Saturday 22 November 2008, San José, Costa
Rica
RIGHTS-COLOMBIA:
When Terror Wears a
Uniform
By Constanza Vieira
SOACHA, Colombia (IPS)
- Herminia Lizarazo did
not know what to respond
when her seven-year-old
grandson told her
"Grandma, I want to know
what the army is for."
The boy, whose two
uncles belong to the
army in Colombia, wanted
to wear a military
costume for Halloween.
"My uncles dress like
that, and they look
really good," he
commented to her,
arguing in favour of the
costume he had chosen
for the Oct. 31 holiday,
which originated in the
United States and has
spread to many Latin
American countries.
Lizarazo gave a brief
personal account of her
life, which she called
"a mother’s story," at a
special hearing on human
rights in Ciudad
Bolívar, Altos de Cazucá
and Soacha -- vast slum
neighbourhoods that line
the hills on the
southern edge of Bogotá
-- held Thursday by the
Senate Human Rights
Commission.
In 1984, she fled the
southern department
(province) of Huila
because of the leftist
guerrillas. "I had four
little ones, and we came
to Bogotá to try our
luck," she said. "But
four months later, my
husband died, and I
became a widow."
She said that although
her family was very
poor, "I gave my kids
strength." Lizarazo said
she knows all about the
difficulties faced by
those who are forcibly
"displaced, and about
suffering hunger with
your children, and I
know the courage you
have to have as a
mother, as a person."
Her son-in-law,
27-year-old smelting
company worker Joaquín
Castro, went missing
from Altos de Cazucá on
Jan. 13, and two days
later the military
turned his body in to
the morgue in the remote
town of Ocaña, 700 km
northeast of Bogotá. He
was reported as a
battlefield casualty in
Colombia’s decades-old
civil war.
Castro was one of the
dozens of young men
whose cases sparked a
scandal over
extrajudicial executions
by the army, when the
discovery of their
bodies was reported by
the press in late
September.
The victims, some of
whom were lured away
from their homes with
false promises of a job,
were reported as
fighters killed in
combat.
In Colombia they are
known as "false
positives", a term that
refers to the corpses of
civilians presented by
the Colombian military
as guerrillas or
paramilitaries killed in
action, as part of a
system that rewards
soldiers and officers
for showing "results,"
in terms of battlefield
casualties in the
counterinsurgency fight.
So far, the scandal has
led to the removal of 27
military officers --
including three generals
-- and noncommissioned
officers, as well as the
resignation of army
chief General Mario
Montoya.
Castro had married
Lizarazo’s daughter when
he was 17 and she was
15. They had four
children.
"All of a sudden I
looked at myself in the
mirror and saw a
grandmother, once again
with four children, this
time four grandchildren,
and I don’t know what to
do with them. The only
one working there was
their father," said
Lizarazo, a community
leader.
In the Senate hearing
she asked for economic
and psychological aid
for Castro’s parents, to
help them escape the
dire poverty and the
depression in which they
are steeped, and for the
children, "because the
bitterness in the hearts
of the children is
terrible."
She denied the
allegations that Castro
was a member of the
Black Eagles, a
far-right group that
emerged in 2006
following the partial
demobilisation of the
counterinsurgent
paramilitary commandos
that worked in collusion
with the security
forces.
Despite everything,
Lizarazo is proud of her
military sons. General
Luis Eduardo Pérez,
commander of the 13th
army brigade, told IPS
that he would meet with
her, and with another
woman who lost one of
her loved ones in the
scandal, and who also
has family members in
the army.
"Not to apologise," he
clarified, "but to see
how we can help them."
General Pérez said he
did not speak at the
hearing out of respect
for the victims. "The
army is the protector of
the people. Today we
have 83 percent
credibility ratings" in
opinion polls, he said,
before adding that "but
we have people who have
made mistakes."
After the scandal broke
out, the government
ordered tighter internal
controls and human
rights training for the
security forces to stem
such abuses, because
part of the U.S.
military aid to Colombia
-- the world’s
third-largest recipient
of such aid -- is on the
rocks as a result of
human rights violations.
The general said he was
prepared "to take the
necessary measures, in
order to eradicate these
problems that we have
within our institution."
