Extrajudicial killings continue to be common practice in Colombia, according to a new UN study, reported Colombian daily El Pais.
Accoring to El Pais, the report from the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights found that the most serious violations occurred in Arauca, Bogota, Cauca, and Cesar.
The report states, “In several cases, there were inconsistencies about what happened in the accounts of military authorities, and a tendency by some officials to discredit and stigmatize victims and obstruct justice.”
The report praised recent legislative efforts to remedy this problem, such as the Victim’s Law, but also found that impunity remains high for perpetrators of these abuses.
The report specifically warned against the dangers of letting military courts handle cases of so-called “false positives,” whereby extrajudicial civilian killings are recorded as insurgent casualties in official statistics, in order to boost army success rates.
The report will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council on Wednesday.