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Democratic Security?
Army Colombian Murders Katherine Soto Ospina And Hurts Seriously To Rolando Quintero, Students Of The University Del Valle
 

In the morning of Friday, August 3rd , 2007 at approximately 3:30 a.m., in the rural zone of Buenaventura’s municipality (San Cipriano), a very visited tourist place in the department of the Valle del Cauca, were fiercely attacked, with blasts of gun Katherine Soto-Ospina and Rolando Quintero, students of the University del Valle by units of the army, without happening any warning and much fewer consideration to their condition of civilians while they were walking as habitually it is done in this zone by the people as tourists and population in general; In case of Katherine and Rolando, they were walking along the railroad and advancing towards the suspended bridge, just in the moment that they were crossing, Katherine was going in front of Rolando and collapses mortally, injured victim of the killer bullets of the army and immediately afterwards equal it is reached Rolando by another blast of gun that hits him three times, making him fall into the river and be dragged by the current that takes him up to the shore where, seriously hurt, he remains hidden until dawn, where he decides to uncover and ask for help. Those who find him are precisely his attackers, the unity that belongs to the army that hours before had shot him, who proceed to take him in a Brujita (false car with small wheels that slips for the railroad, typically of the zone), just next to the corpse of his companion of walk Katherine, with the urgent order of the units of the army not to touch it and not to look at her after she died from four impacts and him with three impacts in his leg, which he had covered with mud, travelling to Buenaventura with her, head to head, even if destroyed by the bullet that penetrated by her right maxillary.

Once in Buenaventura, Katherine was taken to the morgue, and Rolando was moved to the regional Hospital and guarded by effectives of the army, where, because of the gravity of his wounds, the medical corps determined his transfer to Cali, which does not happen in an immediate way and went only possible when from Cali, moves a commission of the University del Valle, thanks to the communication that Rolando established with a companion in Cali. The military authorities in Buenaventura, as much as the naval one, offered help for Rolando’s transfer and the dead body of Katherine, in the helicopter offered by Captain Edwin Moreno, but finally they did not give any help and not even the expenses of medical hospital attention that was caused by another disgrace of an institution stained by a few officers, subofficers and soldiers who are close to the State and will have to answer to the community of the University del Valle and to the Colombian society in general for so cowards and wild acts that, for the fourth occasion in less than two years put into mourning to the university students until the national government with its already known and exhaustive investigations, punishes the guilty people of these crimes.

Known in the mass media the declarations of the general of the army Leonardo Gómez Vergara, in which he affirms "Mistake" in the operative military man, justifying it for the suspicious thing that could to them seem to his units, the passage of the students Katherine and Rolando, for the unique and obliged habitual way for tourists and settlers in general because, according to him, Katherine, had gone forward, returned up to where Rolando was coming and again went forward; There was no other concern for the human life than for the "guerillerista" paranoia where one shoots from the ambush unarmed civilians and then when investigated, will be correct simply to say that it was a "mistake"?. Will it be correct to the relatives of Katherine that a general of the Colombian army, threatens telling them "not to throw themselves in a bunch of lawsuits, that the army pays everything to them, whereas an attorney is going to remain with this money "?, according to this general the problem is solved by money and for it and for that, the State pays, as if the life of Katherine and of a lot more don?t have any interest. Today, with the hurt caused by the Colombian army, with the assassinate of Katherine SOTO, a girl of twenty-two years old of age and with the grave wounds of ROLANDO, but the most grave wounds in his soul, we demand punishment to the unities of the army that participated in this barbarian act, we demand not more than exhaustive investigations, and, at the same time, the responsible can, for a long time continue committing crimes at long and large of the Colombian national geography, for the most sure that it is the transmitted order, at the time the they finish always exonerated of whatever responsibility in the already traditional institutional "solidarity of corpse", so the impunity remains the response that is presented to the Colombian society.

The memory of Katherine, claims from the Colombian State and its government, respect and punishment for its cowards victim makers. The Colombian society deserves that the Colombian army, would be an institution that values and respects the human life, compromising itself as soon as possible to the ordinary justice and not the penal military justice, which applying the new penal regulation, takes charge indemnifying the damages caused by the army in San Cipriano on August 3rd 2007.

we are claiming to the national and international community its own denounciations, targeted to the president of the repuplic alvaro uribe velez, to the minister of national defense, juan manuel santos, to the minister of the interior, carlos holguin sardi, to the general attorney of the republic, edgardo maya villazon, to the national defensor of the people, volmar perez, so they sue without any delay the military workforce quartered in san cipriano and the resposables of the operation that caused the death to katerine soto ospina and laid seriously hurt rolando quintero, students of the university del valle and that in less than two years is comptabilized the assassinate of four students with the most absolute impunity up to this hour.

Signed:

The organisations and working groups or the University del Valle, the union of the workers and employees of Univalle (Sintraunicol), human rights defense organisations of the Valle del Cauca, family and friends of Katherine Soto and Rolando Quintero.