to mediate in a possible dialogue between Colombian
authorities and Colombian guerrilla groups. [DLA 1/1/97 from EFE]
[New Tribes Mission closed its operations in Colombia after two
of its missionaries there were kidnapped by the FARC in January
1994; the two hostages, Steve Welsh and Timothy Van Dyke, were
killed in June 1995 either during or after a shootout between
army and rebel troops--see Update #282.]
In early February 1993, a group calling itself the December 20-
Torrijista Patriotic Vanguard (VPT-20) claimed responsibility for
kidnapping Mankins, Tenenoff and Rich. The VPT-20 charged that
the three men were agents of the US Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) who had "engaged in intelligence-gathering operations" in
several Darien towns [see Updates #158, 159].
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