A descent from the army in a village of Putumayo, which targeted the dissident groups of FARC, caused the death of at least four civilians. In Congress, the opposition filed a motion in censure against the Minister of Defense.
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Military success or massacre? In Colombia, the death of 11 people, killed by the army, on March 28, in the Amazonian department of Putumayo, in the south-west of the country, continues to spark and indignation. The army maintains that the operation, conducted against one of the armed gangs of the region, was “legal and legitimate”. But at least four disarmed civilians were murdered, including a pregnant woman and a teenager.
For human rights defenders, the drama confirms that, six years after the signing of a peace agreement with the guerrilla of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the armed forces have changed nor of doctrine or practices. At Congress, opposition members (center and left) filed a motion in censure against the Defense Minister Diego Molano. It will be examined and voted on April 24th.
No one has forgotten the “false positives”, namely these thousands of young people, from disadvantaged circles, murdered by soldiers, then “disguised” to be presented as dead guerrillas in combat. The scandal had erupted in 2008. The special court of peace, put in place by the 2016 peace agreement to shed light on the crimes committed on the occasion of the armed conflict, confirmed 6,042 of these atrocious assassinations, a Probably undervalued balance.
Quasi daily armed clashes
In Putumayo, the shots started a little before 7 am, on Monday, March 28, in Alto Remanso, a hamlet lost at the edge of the Putumayo River, where for three days was a modest “Community Bazaar”. At this time, in the tropics, the streets are already animated. At the beginning of the afternoon, in Bogota, the president, Ivan Duque (right), written on his Twitter account: “The offensive # Wooper against Narcoterrorist organizations continues in all regions of the country.” At the border of the country. “Ecuador and Peru, Putumayo is one of the main coca and cocaine production areas, including Colombia is the world’s largest producer. The Tweet of the President informs “that, on the occasion of an operation of the police, eleven members of the dissidence of the FARC could be neutralized, and four other orders in Puerto Leguizamo”.
“Neutralized” is a Colombian military euphemism to say “killed”. The “dissidences of FARC” are the armed groupcules, who are claiming the old Marxist guerrillas and who live drug or gold trafficking. Two groups of dissidents (Comandos de la Frontera and Frente Carolina Ramirez) argue control of the region of Puerto Leguizamo, the big village of which depends on the hamlet of Alto Remanzo. According to the military, the operation of March 28 was Carlos Loaiza, aka Bruno, one of the leaders of the Comandos group of La Frontera.
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