The army murderers who escape justice

Billy McKenna visits Colombia, where a well-oiled publicity machine glosses over brutal human rights violations
IF mEAARERS OF the Colombian security forces are found guilty of murder, they can be fined a week's pay. They might even be temporarily suspended. Occasionally, they will face the ultimate sanction and be sacked. But usually they will be promoted and transferred to another part of the country.
These are just some of the findings of a recent report by Amnesty International on human rights abuses in Colombia. The country has an image of peaceful, progressive democracy, only upset by wicked drugs barons. This is due more to skilful public relations campaigns than the actual conditions in the country.
More than 20,000 people have been killed for political reasons since 1986. These deaths are accompanied by a series of human rights violations, including torture, rape and intimidation. Most of these are carried out by the government's own security forces.
The Public Ministry in Colombia is responsible for monitoring and investigating such activities. It receives around 100 complaints each month against the security forces. Between April 1991 and April 1993, 74 massacres, 403 murders and 370 disappearances were recorded. Yet between January 1992, only five army officers and four police officers were dismissed for politically motivated offices.
One of the reasons for this is the peculiar justice system which pertains to crimes involving the security forces. If civilian investigations find involvement of soldiers or police, the military courts usually claim injustice and drop all charges. The branches of the security forces allowed to investigate human rights violations are precisely those units implicated in most political killings.
A case in point relates to Luis Felipe Becerra Bohorquez of the Colombian Army. On 4 March 1988, 21 banana plantation workers were murdered near the town of Currulao. An arrest warrant for the massacre was issued against four army officers, including Major Becerra. Although the Ministry of Defence stated that the army officers were in custody, it was reported that Becerra was in the USA undergoing a training course before promotion to Lieutenant-Colonel.
In 1992, while still supposedly on trial as accomplice to
murder, Lieutenant Colonel Becerra was appointed to head the army's PR department. It took another massacre before the government would act against Becerra. This time 13 people were murdered in October 1993.
Becerra was then commander of the Palace Battalion in the district of Riofrio. On 6 October, during a counter-insurgency operation, seven members of the Ladino family in the village of Alto de la Loma were shot. They were aged between 15 and 75 years. The women were raped. Five members of the neighbouring Molina
family were also killed, as was a civilian who had reportedly arrived with the army.
According to LieutenantColonel Becerra, the 13 people died in a confrontation with his troops. This was in direct contradiction to eye witness accounts. Only six months after the decision to drop charges against Becerra relating to the first massacre in Currulao, the Lieutenant Colonel was again implicated in mass murder of unarmed civilians.
At last the government announced that Becerra had been relieved of his post and discharged from the army.
The Amnesty report states that "impunity is rife in Colombia. Despite ample evidence of military culpability in case after case of the greatest human rights violations, few members of the
security forces have been brought to justice."
This impunity presents difficult problems for the Colombian government. Actions by the security forces which are designed to decrease violence have the opposite effect. As those guilty of political killings and disappearances are seldom punished, public confidence in the rule of law is undermined. This can encourage sectors of the community to join revolutionary groups, which will lead to a backlash from the security forces. The end result is an ever downward spiral of violence.
The conflict in Colombia has claimed many more victims, including a number of Catholic clergy. A bishop, priest and lay missionary were murdered in separate incidents. These have helped give Columbia one of the highest murder rates in the world.
The Colombian government has made a positive step in acknowledging that human rights abuses are regularly carried out by the military. However, it is doing little to stop these abuses. It appears to be more concerned with perpetuating the myth that such social evils are caused by drug barons and guerrillas.
The next step is to attack the problem openly and rigorously. Then perhaps the murderers in the armed forces will feel less likely to repeat massacres. And the view of the country as a stable, political democracy will owe less to a well-oiled publicity machine, and more to the way the people of the country are treated.