After announcing
civil-military
operations in Soacha, he
added that he would
"process" the testimony
given in the hearing by
the mothers and siblings
of five young men who
were killed like Castro.
One of the people who
testified at the hearing
was José García, who was
displaced from his land
in his home province of
Huila when he was just a
boy. For the first time,
he revealed the name of
the lieutenant, of the
Tenerife Battalion, who
killed his father -- a
leader of the left-wing
Patriotic Union party,
which was wiped out when
thousands of its
politicians and members
were killed one by one
-- in 1987.
Around 1,000 of the
participants in an
ongoing indigenous
protest -- the National
Minga of Indigenous and
Popular Resistance ("minga"
is a terms referring to
a traditional collective
indigenous activity) --
listened to the
testimony given at the
Senate hearing Thursday.
Only "a committee took
part, because we didn’t
all fit," Darío Tote, of
the powerful Regional
Indigenous Council of
Cauca (CRIC), told IPS.
The rest of the
protesters, who number
around 16,000, walked
the 14 kilometres from
Soacha to Bogotá
Thursday morning, where
they stayed overnight at
the campus of the
National University of
Colombia, whose rector,
Moisés Wassermann, had
initially refused to
allow them to camp
there.
After four days of
negotiations with the
government of Bogotá,
which is in the hands of
the left-wing
Alternative Democratic
Pole (PDA), Wassermann
finally gave in, but
said he would only allow
them to stay until
Sunday.
Demanding respect for
human rights, the native
protesters, who began
their demonstration 41
days ago, set out Nov. 9
on the 535-km march to
Bogotá from the La María
indigenous reservation
in the southwestern
province of Cauca.
Fifty shamans from
different indigenous
groups are taking part
in the Minga, to stress
that "the power of the
word is accompanied by
spirituality," as the
press office of the
National Indigenous
Organisation of Colombia
(ONIC) said in a
statement.
"And throughout
Colombia, we have the
backing of the wise men,
curacas, jaibanás and
mamos," it added,
listing the terms by
which the religious
authorities of different
indigenous cultures are
known.
"We are going to gather
their testimony," CRIC
leader Feliciano
Valencia told IPS on his
way out of the Senate
hearing in Soacha.
"Along with several
organisations, we have
worked out procedures
for following up on this
situation.
"We share the pain of
the families of the
victims, we express our
solidarity with them, we
take note of their pain,
and we are going to
carry it with us
throughout the rest of
the national territory,"
as the Minga continues
on its way, said
Valencia.
Killings by the army are
nothing new for
indigenous people,
peasant farmers and
human rights defenders.
As Valencia said, "we
ourselves have
experienced these things
in our territories."
According to ONIC leader
Luis Evelis Andrade,
1,200 of the 1,500
indigenous people killed
in the past few years
were the victims of
extrajudicial killings.
"We have watched with
horror the
transformation of the
forces of law and order
under the Democratic
Security policies" of
the administration of
Álvaro Uribe, Valencia
said at the Senate
hearing, referring to
the counterinsurgency
policy implemented by
the right-wing president
since he first took
office in 2002.
"We no longer only feel
terror when we see the
armed groups in our
territory," he said,
referring to the
paramilitaries and the
leftist guerrillas. "We
are also frightened when
we see soldiers, police
or a security forces
post."
Fernando Escobar, the
Soacha municipal
delegate of the public
prosecutor’s office,
received a death threat
two weeks ago.
He was the one who spoke
out publicly about the
murder of Joaquín Castro
and the other young men
who went missing from
Soacha and whose bodies
were found in a morgue
or mass graves hundreds
of kilometres away.
As the municipal
representative in charge
of receiving citizen
complaints on human
rights abuses, until the
Senate hearing he was
the only official, at
any level of government,
to listen to and work
with the families, as
several mothers whose
sons were killed by the
army told the hearing.
The threat signed by
supposed paramilitaries
"said that if I don’t
quit, I’ll be a victim
of an attempt on my
life," Escobar told IPS.
"We have come to say
that the only thing that
motivates us in this
matter is our commitment
to human rights and the
defence of the rule of
law," he added.
The authorities have
provided Escobar with
two bodyguards and an
armour-plated vehicle.
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