Colombia: Army mass grave discovered

[IndianaGreen]

Colombia: Army mass grave discovered

Daryl Davies
Green Left Weekly issue, #833 14, April 2010

10 April 2010

In December, a delegation of British MPs visiting Colombia reported that a mass grave had been discovered in La Macarena, a small town in the Meta region, 250 kilometres south of Bogota.

MP Jeff Ennis told British parliament on January 27: “On the village outskirts, right next to the main military base in the region, was a cemetery with more than 1000 unmarked graves.

“I was utterly appalled by the scale of the mass grave in La Macarena and it was clear that there were vast numbers of bodies buried there, the majority quite recently.”

Residents said after the Colombian army took back the area from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas in 2005, it began burying bodies at the site. The FARC have waged a four-decade-long armed struggle against the Colombian state.

Colombia's office of the prosecutor-general, charged with investigating government corruption, has estimated about 2000 bodies are buried at the site. Official government sources insist that number is wildly inflated.

El Nuevo Herald reported on January 29 that the prosecutor-general’s office in Bogota has sent a mission from that institution’s Technical Investigations Corps to the cemetery and confirmed the existence of “a large number” of cadavers in the grave, though it only made a few excavations.

Publico journal quoted Jairo Ramirez, the secretary of the Permanent Committee for the Defence of Human Rights in Colombia, who was with the British delegation. He said: “The Army commander told us that they were guerrillas killed in combat, but the people in the region told us of a multitude of social leaders, campesinos and community human rights defenders who disappeared without a trace.”

The Colombian army’s claim that all the individuals buried there are guerrillas is suspicious in the light on the ongoing “false positives” scandal. “False positive” is the Colombian military’s euphemism for civilians who are executed and then dressed up to look like guerrillas.

Soldiers use the inflated statistics of guerrillas killed to claim financial bonuses.

http://permanentred.blogspot.com/2010/04/colombia-army-mass-grave-discovered.html

[sabrina 1]

1. Another ally of the U.S. But then, we are not the country

I used to think we were a country that was opposed to human rights abuses. It makes more sense to me now why the U.S. always backs the worst and most brutal dictatorships. I can't believe how naive I used to be, thinking maybe they just didn't know.

Would it be too much to ask this administration to stop supporting Colombia's genocidal leader while attacking Venezuela's leader, who to my knowledge, has never been involved in mass murder? I know, just thought I'd say it, now that we have a Democratic administration.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Our corporate media has been used to keep us all completely ignorant

of these atrocities from the very first, knowing it all goes 100% contrary to non-sociopathic people's sensibilities.

Absolutely irredeemably evil. It has NEVER been a case of being brutal to protect the American people, or even the people of the countries they have raped, pillaged, tortured and destroyed with no compunctions whatsoever.

We were ALL treatd like trash by the very administrations we have supported with our own hard earned salaries through taxes, and our faith.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Recommending #4.

:kick: :kick: :kick: :kick:

[proteus_lives]

4. The FARC have waged a four-decade-long armed struggle against the Colombian state

What a nice way to say "Narco-terrorists claim mass grave, 'Not one of ours.'"

[EFerrari]

5. This is what they have been fighting. n/t

[IndianaGreen]

7. FARC laid down its arms and came down the mountains several years ago

after being promised amnesty if they participated in the political process. After several FARC leaders were assassinated by US-trained death squads, FARC took up arms again and returned to the mountains.

I will also point out that more recently, it was President Uribe who broke a truce with FARC by sending the army into areas that FARC openly controlled in a modus vivendi agreement with Uribe's predecessor.

[troubledamerican]

6. "...But CHAVEZ blah blah blah..."

(who doesn't have Uribe's right-wing Death Squads or mass-graves)...