Colombia’s Inspector General announced that 2,300 security officials
are currently being investigated for their possible part taking in
extrajudicial executions. The announcement comes on exactly the same day the army sacked 25
security officials, including three generals for the disappearance and
murder of eleven civilians.
In the town of Ocaña, where forensic experts found the bodies of missing persons from Soacha that led to the dismissal of the officials, this year alone 111 unidentified corpses were found whose cause of death still has to be investigated, Maya Villazón told Caracol Radio.
The Attorney General is investigating 930 cases of extrajudicial executions that have occurred since 2002. According to the Cooperación Cooperative de Abogados, in the first 6 months of this year alone 535 people were murdered by armed forces.
Despite the large number of cases and suspected security officials, the Inspector General stressed it is only a minority of the armed forces that are committing such crimes against humanity.
The Colombian government has always denied its armed forces were involved in the kidnapping and murder of civilians to be registered as guerrillas killed in combat, until forensic research proved eleven bodies found in Ocaña were those of missing persons from Soacha, hundreds of miles away and the victims were killed less than 48 hours after their disappearance.
Even recently, Colombian President Álvaro Uribe said the eleven had not been extra judicially executed, but in fact were killed by armed forces in combat.
According to Amnesty International, the Colombian armed forces are responsible for the largest number of the civilian deaths in Colombia’s 44-year long violent conflict between the army, leftist guerrillas and right wing paramilitaries.