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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| Colombia Fires 27 From Army Over Killings |
| 2008-10-31 |
| The Colombian government on Wednesday fired 27 army officers and soldiers, including three generals, amid allegations that poor young men had been lured to the country's turbulent outback from slums in the capital and killed there by troops. The purge, announced by President Alvaro Uribe at a news conference, is considered unprecedented for Colombia's large, U.S.-backed army, which has long resisted reforms. The dismissals came as Uribe faces criticism abroad for his administration's human rights record while he attempts to lobby a Democratic-controlled Congress in Washington to support a free trade deal. The president's office issued a statement that outlined serious command-and-control problems in the army an d said soldiers might have collaborated with criminal bands to inflate the number of combat deaths, traditionally used by the military as a measure of success. "In some instances, there has been negligence in the army, and that has permitted some people to involve themselves in crimes, which in some regions end in the killings of innocents to show success against the criminals," Uribe said. The head of the armed forces, Gen. Freddy Padilla, read the names of the officers and soldiers removed from service, including four colonels and seven lieutenant colonels. The generals were Paulino Coronado, who oversaw the region where the young men from Bogota were killed, and two division commanders, José Joaquin Cortés and Roberto Pico Hernandez. The last time the government purged so many officers at once was during the administration of President Andrés Pastrana. "It's certainly the biggest one-day purge," said Adam Isacson, a senior military analyst at the Center for International Policy in Washington. "Uribe has fired generals before, not always for human rights violations. But these are the biggest human rights-related firings in about 10 years." |
| Posted by:Fred |