COLOMBIAN MILITARY HAS DISTURBING HISTORY OF BRUTALITY AGAINST CIVILIANS

Part 4

LA HORMIGA, Colombia -- The death squad arrived just before sunrise.
Uniformed men ordered six peasants from their homes in the hamlet of La
Dorada and shot them to death. Then, they dressed the bodies in guerrilla
garb, propped weapons near them and took photographs.

The suspects: Colombian troops.

Later, the army tried to pass off the slayings as "combat casualties,"
according to human rights reports, but residents here know better. The
memory still haunts them.

Against this troubling backdrop, the United States is giving more than $1.3
billion to Colombia, mostly so the armed forces can wage their war on drugs.
Included is $28.5 million to teach Colombia's armed forces and justice
institutions how to behave.

But residents, critics and even some U.S. officials are questioning whether
the under-equipped and ill-trained soldiers -- such as those who mistakenly
shot six schoolchildren on a picnic last month -- can be reformed.

As the military buildup begins, critics are alarmed that the United States
is supporting a military with a record of brutality. They ask: Can the
Colombian military be trusted to cut its ties to right-wing groups and carry
out its battle plans without abusing Colombians?

A Human Rights Watch report this year found that half the Colombian army's
18 brigades still have ties to the right-wing militias, the 7,000-strong
United Self Defenses of Colombia. Human rights cases against the military
are on the rise -- more than 200 last year alone. The charges are mostly
against low-level soldiers; no one ranked higher than major has yet to
answer hard questions in civil courts.

"Government forces continued to commit numerous, serious abuses," read a
1999 State Department report on Colombia. "Individual members of the
security forces actively collaborated with members of paramilitary groups --
passing them through roadblocks, sharing intelligence and providing them
with ammunition."

With a dismal record on human rights, Colombian ministers and commanders
have been told by the Clinton administration and Congress to clean up their
act. "If Colombia aspires to be a First World nation, then it has to do
something about how it handles human rights," said a senior U.S. aid
official in Washington who oversees money earmarked to teach the Colombian
military how to treat civilians on the battlefield.

President Andres Pastrana, who sacked four generals last year, said his
country is committed to reforms such as transferring more court-martials to
civilian courts. A new human rights mentality is being instilled in the
military and state agencies, he said. More than half of the 120,000 armed
forces received training last year.

"We know that there could be some links in some areas," Pastrana said of
collusion between regular troops and paramilitary units. "But I think now
they (the military) know it's not going to be tolerated."

The U.S. State and Defense departments have completed rigorous background
checks of Colombian units due to receive U.S. training and money. Military
members under investigation or with blemished records are being removed from
their posts.

While acknowledging that the Colombian government has failed six of seven
key human rights conditions tied to the $1.3 billion U.S. aid package,
President Clinton last month invoked "national security" to make sure the
funds begin flowing.

"We're confident that this package is not going to accomplish the U.S.
goals, but it is certainly going to deteriorate the human rights situation
in Colombia," said Gina Amatangelo, a fellow at the Washington Office on
Latin America.

But supporting the Colombian armed forces and police is key to curbing
Colombia's skyrocketing annual output of 550 tons of cocaine and up to seven
tons of heroin.

Using at least 60 new and refurbished U.S. choppers, three 950-member
airborne units will try to reclaim the lawless countryside and stop the
spiraling coca-leaf production.

In this fertile province, ruthless right-wing groups with ties to the
Colombian armed forces and leftist guerrillas are vying to control up to
150,000 acres of coca growing.

Lawlessness and killings reign in this region of 310,000 people, which has
more than 300 slayings a year. Countless more killings go unreported. Men in
uniform, especially at night, strike fear. People don't dare get caught out
after sundown for fear of encountering a rebel or paramilitary checkpoint.

At least 240 massacres were reported in Colombia this year, according to the
state Ombudsman's Office in Bogota. About two-thirds of the 3,000 annual
homicides are attributed to right-wing death squads. Fifteen percent are
committed by leftist groups -- with the remainder reportedly the result of
armed bandits, government forces and common criminals.

Officially, the Colombian government goes after the right-wing
paramilitaries with the same zeal used against guerrillas. Officials in
Bogota deny the armed forces cooperate with paramilitaries. "That is totally
false," said a government official when told about a paramilitary contingent
near the army barracks in Puerto Asis.

Nationwide, the reality is that most cases go unsolved. Military courts
reserve most cases involving high-ranking officers for themselves. There are
few prosecutions and warrants gather dust. "Colombian justice is a slow
justice," the same government official said.

Among locals here, there is no trust of men in uniform. "There's no
credibility in the public force from the civilian population," said Cayo
Miranda, the town's ombudsman, who has repeatedly complained to authorities
in Bogota about the lack of security guarantees and the absence of forensics
technicians in the region. "Here, we live in another Colombia where the
strongest rules, and the armed combatants wield power," he said.

