The governor of Colombia’s Narino department on Tuesday accused the FARC leftist rebel group of murdering at least 17 indigenous peasants over alleged collaboration with the army.
Socialist Governor Antonio Navarro said the alleged massacre occurred last Wednesday, according to information related by a witness who survived the slaughter.
Navarro said the witness alleged the victims, members of the Awa indigenous community, had been tied up and stabbed to death. The governor said, however, that human rights officials had not yet been able to launch an investigation.
PROBE
Navaro said UN officials had indicated that the area lacks the “basic security conditions” necessary to conduct a probe.
“It is a difficult jungle area, filled with anti-personnel mines and with a very aggressive guerrilla force that has not the slightest reservations against attacking the civilian population,” Navarro said, adding that he feared a widespread exodus of indigenous people who might flee fearing that they too could be targeted.
The FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the largest guerrilla group operating in the country, has been at war with the federal government for more than four decades.
The southern department of Narino is among Colombia’s most violent, with a heavy presence of various armed groups and military forces, and with some of the country’s most lamentable records on human rights and humanitarian concerns.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday slammed the FARC’s “utter disregard for the lives of civilians and refusal to respect the most basic tenets of humanitarian law.”
NO JUSTIFICATION
“These cruel killings violate the most basic principles of human decency and dignity,” said Jose Miguel Vivanco, Americas director for the group. “There is no possible excuse or justification for these horrific actions.”
HRW called on Colombia’s state and local officials to provide aid to displaced people fleeing the violence and to ensure that rights violations by both the rebels and the government are thoroughly investigated and prosecuted.
Last week the FARC released six hostages to a peace group led by a Colombian senator. The FARC said in a statement it hoped the release would unblock stalled talks aimed at completing a hostages-for-prisoners swap.
On Monday six Colombian soldiers were killed in the southern part of the country in an attack the military said was conducted by FARC rebels.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
Hundreds of thousands of Guyana citizens living at home and abroad would receive a payout of about US$478 each after the country announced it was distributing its “mind-boggling” oil wealth. The grant of 100,000 Guyanese dollars would be available to any citizen of the South American country aged 18 and older with a valid passport or identification card. Guyanese citizens who normally live abroad would be eligible, but must be in Guyana to collect the payment. The payout was originally planned as a 200,000 Guyanese dollar grant for each household in the country, but was reframed after concerns that some citizens, including
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
RSS