27 November 1997 Edition
Colombian death squads kill 21
By Dara Mac Neil
Having adopted a relatively low profile in recent months, the forces of law and order in Colombia have resumed their murder campaign with vigour.
They were particularly busy last weekend, meting out summary justice to 21 people in two separate incidents of mass murder.
In the town of Tocaima - sixty miles from the capital Bogota - a dozen armed men took 14 men and women from their homes and shot them dead in broad daylight. Although they wore masks, such is the confidence with which these killers operate, that they didn't even bother removing their army uniforms.
The following day armed men boarded a bus elsewhere in Colombia. Having selected seven people from amongst those on board the killers then murdered their victims on the roadside.
Such is the reality of day-to-day life in `democratic' Colombia.
The killings illustrate the eagerness of the Colombian state to prosecute its dirty war against the citizenry. As with other such campaigns - in El Salvador, Guatemala, Argentina, Chile - the victims are overwhelmingly civilian.
On each occasion, the only charge levelled against the dead is one of mere `suspicion' - that is, the suspicion that they are not wholeheartedly devoted and loyal to Colombia's ruling elite. Any deviation is likely to result in a death sentence. Thus, one of those murdered in the latest violence was an official of the wholly legal Communist Party.
For others, the crime may simply be a matter of geography. The people of Tocaima, where 14 were murdered, have long been classed as political deviants. Their crime is to inhabit an area which is said to have close links to the rebel Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC).
As if people exercise much choice over where they live, in a country that is rife with poverty and social inequality and where conflict and death squad activity have forced one million to flee their homes, and become refugees in their own land.
The decision to carry out a public massacre in Tocaima was no more than a simple exercise in state terror. The intention is to ensure that the local populace will now be too terrified to either help, aid or support the FARC guerrillas.
The killers use of masks will prevent individuals being identified, while the wearing of army uniforms will have relayed to the people of Tocaima that the Colombian state terror machine operates with impunity.
Thus, in July members of a right-wing death squad took over the small town of Mapiripan. For five long days they terrorised and murdered as the whim took them. The final death toll was thirty. Each victim's throat had been slashed and their corpses dumped in a nearby river.
Shortly afterwards, another seven people were murdered in the towns of Segovia and Remedios. The killings occurred close to a lucrative gold mine which, because of its worth to the government, is heavily guarded by the army. Indeed, the general area is itself heavily militarised. Yet the killers were never caught. The parallels with Algeria are obvious.
Less than a month ago, as reported on these pages, Colombia's current President Ernesto Samper made an extraordinary public admission. Samper - whose electoral victory was achieved with the aid of drug money donations - told a Colombian paper that members of the armed forces were sympathetic to the country's network of death squads.
However, he went on to deny any direct link between the two. Unfortunately for Mr Samper the evidence says otherwise.
According to the European Conference on Human Rights, an average of seven people have been assassinated daily in Colombia since 1988. The vast majority of those deaths are attributable to the country's security forces and/or death squads - both being interchangeable entities.
Few if any killers have been caught or prosecuted and the army has being doing its level best to ensure that this pattern persists.
For example, one proposal currently being discussed would abolish the power of public prosecutors and the country's Attorney General to investigate members of the armed forces. The proposal has won support in the country's parliament.
The anxiety of the armed forces to prevent investigation is understandable. In 1991, Colombian military intelligence was re-organised. This process was outlined in what is now known as Order 200-05/91.
In essence, Order 200 established the complex network of death squads and army assassins that prevails to this day.
This was confirmed last year by the organisation Human Rights Watch. Their report stated that: ``The military-paramilitary (death squad) association forms part of the current Colombian reality.
Human Rights Watch has been able to prove that the collaboration between military intelligence, military commanders at division, brigade, (and) battalion level continues, as envisaged by Order 200-05/91.''
The report went on: ``We believe that the staff of the Colombian armed forces continues to organise, encourage and mobilise the paramilitaries in a hidden war against those suspected of supporting the guerrillas.''
One of the factors behind Order 200-05/91 was a fear among the Colombian military that they could not operate with complete impunity indefinitely. Thus they needed allies, or proxies.
In right-wing, fascistic paramilitary groupings (many organised by the major drug cartels) they found the perfect candidates.
Thus, it should come as no major surprise that, in recent years, murders carried out directly by the armed forces have declined, while the number of killings carried out by the death-squads has risen.
According to Pablo Restrepo, a Colombian human rights activist, there is a connection between the two figures.
Indeed, Restrepo goes so far as to state that there is an ``almost perfect'' correlation between ``the reduction of abuses directly attributable to government forces and the increase in abuses directly imputable to paramilitary bands.''
