Colombian military aiding death squads, report says

Los Angeles Times
Thursday, 24 February 2000
By Juanita Darling

MEDELLIN, Colombia - Military officers have continued to work directly with right-wing death squads despite government efforts to purge the armed forces of human rights violators, according to a report released Wednesday by Human Rights Watch/Americas.

As recently as last year, three brigades led by officers considered to be among Colombia's most capable commanders provided information and weapons to private armies that carried out executions of civilians, the U.S.-based group charged.

The report was made public as Congress debates a proposal for a $1.3 billion anti-narcotics aid package for Colombia that would include military hardware in a country plagued by a long-running civil war and a massive drug trade.

"Far from moving decisively to sever ties to paramilitary groups... evidence strongly suggests that Colombia's military high command has yet to take the necessary steps to accomplish this goal," the report concluded.

Referring to the three battalions investigated, the report warned: "If Colombia's leaders cannot or will not halt these units' support for paramilitary groups, the government's resolve to end human rights abuse in units that receive U.S. security assistance must be seriously questioned."

Gen. Fernando Tapias, commander of the Colombian armed forces, said: "I totally reject this attempt by Human Rights Watch to link the armed forces with outlaw groups. This is simply an attempt to block anti-narcotics aid."

U.S. anti-drug czar Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, on a three-day visit to Colombia, said he recognizes that the country has "a huge human rights problem." But he noted: "The armed forces are making efforts to conform to the rule of law. Human rights complaints against the armed forces have gone downward to nearly zero."

Still, the report charged, abuses by paramilitary groups have skyrocketed, often with the support of the army.

Specifically, the report-based on information from the Colombian attorney general's office and independent informants-concluded that an army brigade posted in the city of Cali helped create a paramilitary organization financed by drug traffickers as recently as last year. And paramilitary groups near Medellin turned bodies of their victims over to military commanders who dressed them in uniforms and claimed them as combat casualties, the report charged.

Brig. Gen. Jaime Ernesto Canal Alban, the army commander in Cali, labeled the report libelous. His 3rd Brigade is accused of organizing a paramilitary group called the Calima Front after members of the National Liberation Army, or ELN, Colombia's second-largest leftist guerrilla group, kidnapped 140 worshipers from a church in an upper-class Cali neighborhood in May.

The brigade provided the paramilitary group with weapons and information, according to information developed by the Colombian attorney general's office and currently under seal, according to the report.

"The Calima Front and the 3rd Brigade are the same thing," one investigator told Human Rights Watch.

"Together, evidence collected so far by Human Rights Watch links half of Colombia's 18 brigade-level army units excluding military schools to paramilitary activity," the report stated. "Military support for paramilitary activity remains national in scope and includes areas where units receiving or scheduled to receive U.S. military aid operate."