New York Times
Thursday, 24 February 2000
By Tim Golden
WASHINGTON-Units of the Colombian Army continue to work closely with right-wing paramilitary forces that are involved in killings of civilians and threats against government human rights investigators, according to a report made public today.
The report, by the New York-based Human Rights Watch, says that army brigades in Colombia's three largest cities, including the capital, Bogota, have continued to sponsor and collaborate with the outlaw paramilitaries in the last three years, even as military leaders have made some progress in curbing abuses by their own troops.
The problem remains so intractable, Human Rights Watch officials said, that only by putting new human rights conditions on its aid to Colombia is the United States likely to bring significant reform. "What must be done is to use the engagement of the United States in Colombia now to force the army to break its links to these paramilitary groups," said Jos5 Miguel Vivanco, the executive director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch.
The report was made public as the Clinton administration is intensifying its push in Congress for $1.3 billion in new aid for Colombia over the next year and a half. Most of the aid would go to the Colombian security forces to help them push into remote areas of the country where drug production is thriving and leftist guerrillas generally hold sway.
In a statement tonight, Colombia's vice president, Gustavo Bell Lemus, denied any institutional tie between government forces and the paramilitaries, and asserted that Human Rights Watch sought through the report to obstruct the approval of American aid.
Mr. Bell noted that the report was based largely on information gathered from Colombian government investigators. He cited this as proof that government judicial agencies "are carrying out their work in an adequate and efficient way."
Clinton administration officials say they are aware of the Colombian military's human rights problems, but they argue that President Andres Pastrana is determined to curb official abuses and that American aid will help him to succeed.
Mr. Vivanco, other human rights advocates and some members of Congress say such assurances are not enough. Expecting the aid package to be approved, they have begun lobbying for amendments to it that would bar the Pentagon and the C.I.A. from sharing intelligence information with Colombian units that are known to have supported paramilitary groups and would cut off American aid to units that persist in helping the paramilitaries.
Human rights advocates in Colombia have asserted for several years that while abuses by army forces were dropping precipitously, military units were effectively handing over their dirty work to the well-organized and well-financed rightist armies.
The Human Rights Watch study cited "compelling" information suggesting that the army's Third Brigade in Cali secretly worked with the country's most notorious paramilitary leader, Carlos Castano, to form a new paramilitary group after leftist guerrillas abducted 140 worshipers from a Cali church last May.
The report said the new force, called the Calima Front, was formed by active-duty and reserve officers of the Third Brigade.
The Calima Front was subsequently linked to at least 40 killings and the forced displacement of about 2,000 people from their homes in the conflict zone, the report said, quoting local officials.
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