A Deeper Look At Extrajudicial Executions

Witness for Peace has put together a very moving video that brings alive the issue of 'false positives', or extrajudicial executions.

More analysis has surfaced recently that suggests the Uribe government is grossly exaggerating the number of neutralized militants. The BBC reports on the sinister trickery of the Uribe government:

About 114,000 members of the warring factions were said to have been dealt with by the army in the last six years.

However, other estimates say there are only 30,000 in the warring factions.

CODHES, a widely respected Colombian NGO, begs to differ:

But the Codhes study, entitled "The numbers do not add up", attacks the very foundation of the Uribe administration, suggesting the government statistics are simply unbelievable...

Also there is mounting evidence that members of the security forces have killed hundreds of unarmed civilians and presented them as members of the illegal armies shot in combat.

The Uribe government has tried to use the inflated numbers to prove that its security policy is working, another instance of the that government counting atrocity and destruction in the 'progress' column.

These sort of exposes like Witness for Peace's moving video highlight the human tragedy of the Colombian military, which continues to justify its heavy handed campaign against its own citizens by invoking fear of armed insurgents. When there are none there to fight, they are more than happy to invent guerillas so as to justify their existence, and the militarization of life for rural and poor Colombians.

Comments

[Javier Guzman]

Thanks for posting this video so we can share with family and friends and let them know how our taxpayer's money end up paying for masacres, violation of human rights and the extermination of regular Joes; That's how Uribe's goverment fight poverty in my country, killing poor people, 4 million people were displaced by the paramilitaries
the bigguest human catastrophe in this hemisphere, killigs, massacres and falsos positivos like the one we jus wached (counted in thousands)that's the reality in my country. SAY NO TO FTA WITH cOLOMBIA, SAY NO TO PLAN COLOMBIA