A former AUC leader claimed Colombia’s Air Force lent air support to a paramilitary operation against FARC guerrillas that killed at least 24 people in 2001.
Elkin Casarrollo Posada, a high-ranking member of the AUC’s Calima Bloc, said that during an AUC raid known as the El Naya massacre, he was in radio contact with Freddy Antonio Cadavid Acevedo, a Colombian solider who agreed to provide a fighter plane to ward off FARC guerrillas in the border region between the southwestern departments of Cauca and Valle del Cauca.
The 15-day paramilitary operation took place in April 2001 in the village of El Naya and resulted in the death of between 24 and 200 civilians, according to various estimates.
Similarly, the Prosecutor General’s Office received information from Eladio Vivero, who was kidnapped by the AUC, that a commander called for air support from Colombia’s Air Force in June 2001 and received two helicopters to help fight guerrilla soliders. He also alleged that after the helicopters fired on FARC rebels, the paramilitary leader was told to withdraw from the area by an army officer before another nearby military company advanced on their position.
An arrest warrant was issued June 15 for Captain Mauricio Zambrano for his suspected role in the planning of the El Naya massacre after he failed to show up for questioning.
AUC member Armando Lugo, alias “El Cabezon,” one of the paramilitaries on trial for the massacre, said in 2010 that Zambrano allowed him to access a military base near El Naya, where combat supplies used by the paramilitaries were allegedly obtained.