COLOMBIA:Rights groups allege intense pressure for results in US-funded counter-insurgency war is sparking illegal killings, writes Chris Kraulin Colombia
STREET VENDOR Israel Rodriguez went fishing last month and never came back. Two days later, his family found his body buried in a plastic bag, classified by the Colombian army as a guerrilla fighter killed in battle.
Human rights activists say the February 17th death is part of a deadly phenomenon called "false positives", by which the armed forces allegedly kills civilians, usually peasants or unemployed youths, and represents them as leftist guerrillas.
A macabre facet of a general increase in "extrajudicial killings" by the military, the killings are a result of intense pressure to show results in its US-funded war against left-wing insurgents, the activists say.
Rodriguez's sister Adelaida said her brother had served three years in the army and was neither a guerrilla nor a sympathiser. "He never made any trouble for anyone," she said, adding she believed the army killed him to "gain points". Killings like these have spread terror in the southeastern state of Meta. Last year the state led Colombia in documented cases of extrajudicial killings, with 287 civilians allegedly killed by the military, according to the Colombian Commission of Jurists - a 10 per cent rise on the previous year.
Although there appear to be no official - or unofficial - tallies of alleged "false positives", human rights activists believe they are rising, along with the overall increase of killings by the military, based on their discussions with victims' families and analysis of circumstances surrounding individual cases.
"It's quite likely, because the same scenario appears over and over again in the cases I review. Victims last seen alive in civilian clothing later are found dead, dressed in camouflage and claimed as guerrilla casualties," said John Lindsay Poland of Fellowship of Reconciliation, a New York-based human rights group.
The killings have risen in recent years amid an emphasis on rebel death tolls as the leading indicator of military success, the groups say. Even Colombian officials acknowledge that soldiers and their commanders have been given cash and promotions for upping their units' body counts.
Since President Alvaro Uribe took office in 2002, the military has scored notable successes in winning back territory from leftist rebel groups and improving security, buoyed by billions of dollars in military aid from the United States under the anti-drug and anti-terrorism programme known as Plan Colombia.
But at the same time, the military's human rights record is growing worse, a coalition of Colombian and international human rights groups believes.
And new research by two US peace groups into the killings raises serious questions about whether the United States is doing enough, as required by law, to bar US funding to Colombian military units that have drawn allegations about the killings and other human rights violations.
Amnesty International-USA and Fellowship of Reconciliation claimed this month that the US government "vetted" or approved military assistance to at least 11 Colombian armed forces units last year despite "credible allegations regarding killings, disappearances and collaboration with outlawed paramilitary forces", said Renata Rendon of Amnesty International-USA in Washington.
"It's outrageous this is happening. It's up to the [US government] to ensure that we are not providing aid to abusive units," Rendon said.
While not responding specifically to the claims, an official at the US embassy in Bogota said this month that Colombian armed forces' killings of civilians was a "serious problem, a serious concern".
"It's something we take very seriously. If you're going to win a war like this, a big part is establishing rule of law and winning the people's confidence in your legitimacy and commitment to legal institutions," said the official, who was not authorised to speak for attribution. He defended the vetting process but said it was complicated by the fact that allegations of human rights abuses often were "not sufficiently specific or verifiable". To address the issue of impunity, Colombia's attorney general last year set up special investigative teams in two states, Meta and Antioquia, with the highest numbers of alleged abuses by the military. In November, defence minister Juan Manual Santos sent a directive to military commanders ordering major changes, including giving civil courts more jurisdiction in investigating incidents.
But the killings are still spreading terror in Meta. Ramiro Orjuela Aguilar, a Bogota human rights attorney representing 20 families of suspected "false positive" victims in Meta, blamed the military's use of paid informants or demobilised guerrillas for many of the killings.
"They have an incentive to name people as rebels because they are paid for information whether it's correct or not."
Kidnapped as he cast his line on the river Ariari, Rodriguez may have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, family members theorise - caught by a band of police or soldiers who were on a random "fishing trip" of their own for victims.
Adelaida Rodriguez said she and her family are reluctant to press for an investigation. Referring to her brother, she said: "If we make noise, we'll end up like him."
- (LA Times- Washington Post)