Colombian President Alvaro Uribe claimed that the “mouthpieces of terrorism” are attempting to discredit the country’s security forces, following allegations made by opposition Senator Piedad Cordoba and a group of NGOs of a mass grave in La Macarena municipality, located in Colombia’s central Meta department.
The president, speaking on Sunday at a military ceremony in La Macarena, said “Terrorism, in the combination of all forms of struggle [the guerrilla strategy of using both legal and illegal measures to pursue its goals], uses some spokesmen to propose peace, while it uses other spokesmen to come here to La Macarena to find a way to discredit the security forces and accuse them of violations of human rights.”
According to group of NGOs and a political movement headed by Liberal Senator Piedad Cordoba a mass grave containing 2,000 bodies has been found in the Meta municipality of La Macarena, next to an army installation.
The senator said that some residents of the region believe the people buried there are victims of executions committed by the army. However, the government said the claim is part of a strategy to derail Colombia’s free trade agreement with the European Union.
In response to Uribe’s comments, Cordoba said “They tell me that Alvaro Uribe is in La Macarena today. Victims be aware of how he hides the atrocity he committed … Terrorism, disguised as a president, followed us to La Macarena to cover up the government’s bloodiest horrors in history.”
The “Colombians for Peace” leader Cordoba has recently been embroiled in allegations that she collaborated with the FARC outside of the parameters of her role as a hostage release negotiator.
However, the senator has always labelled the FARC-politics allegations a politically motivated “farce” and stressed that she has always obeyed the law, as a citizen and as a politician.