Paramilitary social cleansing of homosexuals, mentally disabled and
drug addicts in the departments of Tolima and Caldas were never really
investigated by prosecutors, verdadabierta.com reported.
Prosecutors in Fresno and Honda (Tolima) and in La Dorada (Caldas) prematurely closed cases against the AUC group Autodefensas Campesinas Medio Magdalena (ACMM) whose murders of civilians were classified as ‘social cleansing’.
Because of this, the murders of numerous alleged criminals, drug vendors, mentally ill people and homosexuals between 2000 and 2005 were never punished. Despite obvious links, the paramilitaries were not prosecuted for these crimes.
Details of these cases were brought up in the trial against former ACMM leader Ramon Isaza. One of the unpunished murder is that of Alvaro Rojas in June 2000. Rojas was a drug addict and the prosecutor of Honda as well as Rojas’ family believed Rojas was assassinated because of his addiction. The ACMM committed ‘social cleansing’ at that time. But the link to the paramilitary group was never made.
Another unpunished case is that of John Jairo Camargo Gordillo in September 2000. Camargo was murdered in the market square of Mariquita, Tolima. Camargo was known to be a homosexual. Nine years later, paramilitary alias ‘Napo’ admitted this murder but was never prosecuted for the crime.
The Director of the Public Prosecution in Caldas, Ricardo Rivera, said all the unpunished cases of social cleansing must be reviewed whether the prosecutors favored the paramilitaries. “We have to look at each case to see where the investigations stopped,” Rivera told verdadabierta.com.