'Flood' of alleged human rights violations in Bogota: Ombudsman

[subsuelo]

Bogota's Ombudsman Office denounced a "flood" of accusations of human rights violations Wednesday and requested assistance to be able to assess all cases.

Ombudsman for Human Rights, Monica Naranjo, receives daily 100 cases of complaints of displacement, forced disappearances and threat pamphlets. One Ombudsman is simply not enough to deal with all cases, Naranjo told newspaper El Espectador.

The official is most worried about the thousands of displaced people currently living in the streets of Bogota. More than 1000 people, displaced by Colombia's violent conflict, live in the Parque Tercer Milenio, 220 in the neighborhood Carvajal.

Bogota mayor Samuel Moreno reiterated several times that the city is losing control over the situation. Although the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) offered help, the movement does not slow down given that 50 displaced families arrive daily in the capital.

But not only complaints about displacements have increased, the number of alleged forced disappearances have gone up too. According to Ombudsman Francisco Rojas Birry, accusations of disappearances have "skyrocketed" in the past years.

Rojas says he has repeatedly denounced disappearnces of minors in Bogota which later were presented as guerrillas killed in combat. Only eleven cases, involving 70 soldiers, are currently being processed in court, he says.

The Ombudsman warned that there will be new cases of 'false positives' in Bogota and referred to the deaths of two young men who disappeared in Bogota last September. One day later, their bodies were found in Boyaca as alleged victims of "military clashes" between the army and guerrillas.

"The cruel murder of these young men show the urgent need to adopt a mechanism to respond quickly to complaints about forced disappearances and 'false positives'," Rojas said.

More than a thousand members of the armed forces are suspected of having murdered civilians in Colombia to make the war against illegal armed groups look more effective and to receive rewards.

http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/5218-flood-of-human-rights-violations-in-bogota-ombudsman.html">Colombia Reports

[Judi Lynn]

1. Absolutely filthy procedure. They are dealing with the excessive flow of people into the city

when they are forcing them off their land in order to seize it and sell it to multinationals, or use in their bio-fuel industry. They simply use the dead bodies of the men as proof on ongoing guerrilla warfare, in order to feed the illusion Colombia has such a ferocious war it's conducting (an astonishing lie) that it must be on the U.S. taxpayers' gravy train for the next fifty years.

As the story goes, over and over, they approach the campesino, tell him they want to buy his land, he says he's not selling his land, they tell him they'll just discuss it later with his widow.

They drive them off their land, they come to the city, they seize the men, young boys, drop a gun, or grenade, or article of clothing on them then designate them as dead enemy for the appearance of an ongoing war.

What could be more evil on the face of this earth? Not one blessed thing. They hold the title in Colombia. Filthy ####s.