Local police are stretched thin, limited by great distances and don't dare
patrol by themselves, Miranda said. Prosecutors have trouble finding
witnesses and collecting evidence. "An investigation begins, there is no
basis, there are no proofs, no testimonies," he said. "And that gets
shelved."

The armed parties

Outside the river town of Puerto Asis, members of an 800-strong right-wing
contingent travel freely in front of army checkpoints and barracks. The
heavy police detachment in town is indifferent to their presence, residents
charge.

The Colombian army's 2,500 men of the 24th brigade, a counter-insurgent and
anti-drug unit, has headquarters in the regional capital of Mocoa and
several barracks in Puerto Asis and Santa Ana.

At best, critics say, the brigade tolerates the group whose compound is
about two miles past an army checkpoint north of town.

"No area of Colombia has been taken by the government without our presence,"
a right-wing commander told an Associated Press reporter in July. "We can
operate effectively because we don't have the judicial restraints that are
imposed on government forces." The same man, a former sergeant in Colombia's
special forces, told Reuters that he was trained by elite U.S. Ranger and
Navy SEAL units and his men backed the U.S.-Colombia strategy.

That could spell trouble.

"It sounds like they're waiting to service the vanguard of this Southern
Push when it happens," said Adam Isaacson of the Center for International
Policy, a Washington think tank. "The intelligence is almost bound to reach
them. There's real concern."

At times, residents say, the army has closed roads to help the
paramilitaries' incursions. "It is possible that in past times, abuses were
committed," said one Colombian army officer who spoke on condition his name
not be used.

The brigade, which was cleared for U.S. aid, did capture eight
paramilitaries in 1998 and delivered them to local prosecutors, according to
the U.S. State Department.

Facing them and the paramilitaries are an estimated 2,000 to 3,000
guerrillas from the largest rebel force, known by the Spanish acronym FARC,
which roams the forested lowlands and jungle. They are experienced
combatants who overran several army bases in recent years. They rule the
interior with a strong hand and are reportedly arming peasants.

Slaughter

On Oct. 26, 1998, army soldiers buried the slain "unidentified" men in a
common grave in Puerto Asis. Near the La Dorada execution site, relatives
found their loved ones' clothing buried, too. Cash-strapped and intimidated,
the families were unable to retrieve the corpses from Puerto Asis, a
three-hour drive on a dangerous dirt route.

The same day in La Hormiga, paramilitaries are suspected of gunning down a
couple in front of their home as well as a girl, 15, and an 8-year-old boy
"who happened by," government documents show. Two days later, a man was shot
at least 10 times less than half a block from an army garrison. No one
responded, and the suspected right-wing members walked right past the
military.

A month earlier, guerrillas on motorcycles shot the Rev. Alcides Jimenez 18
times in the northern town of Puerto Caicedo while he celebrated Mass just
after leading a peace rally. In the regional capital of Mocoa, eight public
health workers on an anti-malaria campaign were killed by Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia rebels, or FARC.

On Jan. 9, 1999, up to 33 people were executed in the village of El Tigre
near La Hormiga, after 20 armed men in fatigues picked them from among the
100 or so residents they had assembled from homes, bars, stores and off the
street.

Seven were shot while lying face down. Six more were driven outside of town
and shot. Their stomachs were ripped open before they were thrown from the
Guamuez River bridge. Two more were slain in the streets, as was a farmer
who saw five bodies being dumped along the road as the gunmen left town.

About 80 percent of the villagers fled. And last October, fugitive
paramilitary leader Luis Millan Cardona was indicted as threats to
investigators mounted.

In May 1999, militias killed 11 men in the region. And last November, the
hamlet of La Dorada again was targeted along with El Placer and El Vergel
when raids by two 60-man squads left 17 people dead.

"They came dressed as soldiers, with armbands of the self-defense groups,"
regional army commander Maj. Carlos A. Granobles acknowledged at the time.

Kilometer 9

Close to Puerto Asis is the Kilometer 9 road marker, where several taxi
drivers suspected of being guerrilla sympathizers or giving rides to
"collaborators" have been killed.

In late 1998, armed civilians got into a taxi and killed the driver at
Kilometer 9, which is about five miles outside of town and a couple of miles
from the paramilitary ranch. Another cab driver, who spent the previous two
days in jail on suspicion of killing a cop, was fatally shot at the same
road marker.

"Things in this town haven't been good," says a former taxi driver who shed
his cab and switched to a sturdier pickup truck without the yellow paint.
"Before the paramilitaries, it was paid hitmen and guerrillas."

Matter-of-factly, he pointed to barren, charred spots where drivers were
left to burn in their cabs after being executed.

"If they get in at gunpoint, there's not a whole lot you can do."

E.A. Torriero can be reached at etorriero@sun-sentinel.com. Pedro Ruz
Gutierrez can be reached at pruz@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5620.