Increase in Columbian civilian deaths tied to increase in US aid

[eridani]

http://www.truth-out.org/colombia-us-military-aid-may-have-sparked-civilian-killings61904


La Macarena, Colombia - When Colombian military units receive an increase in U.S. aid, they allegedly kill more civilians and frame the deaths as combat kills, according to a new report.

The report, released Thursday by two American human rights organizations, raises serious questions about the implications of U.S. military aid to Colombia. The United States has provided more than $7 billion in mostly military aid to Colombia since 2000 for fighting drugs and counterinsurgency — making it the largest recipient of U.S. military aid after Israel.

The army is accused of killing civilians and presenting them as guerrillas killed in combat to pump body counts. The Colombian military faces significant political pressure to produce concrete results in its war against the the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), the country's left-wing guerrilla insurgency.

Many point to the macabre practice — euphemistically known as producing a “false positive” — as a result of an unofficial incentive-based system that rewards high numbers of combat kills with job perks and promotions. Colombia's attorney general's office is investigating more than 2,000 alleged cases of false-positives committed by the armed forces.

The report was based on a two-year study using records of 3,000 reported extrajudicial killings since 2002 and lists of 500 military units approved to receive U.S. assistance. It found that in regions that received the largest increases in U.S. aid, the number of reported extrajudicial killings surged 56 percent on average in the four years surrounding the aid boost. When U.S. assistance was withdrawn or reduced, the number of army killings of civilians dropped..

[Judi Lynn]

1. This information needs to get as much exposure as possible.

Hope we live to see a rupture in the disinformation curtain.

Excellent article.

Recommending.