COLOMBIA: International Criminal Court Scrutinises Paramilitary Crimes

[Judi Lynn]

COLOMBIA: International Criminal Court Scrutinises Paramilitary Crimes
By Constanza Vieira

BOGOTA, Aug 27 (IPS) - The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) chief prosecutor ended a three-day visit to Colombia Wednesday, where he has been investigating who is ultimately responsible for the human rights crimes committed in this civil war-torn country.

In the scenario of Colombia’s internal armed conflict, where "we have an enormous number of crimes and a massive number of criminals," the criteria being followed is "to go after the people who may be considered among those most responsible," ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said in Bogotá during his three-day visit to the country this week.

In Colombia’s decades-long civil war, appalling human rights crimes are committed by all sides: the leftist guerrillas who took up arms in 1964, the security forces and the far-right paramilitary militias.

But the latter, whose leaders are drug traffickers or have ties to the drug trade, are blamed by the United Nations for 80 percent of all killings, while the insurgents are held responsible for 12 percent and the security forces are blamed for the rest.

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