COLOMBIA:
The ‘Other’ Death
Penalty
By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA, (IPS) - "It was
you yourselves who
killed my daddy,"
snapped the 12-year-old
campesino girl before
walking away, leaving
the soldier talking to
himself. He had just
entered the family’s
small farmhouse in
southern Colombia while
the rest of the troops
waited outside, and
asked after "the owner."
The incident, which
occurred in the last
week of September, left
the girl’s mother full
of fear. Martha Liliana
González, 35, was out
back tending to the
livestock when the
soldier showed up and
talked to her daughter.
"Since I told them I'm
going to press charges,
I'm scared that someone
will kill me. I don't
know if I should go back
to the farm," González
told IPS in Bogota,
where she attended the
presentation Wednesday
of the preliminary
report on extrajudicial
executions and impunity
in Colombia by an
international mission of
human rights observers.
"You people are very
impudent. You don't even
care if you kill him,"
González had said to an
officer by the name of
Arévalo, who she
believes was a
lieutenant, when she
still thought her
husband was being held
alive by the army after
he was seized on Sept.
13.
Because "that's what
they do when they go to
the rural villages. They
kill a campesino
(peasant farmer), put a
grenade and a gun in his
hand and say he was a
guerrilla fighter, and
that’s it, he’s passed
off as a guerrilla, and
that's how things
remain, since we re too
afraid to speak out…,"
she said.
Arévalo took photos of
González and tape
recorded her words when
she demanded to see her
husband Sixto Guzmán,
39, with whom she has
three children, the
oldest of whom is 16.
"We don't have anyone
here," she was told by
the officer, who had
come to the area where
she lives, in the
southern department
(province) of Caquetá,
on Dec. 12, with the
Cazadores and Las Diosas
del Chairá battalions.
Sept. 13 was the last
day that Guzmán was seen
alive. And the last to
see him was a neighbour
woman, who like
González’s husband was
taken from her home by
soldiers, to serve as
their local guides.
She was allowed to leave
shortly, but "when she
looked to see where they
were taking him, they
had him on his face on
the ground, tied up,"
said González.
After a three-day
desperate and risky
search in which the
people of four rural
hamlets in the Caquetá
district of Puerto Rico
took part, not without
fear, Guzmán’s body was
finally found in the
morgue in Florencia, the
provincial capital.
"He was listed as John
Doe," and there were
stamps on the papers
indicating that he was
from El Cóndor, a hamlet
in the same district,
said his widow.
A label attached to him
said he had been found
with two radio
communication codes,
which the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC) guerrillas change
every week. But "he
didn't have anything
like that. They planted
that on him," said
González.
Not until the afternoon
of Sept. 17 was his body
turned over to his
family, "with three or
four bullet holes," she
said.
Unlike the cases of many
campesinos who are the
victims of extrajudicial
executions in Colombia,
no rifle was planted on
him, and his body was
handed over in civilian
clothes, instead of
being dressed up in
guerrilla-style
camouflage fatigues.
González believes that
was because she
threatened to bring
legal action against the
military.
For at least 955
campesinos like Guzmán
or indigenous people and
community leaders, the
increase in the number
of army troops deployed
around Colombia, from
150,000 in 2002 to
230,000 today, has not
meant greater security.
That is the number of
extrajudicial killings
committed between July
2002 and June 2007,
according to human
rights groups.
In that same period, 235
forced disappearances,
committed by different
groups, were also
documented, as reported
by the Coordinación
Colombia Europa Estados
Unidos (CCEEU), a
coalition of 166
non-governmental
organisations from
Colombia, Europe and the
United States, which
invited the
international mission to
visit Colombia from Oct.
4-10.
In Colombia’s
decades-long armed
conflict, in which the
military, backed by
ultra-right paramilitary
groups closely linked to
the drug trade, are
fighting the FARC and
the smaller National
Liberation Army (ELN),
none of the sides
respect international
humanitarian law, which
clearly distinguishes
civilians from
combatants.
But the term
"extrajudicial
execution" refers solely
to the illegal
application of the death
penalty -- which was
abolished in Colombia --
by the armed forces
against civilians or
unarmed combatants
without trial.
According to Gustavo
Moncayo, whose son, an
army corporal, has been
held as a hostage by the
FARC for 10 years,
"soldiers are paid one
and a half million pesos
(around 750 dollars) and
are given 15 days of
vacation for bringing in
dead guerrillas."
Moncayo, a teacher who
has become a symbol of
the call for a
negotiated swap of
hostages held by the
rebels in exchange for
imprisoned insurgents,
complains that soldiers,
many of whom join the
military for economic
reasons, are encouraged
"to become murderers."
A September 2002
government decree stated
that civilians living in
areas under rebel
control are one of the
"main supports" of the
insurgent groups. The
decree is based on the
idea that the guerrillas
pose as innocent
civilians and as part of
the local population,
who supposedly help
conceal the rebels’
telecommunications
equipment, weapons and
munitions while helping
them obtain supplies and
provisions.
According to that logic,
"the supposed link
between the civilian
population and the
guerrillas has to be
severed," David Martínez,
head of the CCEEU
Observatory for Human
Rights and Humanitarian
Law, told IPS. After the
decree was issued,
"arbitrary arrests and
extrajudicial executions
began to increase in
number."
Perhaps that explains
why the security forces
behave like an occupying
army in areas under
guerrilla influence, as
IPS has found on visits
to different parts of
the country.
(The FARC controls an
estimated 40 percent of
the national territory,
mainly in rural,
sparsely populated
areas.)
The Defence Ministry
reported that between
August 2002, when
rightwing President
Álvaro Uribe took
office, and September
2006, 8,104 "presumed
guerrillas" were killed
"in combat." And, 2,072
members of "illegal
armed groups" --
paramilitaries or
insurgents -- were
reported as killed
between July 2006 and
June 2007.
The International
Observation Mission on
Extrajudicial Executions
and Impunity in Colombia
was comprised of 13
lawyers, journalists,
forensic anthropologists
and experts on human
rights, political
science and
international relations
from Britain, France,
Germany, Spain and the
United States.
With the support of the
U.N. High Commissioner
for Human Rights office
in Colombia, the mission
visited 13 departments,
heard testimony like
that of González, and
gathered information on
the legal proceedings in
132 cases of alleged
extrajudicial killings.
The experts also met
with high-level
government officials,
regional authorities,
and social organisations.
The mission found that
the killings followed
certain patterns: the
victims are seized from
their homes or
workplaces, their bodies
turn up in morgues in
distant towns, often
wearing fatigues, and
they are reported as
insurgents killed in
combat, who were
supposedly carrying guns
or other military
equipment when they were
shot down.
The crime scene and
evidence are not
preserved, the autopsies
are superficial, and
there are unjustified
delays in issuing death
certificates, said the
mission’s report.
The bodies often show
signs of torture, and
the victims are buried
as unidentified corpses,
even if they have been
identified by family
members or others, the
report added.
The military justice
system claims the
authority to investigate
such cases, in spite of
numerous Constitutional
Court rulings that have
ordered that they be
handled by the office of
the public prosecutor.
The international
observation mission
stated that prosecutors
often fail to actively
engage in the
investigations, do not
assert their
jurisdiction over the
cases, or show signs of
a passive approach and
undue delays.
González is unlikely to
see justice done in the
case of her husband
because, as the mission
pointed out, families
face problems of access
to legal redress and
there is a "general
environment of
intimidation" against
them and witnesses.
The report also
mentioned widespread
impunity, and
recommended that the
international community
condition military aid
to Colombia on a halt to
extrajudicial
executions. |