Makes perfect sense.
Having adopted a relatively low profile in recent months, the forces of law and order in Colombia have resumed their murder campaign with vigour.
They were particularly busy last weekend, meting out summary justice to 21 people in two separate incidents of mass murder.
In the town of Tocaima - sixty miles from the capital Bogota - a dozen armed men took 14 men and women from their homes and shot them dead in broad daylight. Although they wore masks, such is the confidence with which these killers operate, that they didn't even bother removing their army uniforms.
The following day armed men boarded a bus elsewhere in Colombia. Having selected seven people from amongst those on board the killers then murdered their victims on the roadside.
Such is the reality of day-to-day life in `democratic' Colombia.
The killings illustrate the eagerness of the Colombian state to prosecute its dirty war against the citizenry. As with other such campaigns - in El Salvador, Guatemala, Argentina, Chile - the victims are overwhelmingly civilian.
On each occasion, the only charge levelled against the dead is one of mere `suspicion' - that is, the suspicion that they are not wholeheartedly devoted and loyal to Colombia's ruling elite. Any deviation is likely to result in a death sentence. Thus, one of those murdered in the latest violence was an official of the wholly legal Communist Party.
For others, the crime may simply be a matter of geography. The people of Tocaima, where 14 were murdered, have long been classed as political deviants. Their crime is to inhabit an area which is said to have close links to the rebel Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC).
As if people exercise much choice over where they live, in a country that is rife with poverty and social inequality and where conflict and death squad activity have forced one million to flee their homes, and become refugees in their own land.
The decision to carry out a public massacre in Tocaima was no more than a simple exercise in state terror. The intention is to ensure that the local populace will now be too terrified to either help, aid or support the FARC guerrillas.
The killers use of masks will prevent individuals being identified, while the wearing of army uniforms will have relayed to the people of Tocaima that the Colombian state terror machine operates with impunity.
Thus, in July members of a right-wing death squad took over the small town of Mapiripan. For five long days they terrorised and murdered as the whim took them. The final death toll was thirty. Each victim's throat had been slashed and their corpses dumped in a nearby river.
Shortly afterwards, another seven people were murdered in the towns of Segovia and Remedios. The killings occurred close to a lucrative gold mine which, because of its worth to the government, is heavily guarded by the army. Indeed, the general area is itself heavily militarised. Yet the killers were never caught. The parallels with Algeria are obvious.
Less than a month ago, as reported on these pages, Colombia's current President Ernesto Samper made an extraordinary public admission. Samper - whose electoral victory was achieved with the aid of drug money donations - told a Colombian paper that members of the armed forces were sympathetic to the country's network of death squads.
However, he went on to deny any direct link between the two. Unfortunately for Mr Samper the evidence says otherwise.
According to the European Conference on Human Rights, an average of seven people have been assassinated daily in Colombia since 1988. The vast majority of those deaths are attributable to the country's security forces and/or death squads - both being interchangeable entities.
Few if any killers have been caught or prosecuted and the army has being doing its level best to ensure that this pattern persists.
For example, one proposal currently being discussed would abolish the power of public prosecutors and the country's Attorney General to investigate members of the armed forces. The proposal has won support in the country's parliament.
The anxiety of the armed forces to prevent investigation is understandable. In 1991, Colombian military intelligence was re-organised. This process was outlined in what is now known as Order 200-05/91.
In essence, Order 200 established the complex network of death squads and army assassins that prevails to this day.
This was confirmed last year by the organisation Human Rights Watch. Their report stated that: ``The military-paramilitary (death squad) association forms part of the current Colombian reality.
Human Rights Watch has been able to prove that the collaboration between military intelligence, military commanders at division, brigade, (and) battalion level continues, as envisaged by Order 200-05/91.''
The report went on: ``We believe that the staff of the Colombian armed forces continues to organise, encourage and mobilise the paramilitaries in a hidden war against those suspected of supporting the guerrillas.''
One of the factors behind Order 200-05/91 was a fear among the Colombian military that they could not operate with complete impunity indefinitely. Thus they needed allies, or proxies.
In right-wing, fascistic paramilitary groupings (many organised by the major drug cartels) they found the perfect candidates.
Thus, it should come as no major surprise that, in recent years, murders carried out directly by the armed forces have declined, while the number of killings carried out by the death-squads has risen.
According to Pablo Restrepo, a Colombian human rights activist, there is a connection between the two figures.
Indeed, Restrepo goes so far as to state that there is an ``almost perfect'' correlation between ``the reduction of abuses directly attributable to government forces and the increase in abuses directly imputable to paramilitary bands.''
Makes perfect sense.