Colombia: Military Violence

The BBC reports that three high-ranking members of the Colombian army have been sacked for their alleged involvement in extrajudicial killings.

Mr Uribe, who had also sought to play down the reports of extrajudicial executions, was forced to admit that there was evidence of grave abuses of human rights in the army.

It's pretty hard to deny, isn't it?

At the same time, from IPS,

Colombian President Álvaro Uribe admitted that the security forces opened fire on indigenous protesters in the southwestern province of Cauca, but denies that they were responsible for the deaths of three demonstrators, said Daniel Piñacué, a leader of the Nasa community.

Here's the message that the indigenous people want to put across:

IPS: What should the international community know about what Colombia’s indigenous movement is asking for?

DP: They should know what things are really like. That we live in a battleground created by the armed sectors that for years have displaced us from the best lands, and forced us farther and farther up into the mountains.

They should know we are peaceful, hard-working people who are justly demanding our right to our land and the freedom and the right to demand humane, decent conditions to live in peace.

Colombian 'killings' shake army (BBC)
[I really dislike the inverted commas in this headline. I know the BBC does this when the information is 'alleged', but I look at this and it makes me think that they are saying that the killings are not real, or something]

'We are not subversives, and we demand respect' (IPS)