...the news headlines include a number of stories that reflect the persistence of a past that is everlasting and does not wish to pass...
(Jelin, State Repression and the Struggles for Memory, 2003)
Showing posts with label false positives. Show all posts
Showing posts with label false positives. Show all posts
As Uribe's presidential term draws to a close this weekend, the media is starting to assess his legacy. The general conclusion seems to be "he got the country under control, but those human rights abuses weren't very nice". IPS claims,
his fiercest critics console themselves by drawing a parallel with former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), who ended up in prison on corruption and human rights charges.
But the Fujimori criticism seems to me more than fair, given 1) the long-running question of a possible third term, 2) the witch hunt against human rights activists and indeed, anyone who raised their voice against the administration and 3) the connections between the official state and paramilitaries.
At least it is practically impossible to sum up the Uribe regime without mentioning the 'false positive' scandal, and both of the articles considered here do so in some detail. However, both place more emphasis on the outgoing president's strong popularity ratings and purported success in improving the security situation.
Several media sources have picked up on a study by the Fellowship on Reconciliation and the U.S. Office on Colombia which has found that Colombian army units which receive U.S. military funding have committed more extrajudicial executions of civilians.
The extrajudicial executions reviewed by the FOR/USOC report are mostly cases in which military units have killed civilians in order to inflate the body count of guerrillas they have supposedly killed in action. “The majority of cases we are analyzing are not misidentifications,” said John Lindsay-Poland of the FOR, but rather the deliberate targeting of civilians. “Success” in the anti-guerrilla fight is measured by kills, says Lindsay-Poland. “It is not about whether there is greater security for civilians or whether there is justice in the country.” [NACLA]
In other words, these are the so-called "false positive" cases.
This is a deeply concerning report which also raises questions about the legality of U.S. financial support in Colombia.
The report [...] studies the application in Colombia of the so-called Leahy Law, passed in 1996, which bans military assistance to a foreign security force unit if the U.S. State Department has credible evidence that the unit has committed gross human rights violations.
The Leahy Law is one of the main U.S. laws designed to protect against the use of U.S. foreign aid to commit human rights abuses.
"If the Leahy Law was fully implemented, assistance would have to be suspended to nearly all fixed army brigades and many mobile brigades in Colombia," Lindsay-Poland said. [IPS]
From the excellent magazine Cambio, which, sadly is apparently soon to lose its current investigative format, comes a video clip focusing on the female relatives of men killed in Colombia's conflict. The victims were so-called 'false positives' - young men dressed up to look like guerrillas and murdered to boost the 'success rate' of the armed forces' counterinsurgency drive. It's Spanish only but I have attempted to provide a transcript below - it's not perfect and you can see that I had difficulties understanding one of the interviewees in particular, so if you speak Spanish, watch the original, but English-only readers should be able to get a rough guide.
Jaqueline Castillo: My name is Jaqueline Castillo, I'm the sister of Jaime Castillo, who was disappeared on 12 August 2008.
Ana Paez: I'm the mum of Eduardo Garzon Paez, disappeared 4 March 2008.
Ana Cecilia Arenas: My name is Cecilia Arenas, I'm the sister of Mario Alexander Arenas, disappeared 2 January 2008.
Screen text: Stories of families of three of the 16 young people disappeared in Soacha and then presented by the Army as fallen combatants. False positives WE DON'T BELIEVE IN JUSTICE
ACA: On this journey, this year, it's two years already, during which we haven't had any type of support, whether financial or regarding justice. Personally, I've realised that the public prosecutors [fiscales] aren't doing anything for us. I'm a bit pessimistic in this case.
JC: Really, the idea of justice in Colombia makes one nostalgic. There is evidence, there is strong evidence, which shows that the army really did kill all those people, and the fact that this isn't enough to get convictions, it's very sad.
AP: We're really tired of them taking us, bringing us, using us and in reality, we are exactly where we were on the first day [...] Why? Because we don't have any answers. We don't have protection, we don't have anything.
Screen text: WE ARE THREATENED.
[..] I don't think it's fair that the police can say to us, "Come here, come here, now, or for three days" and what for? [...] When I get there, they say, don't come now. I don't accept protection from them.
ACA: We have been threatened. We feel threatened, we can't have a quiet life thinking that if we go out, we are frightened, thinking that they are planning something, we don't know if someone might be following us. We're often even frightened to use the phone, because we know that phones can be bugged, so we can't even talk on the phone in privacy.
AP: [...] Screen text: WE ARE GOING TO THE INTERNATIONAL COURTS
JC: Yes, our intention and that of most of the families is that there should not be impunity here and we will go to the international court if necessary. We have asked the court to take action in this case.
AP: We are going to ask them to help us abroad. Because I don't believe in it here - there's nothing here. When are they going to help us here? There's nothing, nothing. We want the truth. We want the names of those who did it to appear in the media, in the newspapers. This is what I want.
ACA: We are waiting for an answer from the International Criminal Court, because here, I don't believe they are going to take care of us and the best thing we can do is go elsewhere. Go and look outside the country and see what we can do.
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