Colombian Generals with Blood on Hands in Washington DC

Action Alert from CSN:

Some members of the U.S. Congress known for their militaristic 
ideology have invited and welcomed three Colombian retired 
military officers to present their view of the present situation in 
Colombia and to place obstacles in the way of the peace process in 
Colombia. These former military officers have no moral authority to 
speak based upon a state of laws, because their past record shows 
that they have failed to recognize even the most elemental human 
dignity or the most sacred norms established by any constitution. 
These is revealed by the following record of these three military 
officers :

1. Army General (R) MANUEL JAIME GUERRERO-PAZ 

During the time he was Commander of the Brigade based in Cali four 
young members of the M-19 guerrilla movement were taken to his 
brigade's installations, where they were brutally tortured. One of 
them, Jorge Marcos Zambrano-Torres, died while he was being 
tortured. Another, Camilo Restrepo, was assassinated after being 
released. In spite of the evidence of these crimes, Guerrero-Paz was 
nor charged or tried for them ( as is habitually true for torture and 
killings done by the army). Instead, Guerrero-Paz was promoted to 
be the Commander of the Army, then of the Armed Forces, and then 
became Minister of Defense. He also later held the post of DIRECTOR 
OF THE SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS 

2. Army Major General (R) JUAN SALCEDO- LORA 

When he was the Commander of the Brigade based in Barranquilla in 
1968 he is known to have committed the crime of Forced 
Disappearance of Persons. The National Attorney General's office 
itself was able to prove, through its investigation number 022 -73-
048, that he had given written and verbal orders to the commanders 
of the Narino and Santander battalions to "disappear", transport and 
keep hidden Manuel Reyes-Cardenas, who had been detained at a 
military checkpoint near the town of Curumani in Cesar Department 
on June 19, 1988. The Attorney General's office rescued the 
disappeared person from the place he was being held and proved 
there the circumstances under which he was being held. Instead of 
being charged, tried and punished for his actions, however Salcedo-
Lora was promoted to the General Command of the Armed Forces 
and the Directorship of the Higher War College. THE SCHOOL OF THE 
AMERICAS also counted him among its invited professors.

3. Army Brigadier General (R) ADOLFO CLAVIJO 

When he was Commander of the Eleventh Brigade based in Monteria 
he maintained close contacts with the paramilitary leader Fidel 
Castano-Gil, whose general command and training site for 
paramilitaries was in an area under General Clavijo's responsibility. 
In sworn testimony of a member of the Eleventh Brigade in the 
judicial case on the assassination of Father Sergio Restrepo S.J., Vicar 
of the Parish of Tierralta, it was indicated that cars of the Brigade 
were frequently seen parked in the Las Tangas hacienda which was 
the center of training for the paramilitaries. The transcript of this 
testimony was later stolen from the court file. 

Coincidentally these same three retired military officers, in company 
with engineers Miguel Posada and Carlos Sierra, set up subsequently 
the "Center for Socio Political Analysis" (Centro de Analisis Socio 
-Politico), a center which produces limited circulation documents in 
which humanitarian organizations of human rights are accused of 
promoting a "legal war" and a "political war" against the Army. Those 
non-governmental organizations of human rights pointed to by them 
have thereafter become the target of threats and attempts against 
them by paramilitary groups and even of violent and illegal 
aggression on the part of the Army, as in the case of the shameful 
search of the headquarters of the Congregation of Justicia y Paz of 
the Conference of Religious of Colombia, an organization which had 
been previously mentioned many times in said documents. 

All of these demonstrates that these three retired generals, whose 
past records show them to have been involved in the worst crimes 
which humanity repudiates, such as torture, forced disappearance of 
persons and promotion of paramilitarism, who now go out in defense 
of the Armed Forces of Colombia, at a time when the International 
Community, and even numerous investigators by organizations under 
the control of the Colombian state, identify them as closely linked to 
paramilitarism and its crimes. Their very records are the worst 
presentation for what they seek, at the same time as the best proof 
that the institution which they try to defend is absolutely to be 
repudiated, since instead of sanctioning them and expelling them 
from its ranks, it promoted them to its higher hierarchies.