Colombia civilians caught in war against insurgents

Several of the Meta victims last year were youths living in and around Granada, the hub of a cattle and farming region that has been fiercely contested in recent years by leftist guerrillas, the armed forces and right-wing paramilitary troops. It is also home to the army's 12th Mobile Brigade, a unit that Orjuela says is implicated in many of the killings.

Orjuela alleges that the army is engaging in "social cleansing" in Meta, home to four of the five municipalities that made up the so-called neutral zone occupied by Colombian guerrillas from 1998 to 2002. Killings and mass displacements of residents here are efforts to deprive guerrillas of sympathizers, Orjuela said.

"They are trying to deprive the fish of its water," he said.

Kidnapped on an outing to the Ariari River, Rodriguez, the street vendor, may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, relatives theorize, caught by a band of police officers or soldiers who were on a "fishing trip" of their own for victims.

Orjuela said cases involving alleged "false positives" seemed to decline after the Colombian army issued the November directive to all commanders ordering that officers and the rank and file be made aware that the most important standards of success are demobilizations and captures of guerrillas, and then body counts. But he said he had noticed a resurgence lately, noting the Rodriguez killing.

Adelaida Rodriguez said that despite the government's initiatives, she and her family were reluctant to press for an investigation. Referring to her brother, she said, "If we make noise, we'll end up like him."

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chris.kraul@latimes.com