Colombia probes mysterious deaths

[Judi Lynn]

Source: CNN

updated 5:07 a.m. EDT, Fri September 26, 2008
Colombia probes mysterious deaths

BOGOTA, Colombia (CNN) -- Blanca Nubia Monroy's son said he would not be gone long.He left his mother's house one Sunday in March, she said, saying he needed to talk with a man about work but that he would be back for dinner.Monroy never saw her son alive again.

When he and 20 other young men turned up dead in a common grave in the mountains of Colombia, a military commander said they had been killed in clashes with the army. Yet relatives say they have struggled for months to understand the circumstances that led to the deaths in and around Ocana, roughly 800 kilometers (500 miles) northeast of Bogota.

Now the Colombian Defense Ministry has raised doubts about the official version of events. And prosecutors are investigating to determine whether the men were executed.

"January 3rd was the last time that I saw my son alive," said Flor Hernandez, the mother of another of the young men who died.She sobbed as she told reporters a similar story as Monroy -- that her 25-year-old son left her home one day, to go back to his home, and that she never saw him alive again.

A military commander, Paulino Coronado, said the 21 men whose bodies were found in a common grave were killed in clashes with the military in Colombia, a country riven by more than 40 years of grinding war involving government troops, leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitaries.



Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/09/26/colombia.mysterious.deaths/index.html

[amdezurik]

1. perhaps the 'conflict'

was the boys stumbling upon one of the DEA/Bushco cocaine deals...

[MetaTrope]

2. And this is one of two countries whose leaders Palin had a one-on-one with at the UN

The other country, of course, being the heroin capital of the world, Afghanistan.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Colombia's 'body count' policy slammed

Colombia's 'body count' policy slammed
Sep 27, 2008 2:06 PM

SOME Colombian army officers are pressuring soldiers to kill people in combat as proof of their success in fighting illegal militias, a practice that may have caused rights abuses, the Government has admitted.

The statement by Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos was the first acknowledgment by the US-backed government that complaints long made by human rights groups may be accurate.

The groups say President Alvaro Uribe's all-out military push against leftist rebels and other cocaine-funded groups has resulted in noncombatant civilians being shot by soldiers and passed off as guerrillas killed in battle.

Santos' comments come during a outcry over the deaths of at least 19 young men who the army said died in combat but whose families say were never involved in Colombia's conflict.

More:
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24410398-663,00.html