New Report Shows Dramatic SOA Ties to Extrajudicial Killings in Colombia

[Wilms]

The Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) and the U.S. Office on Colombia (USOC) just released their groundbreaking report, Military Assistance and Human Rights: Colombia, U.S. Accountability, and Global Implications, which exposes serious problems with the implementation of U.S. foreign military training. Once again, detailed research continues to connect SOA/ WHINSEC graduates and instructors with extrajudicial killings and other serious human rights violations.

According to the report, 30 of 33 Colombian brigade and division commanders who could be identified attended one or more courses at the SOA/ WHINSEC, and this visual representation of the brigade divisions shows the direct connection these SOA-trained officers had with the high levels of extrajudicial executions for the past seven years.

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The human rights community and the U.S. Congress did not agree with the decision. In 2008 and again in 2009, the House of Representatives passed an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill demanding that the DOD release this information to the public. Last year, this measure was signed into law by President Obama, However, SOA/ WHINSEC supporters in Congress managed to slip in the caveat that Robert Gates, the Secretary of Defense could issue a waiver to ignore the public's right to know and refuse to release the information, if he "determines it to be in the national interest."

Predictably, Obama's Secretary of Defense used the waiver to deny human rights organizations and the public access to any more information.

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[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Good grief, I missed that material altogether. I've got to take a good, long look at it.

It looks very, very important.

Thank you, WILMS. Going off to examine it.

Recommending.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Interesting details of the findings on "false positives"

~snip~
According to the Coordinación ColombiaEuropaEstados Unidos (CCEEU), the “overwhelming majority” of killings analyzed in this study were false positives. An analysis by the Colombian Inspector General’s office in 2009 outlined five modalities employed in such killings:

1. Recruitment of victims by private citizens who delivered them to soldiers.

2. Arrest of victims by the military.

3. Arrest by military of informants or collaborators with illegal armed groups, with help from former combatants

4. Arrest of victims by paramilitary groups who turned them over to military to be executed and presented as killed in combat.

5. Arrest of victims by military and turned over to illegal armed groups to beexecuted.34

Pages 12-13
http://forusa.org/sites/default/files/uploads/militaryaid100729web.pdf