RIGHTS-COLOMBIA: Soldiers Accused of Extrajudicial Killings Freed

[Judi Lynn]

RIGHTS-COLOMBIA: Soldiers Accused of Extrajudicial Killings Freed
By Helda Martínez

SOACHA, Colombia, Jan 13, 2010 (IPS) - Over the last two weeks, 31 Colombian soldiers accused of the forced disappearance and murder of 11 young men from the poor Bogotá suburb of Soacha have been released from prison on the grounds that they were not formally indicted within 90 days of their arrest, as established by Colombian law.

Of the 42 members of the Colombian army implicated in what is known here as the "Soacha case", 18 were released between Dec. 30 and Jan. 7, six on Tuesday Jan. 12 and seven more on Wednesday Jan. 13.

They are facing charges of luring a number of young men from Soacha in August and September 2008 with false job promises, murdering them and presenting them as guerrillas killed in combat (euphemistically referred to as "false positives").

The scandal, which broke out in late 2008, led to the removal of three generals and 24 other officers and noncommissioned officers, as well as the resignation of then army chief General Mario Montoya, regarded as one of the promoters of the so-called "body count" system, which uses incentives like weekend passes, cash bonuses, promotions and trips abroad to reward soldiers and officers for "results" in the counterinsurgency effort.

A total of 1,900 "false positive" cases are awaiting investigation by the Human Rights Unit of the Attorney General's Office.

Soacha and the neighbouring suburb of Ciudad Bolívar, which are located to the south of the Colombian capital, have absorbed a large number of the over three million people displaced by the armed conflict that has raged for over four decades between government security forces and rightwing paramilitary militias on one hand and leftist guerrillas on the other.

The victims targeted in the army's extrajudicial killings - who numbered in the thousands, according to human rights groups - were generally young men from poor districts like Soacha who received attractive job offers from recruiters.

But in the case of the 11 men from Soacha, their bodies showed up in morgues or mass graves hundreds of km from Bogotá just a few days after they left or went missing from their homes. And although they were wearing civilian clothes when they set out for their supposed new jobs, their bodies were found dressed in FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) guerrilla fatigues.

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