THE DIRTY RECORD OF BRIGADIER ORTIZ

Counterinsurgency troops of the 7th Brigade of the Colombian army have been coordinating their operations with local paramilitary forces, leading to the disappearance of a 16-year-old girl among others. Regrettably this is only the tip of the iceberg for 2002 and the abuses are ongoing.

07.03.2002 (By Alfredo Castro, ANNCOL Colombia) According to the most recent figures from the Colombian Commission of Jurists, the military and paramilitary forces are responsible for some 84% of all human rights abuses perpetrated against civilians in Colombia each year.

The close links between the paramilitary death squads and the official Colombian armed forces are well documented and many human rights groups and Colombian citizens now refer to the paramilitaries as the "Sixth Division" - the Colombian armed forces have only five divisions.

Unfortunately nothing has been done to effectively reduce these links and in the first months of 2002 the violations committed by this military-paramilitary partnership have been massive and bloody.

In Meta department counterinsurgency troops of the 7th Brigade of the Colombian army (which is cleared to receive US military aid and has received visits from mobile US Special Forces training units) have been coordinating their operations with local paramilitary forces, leading to the disappearance of a 16-year-old girl among others. Another army-allied paramilitary unit in the departmental capital of Villavicencio has been killing and threatening local members of the displaced community.