Colombia Congress considers promoting 5 generals accused of human rights abuses

Colombia Congress considers promoting 5 generals accused of human rights abuses
Nov 24, 2014 posted by Joel Gillin



Several high-ranking military officials who are being considered for promotions have been accused by the leftist opposition of being involved in homicides and extrajudicial executions, according to local media.

In the first stage of their candidacy, a Senate commission voted Thursday to approve the promotion of 34 military officials, with Senator Ivan Cepeda (Democratic Pole) being the only lawmaker who refused to vote, according to W Radio. Another vote will be held in two weeks.

During the debate, Cepeda denounced the fact that he was he only senator who did not receive the resumes of the officials before the vote. He claimed that through his own investigations, he found that at least five of the candidates had questionable backgrounds.

“We have three cases of officials in whose brigades occurred an unusual and unexplained proliferation of extrajudicial executions which could be ‘false positives’,” Cepeda said.

Two are also tied to homicide investigations, according to the senator.

The senator was referring to Colombia’s so-called “false positives” scandal, centered around the extrajudicial killings of thousands of civilians by members of the armed forces who dressed their victims as guerrillas in order to present them as combat kills.

More:
http://colombiareports.co/colombian-congress-considers-5-generals-accused-of-human-rights-abuses/

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