Colombia’s Armed Forces operated hand in hand with paramilitary death
squads of the AUC, former AUC commander ‘Don Berna’ testified before a
Colombian prosecutor.
Diego ‘Don Berna’ Murillo responded to accusations of human rights violations via video conference from his U.S. prison where he is held on drug charges.
According to the former commander of the Cacique Nutibara bloc of the AUC, the army’s 4th division collaborated with the AUC during ‘Operation Orion’, a Medellin counterinsurgency operation in which 68 people went missing, one minor was executed, 38
civilians were injured by bullets and 355 of the neighborhood’s
inhabitants were illegally detained, NGOs say.
The 4th Division was then led by General Mario Montoya, who later became Army commander. After news broke that members of the army had killed more than a 1,000 civilians, Montoya resigned and was appointed ambassador in the Dominican Republic.