Colombia: Soldiers kill more civilians
by Weekly News Update on the Americas
April 3, 2005
 |
| Colombian soldiers, aiming at civilians. |
On Mar. 27, relatives found the bodies of Colombian campesinos
Javier Alexander Cubillos, Wilder Cubillos and Heriberto Delgado at
the morgue in Fusagasuga, Cundinamarca department. The army had taken
their bodies there, claiming they were guerrillas killed in combat.
The three men were Communist Party activists from the community of San
Juan de Sumapaz, in the federal district of Bogota, just north of Fusagasuga.
They had been missing since Mar. 18, when they went to the community
of La Hoya del Nevado to inspect some of their family's livestock. Several
days later, the media published reports that three guerrillas had been
killed in combat in the area. The Neighborhood Association of San Juan
de Sumapaz and the Union of Agricultural Workers insist that the three
men were not guerrillas and did not die in combat, but were apparently
murdered by the Colombian army. [Red de Defensores no Institucionalizados
3/30/05]
A coalition of community groups and trade unions in the region released
a public statement saying that the three men were well-known political
and campesino activists in the region who were leading members of both
their trade union, the National United Agricultural Union Federation
(FENSUAGRO), and the local branch of the Colombian Communist Party.
Messages of protest can be sent to Vice President Francisco Santos at
fsantos@presidencia.gov.co;
Defense Minister Jorge Alberto Uribe at siden@mindefensa.gov.co,
infprotocol@mindefensa.gov.co;
and Carlos Franco, head of the president's human rights program, at
cefranco@presidencia.gov.co.
[Justice for Colombia (UK) 3/30/05]
FENSUAGRO's secretary of organization, Luz Perly Cordoba, was released
on Mar. 16 after spending more than a year in prison in Bogota. Cordoba,
president of the Campesino Association of Arauca (ACA), was arrested
on Feb. 18, 2004, along with another ACA leader, Juan Gutierrez Ardila.
Both are now out on bail; they are still facing charges for "rebellion,"
and their trial has been transferred to Arauca. A "drug trafficking"
charge against Cordoba--for her outspoken opposition to the government's
policy of aerial spraying of herbicides on farmland--has been dropped.
[Agencia Prensa Rural 2/18/05, 3/19/05; Movimiento Social de Cataluna
y Valencia 2/1/05 via Colombia Indymedia]
