‘HH’ admits over 3000 murders

[Joanne98]

Herbert ‘HH’ Veloza admitted being responsible for the murder of 3000 people during his time as paramilitary commander in an interview with LA FM. He announced to reveal the names of accomplices in the Colombian security forces during his next hearing for the Justice and Peace commission.

The former commander of AUC’s Calima bloc admitted having been responsible for the murder of 1200 people in the northern region of Urabá in one year alone and called the international banana companies in that area to take responsibility for their part in the committed atrocities. So far, only Chiquita Brands has admitted having paid the AUC “taxes”.

In the interview ‘HH’ also admitted responsibility for massacres in Alaska, Naya, Sabaletas and Barragán and the execution of 16 trade unionists in Bugalagrande, Valle del Cauca.

Veloza announced he will tell the Justice and Peace commission everything about the cooperation he received from Colombian security forces. “I will say everything. How the security forces coordinated the movement of troops and helped us move weapons. We paid them to give information and cooperate.” he said in the interview.

http://colombiareports.com/2008/05/28/hh-admits-over-3000-murders/#more-1229

[Judi Lynn]

1. Oh, my god. Hope the son of a bitch is proud of himself. What a monster.

From an earlier report in March:

Posted by Justice for Colombia | Date 11 March 2008



Paramilitary Alleges Army Involvement in Massacre

The former leader of one of Colombia's right-wing paramilitary death squads, Herbert Veloza, also known as 'H.H', has testified that the Colombian Army helped organize a four-day massacre in April 2001 during which an estimated 120 people were murdered and more than 4,000 forced to flee their homes.


The massacre, in the Naya region of Cauca department, was carried out by paramilitaries and involved extreme levels of brutality. In his statement to a judge in the city of Medellin on March 6th Veloza said that Jose Alberto Vargas, a colonel in the Colombian army, instructed his troops to leave the Naya region prior to the paramilitaries entering the area and carrying out the massacre. Veloza also admitted that the paramilitary unit under his command, the Calima Bloc, had murdered 110 people in the municipalities in the north of Cauca.


Collusion between the Colombian army and paramilitary death squads is extensive and systematic. Amnesty International's 2007 report on Colombia noted that while the Colombian regime had claimed that more than 30,000 paramilitaries had laid down their arms in a controversial government-sponsored demobilisation process, "there was strong evidence that paramilitary groups continued to operate and to commit human rights violations with the acquiescence of or in collusion with the security forces."

http://www.justiceforcolombia.org/?link=newspage&story=207

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This article links to an account of the slaughter:

May 21, 2001

The Alto Naya Massacre: Another Paramilitary Outrage

by Liam Craig-Best and Rowan Shingler

The district of Alto Naya on the border of the southwestern Colombian departments of Cauca and Valle experienced a savage three day paramilitary onslaught between April 10 and 13 leaving an estimated 120 people dead and more than 4,000 displaced. The episode has once again exposed not only the inhuman brutality of the paramilitary death squads (witnessed on an almost daily basis), but also the complicity of the Colombian Armed Forces and the negligence of the Colombia State with regards to adequately defending the basic human rights of its citizens.

"The remains of a woman were exhumed. Her abdomen was cut open with a chainsaw. A 17-year-old girl had her throat cut and both hands also amputated."
Eduardo Cifuentes, National Ombudsman

Paramilitary activity in the area began on April 10 when peasants sighted a group of 90 men who were later confirmed, by both local guerrilla units and other peasants, to be part of a much larger paramilitary unit consisting of over 400 men in one large and two smaller contingents. Eyewitness Delio Chate said that the killing began on April 11 when death-squads entered his village, as well as the villages of El Ceral, La Silvia, La Mina, El Playa, Alto Seco and Palo Grande among others. According to Chate, the paramilitaries dragged people accused of being guerrilla sympathizers into the street and killed them.

In the tiny village of Patiobonito the death squads killed 7, including a local shopkeeper accused of selling food and supplies to the guerrillas and an indigenous council worker, Cayetano Pilcue, who was murdered for possessing a mobile phone. The other five victims were all members of the same indigenous family: Daniel Suarez, his wife Flor Dizut and their 3 nephews; William, Fredy and Gonzalo Osorio Lopez.

On April 12 residents who had managed to escape the area raised the alarm and the departmental authorities began to take an interest. Peasants fleeing the region that evening testified that the paramilitaries had killed at least 23 people and were giving all the other residents five hours to pack up and leave the district. By midnight on April 12 approximately 170 families had fled.

Also on the April 12, witnesses reported seeing a joint force of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National Liberation army (ELN) guerrillas moving into the region, apparently with the intent of confronting the paramilitaries and preventing further deaths. The military later claimed, and indeed still does, that the majority of the deaths in Alto Naya resulted from subsequent confrontations between this guerrilla force and the death squads. However, every other source denies the military's account of the massacre.

By the morning of April 13 it had become clear that there was a large-scale massacre going on and the Cauca People's Defender, Victor Javier Melendez, requested that the military intervene. He received no response. In the early evening there were reports that Luis Ipia, Humberto Arias Agudelo, Manuel Tiguana, Esteban Delgado, Luis Omar Aponza, Wilson Casos and Guillermo Trujillo, all from in and around the village of Patiobonito, had been killed and by late evening the departmental authorities were confirming that there were at least 29 dead.

By April 14, 3,000 displaced people, mainly from the many Afro-Colombian and Paez indigenous communities in Alto Naya, had arrived in the nearby towns of Timba, (Cauca department) and Jamundi (Valle department). It is believed that on this date a further 4,000 people were trapped in the area by paramilitary roadblocks that were preventing anyone from entering or leaving the region. Consequently, the Attorney General, Alfonso Gomez, claimed it was difficult to quantify the exact number of dead and displaced "because we been able to reach the area."

However, with investigations under way, the number of dead continued to increase and on May 2 the Attorney General's investigators discovered another 20 bodies. Although total figures are still unknown, the Spanish-based Nizkor International Human Rights Team believes some 130 people had been assassinated during the 3-day rampage.

As pointed out by human rights investigators in the area, the task of giving exact numbers is an extremely difficult one because of the brutal methods deployed by the paramilitaries who severely mutilated and then hid the corpses of many of their victims. The National Ombudsman, Eduardo Cifuentes, described the remains of a 17-year-old girl who "had her throat cut and both hands also amputated," and of another who had been decapitated. Many body parts were subsequently spread around the region and hidden in different locations, making identification and the counting of victims difficult.

More:
http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia64.htm