7 military dismissed over slaughter, 6 arrested for robbery (Colombia)

[struggle4progress]

Sunday, 23 November 2008

The reputation of Colombia's armed forces was harmed further Sunday when five soldiers and their officers were arrested for allegedly robbing a church and another seven members of the military were dismissed over the massacre of a Tolima family in 2004.

The five soldiers and their officer were arrested in Bogotá after witnesses of the church robbery had pointed them out as perpetrators. They werehanded over to the Prosecution who will indict them, Caracol Radio reported.

The Attorney General Sunday decided to dismiss six soldiers and their commander because of the murder of seven civilians in a rural part of the Tolima department, newspaper El Espectador reported.

The army patrol opened fire on a peasant family who they mistakenly took for guerrillas. After realizing their mistake they murdered the only surviving family member to cover up the error ...

http://colombiareports.com/colombian-news/news/2126-7-military-dismissed-over-slaughter-6-arrested-for-robbery.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Jesus Christ. Really brings back the old memories, doesn't it? How many times have we killed

a family, thinking the FAMILY was actually "guerrillas," then had to slaughter the surviving family member so he/she wouldn't tell anyone? Boy, oh boy.

God damn these filthy monsters to the lowest, saddest pits of hell forever. Aren't you glad to know that instead of providing universal health insurance here in the U.S., your tax dollars are going to underwrite this hellish fascist regime?

It's not just the random, occassional evil monstrous act we hear about. This is happening again, and again, and again, from a country where most of the journalists have been driven either out of the country, or to write guardedly, "self-censoring," as they describe it, so they won't be murdered, too. It's a blue-eyed wonder any news gets out from that hell hole at all.

Who on earth can imagine what really happens there which no one ever dares to discuss, for fear of being tortured to death, like some of the others.

Thanks for this article. I hope our Democratic Congressmembers add it to the pile of trash they already have on this rule by sadistic, twisted grotesqueries.

[struggle4progress]

2. Imagine how the Colombian refugees feel. Or imagine how the human rights professionals who work

on Colombia feel. I first tried doing some public education work on Colombia in the mid-1980's: hardly anyone then would believe there was any problem there except turf fights between drug gangs. It seems so little progress has been made in two decades ...

[Judi Lynn]

3. Isn't that the truth? The corporate media anesthetizes them to the point they barely know

there are other countries at all around the United States. Constant reference to all of the Americas as our "backyard" only works among the idiots to trivialize the value of those millions and millions and millions of people south of our own United States.

Immersion in materialism, supercharged by a sense of desperation, emphasis on keeping up with the Jones, periodically planted fear grenades to keep people frightened and unfocused all works together favorably for the fascists among us, the only ones foolish and greedy and power seeking enough to prey on their fellow man/woman politically, economically, socially.

Fear and prejudice and suspicion serve to weaken people, keep them from feeling bonded to the human condition, to each other. Eventually that's going to be overcome.