topic by
Cesar
5/23/2002 (10:24) |
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BOGOTA, Colombia (CNN) --A U.N. report released Tuesday said a Marxist rebel group, right-wing paramilitaries, the government and the military all shared blame in fighting earlier this month that left 119 civilians dead in a small town in the remote jungles of northwest Colombia.
The report was prepared by the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia.
The killings, the worst casualty toll among the civilian population from a single battle in Colombia's 38-year-old civil conflict, took place in early May during fighting between FARC (the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and paramilitary forces in the town of Bojayá.
Anders Kompass, director of the Colombia office, said in his report, written after a trip to the area, said the FARC had committed murder and violated international law that obliged warring factions to take measures to safeguard civilians.
The deaths occurred when the FARC fired a cooking-gas cylinder packed with explosives that veered off target and hit a church where 300 villagers were sheltered. Ninety-eight civilians were injured.
Kompass also blamed paramilitary fighters for trying to hide among the civilians to defend themselves from the rebel attack.
But he reserved some of his strongest criticism for the state and its security forces.
Kompass said the government, the police and the army not only ignored warnings of an impending tragedy but also may have collaborated with the outlawed paramilitary forces to allow them to enter the region.
He said in the report he had evidence that a 250-person paramilitary unit sailed up the River Atrato in seven large boats and passed through two police and one army checkpoint without the slightest problem.
He said paramilitary fighters in civilian clothes began returning to the village of Bojayá and a sister community, Vigia del Suerte, as soon as the army flew 800 troops in and took back control.
Kompass said paramilitary commanders flew into the town aboard light aircraft at a time when the town was under full military control and only army aircraft were authorized to land on the small airstrip.
The report called on the government to launch an independent criminal investigation to establish not only the responsibility of the illegal armed groups but also of government officials and security force commanders.
It also called for the government to take steps to reduce discrimination and social inequality in Choco province, the area where the fighting took place.
The province is inhabited largely by the descendants of African slaves and is the poorest region in Colombia.
So far, there has been no official reaction, but Kompass warned that criticism of his mission over the past few days by Colombia's attorney general and senior army commanders is putting his life and those of this colleagues at risk.
Meanwhile, Mary Robinson, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said she 'deeply regrets the attacks in the press from high-ranking Colombian officials against the work carried out by the office in connection with the monitoring mission undertaken by OHCHR after the massacres in the Department of Choco.'
Robinson expressed her 'firm support' for the work carried out by OHCHR and Kompass. This mission, she pointed out, 'was undertaken within the mandate entrusted by the government to OHCHR in Colombia.'
The office has operated in Colombia since April 1997 and carried out a variety of functions ranging from monitoring to technical cooperation.
It has processed hundreds of complaints on human rights violations and breaches of humanitarian law, taking them up with the authorities.
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