UN publishes report on Colombia military killings

Source: Associated Press

May 27, 11:33 AM EDT
UN publishes report on Colombia military killings

GENEVA (AP) -- Colombian security forces committed "a significant number" of murders over the past decade, often for personal profit, and few of the perpetrators have been punished, according to a report published Thursday by an independent U.N. human rights expert.

Philip Alston, the U.N.'s investigator on extrajudicial executions, said in his 36-page report that the number of so-called "false positive" killings by military members surged in 2004.

The term refers to killings in which civilians were lured to remote locations before being shot by soldiers who then dressed their victims in combat garb, or placed a gun in their hand, to make them appear like guerrillas killed in gunfights.

Alston, who made a fact-finding mission to Colombia last year, said the killings didn't appear to be part of government policy but rejected official claims they were isolated incidents.

"There have been too many killings of a similar nature to characterize them as isolated incidents carried out by individual rogue soldiers or units," he said.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/UN_UN_COLOMBIA_MILITARY_KILLINGS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2010-05-27-11-33-25

any body reading the latin american forum knows about it