Displacement, Disappearances and Extrajudicial Executions Increase in Colombia

Colombia remains a sick society, ruled by thugs. As Garry Leech reports here, of the 1,000+ people who have “disappeared” over the past year, 90 percent of those are thought to have been victims of the army.

One strategy of disappearance allegedly used by the Colombian military has been the kidnapping of youths from poor urban barrios in Bogotá. According to witnesses, the disappeared youths were transported to rural conflict zones hundreds of miles away, executed and their corpses passed off as guerrillas killed in combat. In a recent four-day span, the bodies of 46 such youths were discovered in northern Colombia.

Every day, over 1,500 people are forcibly displaced and 2008 is on course to be the worst year for such displacements in over two decades.

While many supporters of Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe and proponents of free trade agreements between Colombia and the governments of the United States and Canada repeatedly point to a recent decline in killings and kidnappings to support their causes, they conveniently ignore startling increases in other human rights abuses. The US-sponsored Plan Colombia and Uribe’s so-called Democratic Security Strategy have improved security for many Colombians, particularly in urban areas. However, Colombia’s conflict continues to rage in rural regions and civilians continue to be the principal victims of the violence. The state’s escalating role in the rapidly growing number of forced displacements, disappearances and extrajudicial executions represents the human rights reality for many rural Colombians.

Colombia’s Prosecutor’s Office is currently investigating the disappearances of 1,015 people over the past year—more than four times the total for 2007 and a 1,300 percent increase over 2005. This latest statistic signifies the continuance of a troubling trend in which the number of people that have disappeared has increased for the fourth consecutive year.

Posted by Szamko
Just tries to tell the truth.