Paramilitaries Continue to Be a Key Arm of the Colombian Government

The war in Iraq has obscured media coverage of America’s other war, the war in Colombia. But even the mainstream media won’t coverage stories like this. Politicians in Washington and Bogota say things are getting better, but the killings and massacres continue.

Here in the region we are living with the severe violence of the military and the paramilitaries,” stated a peasant-farmer who did not wish to give his name. He continued, “At the moment we are being harassed by the military battalion ‘Demolisher Platoon No.1, Calibio Battalion of the 14th Brigade’, which is under the command of Sergeants Setina and Blanquiceth. The Battalion members present themselves as official military and then the next minute they change their armband and are the paramilitaries. Lately they have been detaining, intimidating, torturing, and assassinating local campesinos (peasant farmers) and community leaders.”

On August 7th, 2005 the same Calibio Battalion assassinated a known community leader, Luis Sigifredo Castaño. A member of the community remembers him, “He was a kind man. We had known him for over 15 years. He was part of CAHUCOPANA, a new campesino human rights organization. Sigifredo was not an insurgent as the military accused.” Denouncements made by a local campesino association, the ACVC, stated that, “[Sigifredo] was found dressed in camouflage, even though everyone in the region knew he was a campesino and was disabled.”

The Colombian military continuously uses the tactic of killing campesinos, dressing them in camouflage, and denouncing them as…

Posted by senssensibilityr
Student of German and Russian culture, history and language, emphasis on post-Dark Age European History. German and Russian 20th century literature. Studying Arabic. Cannot wait to go to Freiburg to study @ Goethe Institut im Februar.