Colombian government urged to end 'extra-judicial' executions

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Sun, Sep. 28, 2008
Colombian government urged to end 'extra-judicial' executions
A human rights agency has asked the Colombian government to stop 'extra-judicial executions,' which same suspect of acting as death squads.
By GONZALO GUILLEN
El Nuevo Herald

BOGOTA -- The Colombian office of the U.N. High Commission for Human Rights has asked the government and its military to ''clarify and put an end to the practice of alleged extra-judicial executions'' that may have left as many as 80 dead.

The bodies of 45 young men have been found in the past week alone in unmarked graves, 23 of them in northern Santander province, sparking a furor in this violence-riddled South American nation.

Although the identity of the killers has not been determined, Colombian authorities have said they are investigating the possible existence of death squads within the military that portray the dead as enemy combatants killed in firefights.

Other theories are that the young victims were recruited by drug traffickers or paramilitary groups, now reorganizing after the dissolution in 2006 of the umbrella United Self-Defenses of Colombia under a surrender agreement with President Alvaro Uribe.http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/704796.h...

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