"Body count mentalities"

[Joanne98]

Colombia’s "False Positives" Scandal, Declassified

By Michael Evans

Recently, the Colombian and U.S. media have been fixated on the scandal over “false positives”—the extrajudicial killing by the Colombian Army of civilians who are subsequently presented as guerrilla casualties to inflate the combat “body count.” A still-undisclosed military report on the matter has led to the dismissal of 30 Army officers in relation to the scandal and the resignation of Gen. Mario Montoya Uribe, the Army commander who had long promoted the idea of using body counts to measure progress against guerrillas. But the manner in which the investigation was conducted—in absolute secrecy and with little or no legal consequences for those implicated—raises a number of important questions. Is yet another personnel purge absent an impartial, civilian-led, criminal investigation really enough to change the culture in the Colombian Army? And when, if ever, will the Colombian Army divulge the contents of its internal report?

Amidst these lingering questions, a new collection of declassified U.S. diplomatic, military and intelligence documents published today by the National Security Archive in Washington, D.C., describe the “body count syndrome” that has been one of the guiding principles of Colombian military behavior in Colombia for years, leading to human rights abuses—such as false positives—and encouraging collaboration with illegal paramilitary groups. As such, the documents raise important questions about the historical and legal responsibilities the Army has to come clean about what appears to be a longstanding, institutional incentive to commit murder.

The earliest record in the Archive’s collection referring specifically to the phenomenon dates back to 1990. That document, a cable approved by U.S. Ambassador Thomas McNamara, reported a disturbing increase in abuses attributed to the Colombian Army. In one case, McNamara disputed the military’s claim that it had killed nine guerrillas in El Ramal, Santander, on June 7 of that year.

The investigation by Instruccion Criminal and the Procuraduria strongly suggests … that the nine were executed by the Army and then dressed in military fatigues. A military judge who arrived on the scene apparently realized that there were no bullet holes in the military uniforms to match the wounds in the victims’ bodies…”

At the same time, the Embassy was also beginning to see a connection between the Colombian security forces and the country’s burgeoning paramilitary groups. Many of the Army’s recent abuses had “come in the course of operations by armed para-military groups in which Army officers and enlisted men have participated,” according to the declassified cable. <19900727.pdf>

Similar tendencies were highlighted four years later in a cable cleared by U.S. Ambassador Myles Frechette. He found that “body count mentalities” persisted among Colombian Army officers seeking promotions. The Embassy’s Defense Attaché Office (DAO) had reported that, “Field officers who cannot show track records of aggressive anti-guerrilla activity (wherein the majority of the military’s human rights abuses occur) disadvantage themselves at promotion time.” Moreover, the claim by Minister of Defense Fernando Botero that there was “a growing awareness that committing human rights abuses will block an officer’s path to promotion” reflected “wishful thinking,” according to the DAO. <19941021.pdf>

A CIA intelligence report, also from 1994, went even further, finding that the Colombian security forces continued to “employ death squad tactics in their counterinsurgency campaign.” The document, a review of President César Gaviria’s anti-guerrilla policy, noted that the Colombian military had “a history of assassinating leftwing civilians in guerrilla areas, cooperating with narcotics-related paramilitary groups in attacks against suspected guerrilla sympathizers, and killing captured combatants.” Traditionally, the Army had “not taken guerrilla prisoners,” according to report, and the military had “treated Gaviria’s new human rights guidelines as pro forma.” <19940126.pdf>

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http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB266/index.htm