{"id":12634,"date":"2011-11-02T07:12:07","date_gmt":"2011-11-02T15:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=12634"},"modified":"2011-11-02T07:12:07","modified_gmt":"2011-11-02T15:12:07","slug":"us-supported-colombian-general-allegedly-collaborated-in-false-positive-murders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2011\/11\/02\/us-supported-colombian-general-allegedly-collaborated-in-false-positive-murders\/","title":{"rendered":"US-Supported Colombian General Allegedly Collaborated in “False Positive” Murders"},"content":{"rendered":"

I wrote recently about five Colombian soldiers\u00a0accused of murdering two farmers<\/a>, in the latest case of \u201cfalse positive\u201d killings<\/a>, in which the US-supported Colombian army kill civilians and report them as combatants.\u00a0One officer, two sub-officers, and two soldiers of the Army\u2019s 31st Rifle Battalion allegedly killed two farmers in the northwest rural area of Valdivia, Antioquia and then presented them as\u00a0FARC\u00a0guerrillas killed in combat.\u00a0The military report had claimed that the two victims were insurgents who were carrying two handguns and a grenade, but evidence from witnesses, ballistics experts, and investigators\u00a0invalidated that report.<\/p>\n

But now, one of the accused, named Antonio Rozo Valbuena,\u00a0is daringly pointing the finger at his superior officer – General Javier Fern\u00e1ndez Leal – saying he collaborated in the killings<\/a>. It should be noted that this unit was trained by the US, and Leal in particular was studying US Army War College in Pennsylvania a mere three months before the false positives killings in question. And in 2009, he blocked investigations into police and army killings of civilians.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a soldier gets hit with charges and says, \u2018I did it, I killed him, my colonel knew nothing,\u2019 it\u2019s a lie,\u201dsaid Rozo Valbuena<\/a>. \u201cTo do a false positive requires a logistical train, a very broad intellectual capacity to be able to set it up and plot the procedure well,\u201d he\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re sentencing the most idiotic ones. Don\u2019t look here, look higher,\u201d Rozo\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

The 11th<\/sup>\u00a0Brigade in C\u00f3rdoba, of which the\u00a0GAULA\u00a0unit was part, was commanded by then-Colonel Fern\u00e1ndez Leal from\u00a0June 2005 to December 2006<\/a>. Three months before ascending to command the 11th<\/sup>\u00a0Brigade, Fern\u00e1ndez Leal was studying at the\u00a0U.S.\u00a0Army War College in Pennsylvania, where\u00a0he wrote about<\/a>\u00a0the costs of the war in\u00a0Colombia.<\/p>\n

The United States assisted the 11th<\/sup>\u00a0Brigade during this period and beyond \u2013 in 2005, 2006 and 2007, according to a State Department\u00a0list of assisted units<\/a>\u00a0(pdf,\u00a01.6MB)<\/p>\n

Fern\u00e1ndez Leal subsequently sat on a military panel that in 2009 stymied investigations into false positives, according to statements by the former Army Inspector General to\u00a0U.S.\u00a0Embassy officials, revealed in\u00a0a cable published by Wikileaks<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Check out my recent blog post<\/a> on the neocon myth that US Colombia policy is some sort of success, so much so that it ought to be exported to Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Addendum: The Colombian President\u00a0Juan Manuel Santos has dissolved the country’s intelligence agency<\/a>, DAS, after years of controversy for<\/a> having deep ties to right-wing paramilitaries, obstructing their justice, implementing a nationwide illegal spying regime, cracking down on free speech, etc.\u00a0At least 20 current and former DAS officials have been jailed, including the Director\u00a0Jorge Noguera. Unfortunately, this does not seem to signal some wonderful reform:\u00a092% DAS staff are just being transferred to other government departments. Ah yes…I almost forgot to mention again: all with\u00a0exorbitant and steadfast US support\/collaboration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wrote recently about five Colombian soldiers\u00a0accused of murdering two farmers, in the latest case of \u201cfalse positive\u201d killings, in which the US-supported Colombian army kill civilians and report them as combatants.\u00a0One officer, two sub-officers, and two soldiers of the Army\u2019s 31st Rifle Battalion allegedly killed two farmers in the northwest rural area of Valdivia, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-12634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12634"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12635,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12634\/revisions\/12635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12634"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=12634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}