MELGAR, COLOMBIA — The number of civilians killed by the Colombian armed forces has soared, activist groups allege, with many of the abuses committed by army units that had been vetted by the State Department.
There were 329 so-called extrajudicial killings by the Colombian military and police last year, a coalition of Colombian rights groups asserts in a report, a 48% increase from the 223 reported in 2006.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday, August 22, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 2 inches; 94 words Type of Material: Correction
Colombia abuses: An article in Thursday's Section A on human rights abuses by Colombia's armed forces said that a report by rights advocates alleged that as of June 2007, Colombian military courts had won only four convictions in more than 900 cases of alleged murder involving uniformed soldiers and police. The article should have included the following sentence: "A Colombian Defense Ministry official said that since the formation of a special prosecutor's office in mid-2007 to investigate alleged killings of civilians, 14 soldiers and police officers have been convicted in connection with those killings."
The Colombian Commission of Jurists, a Bogota-based civil society group that is responsible for verifying many of the deaths, said last week that a significant number of killings of civilians by the armed forces had been reported so far in 2008 in five Colombian states, but provided no precise numbers.
A separate analysis of last year's killings by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a New York-based peace group, alleges that 47% of the homicides were committed by army units that had been scrutinized in 2006 or 2007 by the State Department, which determined that they had complied with human rights requirements, making them eligible for U.S. military aid and training.
Backed by more than $4 billion in U.S. military aid since 2000, the Colombian military recently has shown dramatic progress in its decades-long struggle against leftist rebels and right-wing militias. A 40% increase in the number of uniformed forces, tactical training by U.S. advisors and improved communications have been important factors.
Colombia's immensely popular president, Alvaro Uribe, has become the United States' No. 1 Latin American ally in its war on terrorism and drugs, and a political counterweight to anti-U.S. President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.
But the Colombian military has been plagued by accusations of atrocities, including extrajudicial killings called "false positives" in which armed forces allegedly kill civilians, usually peasants or unemployed youths, and brand them as leftist guerrillas.
The continuing allegations have led Congress to criticize U.S. military aid under Plan Colombia and have been an obstacle to approval of a binational free trade agreement.
Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, chairman of the Senate subcommittee on State Department and foreign operations and author of the 1996 law that makes foreign military aid conditional on human rights compliance, expressed dismay.
