A former paramilitary leader named retired Colombian army generals as complicit in massacres in the northern Norte de Santander province during the late 1990s, reported El Tiempo Monday.
Former AUC paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso claimed retired Colombian Generals Alberto Bravo Silva and Mario Cuervo Fernando Roa, collaborated with him and his criminal organization to take control of the Norte De Santander region, in Colombia’s northeast.
Mancuso also named Colonel Victor Hugo Matamoros, former aide to commander General Alejandro Navas, as an accomplice.
It is alleged that in May 1999, the AUC sought to stymie guerrilla influence in Norte de Santander, killing some 150 people in more than a dozen attacks over the following three months. The worst massacre occurred in the town of La Gabarra where 50 farmers were murdered.
According to the ex-paramilitary, the former general Silva facilitated an AUC raid in the village Socuavo on May 29, 1999, in which five people were killed.
Mancuso provided his testimony to the Superior Court of Bogota from the United States, where he is currently serving time in jail for drug trafficking offences.
The former paramilitary leader demobilized together with 1,434 members of the AUC Catatumbo Bloc in December 2004.
Mancuso was initially a beneficiary of Colombia’s Justice and Peace Law, whereby demobilized paramilitaries could only be sentenced to a maximum of eight years in prison, provided they confess their crimes and surrender. However he lost the right to enjoy benefits under the law after being extradited to the United States in 2008 on charges of drug trafficking.
