Columbia - One More Death Squad

...journalist Maria Jimena Duzan...

...aid are insufficient to "wipe out subversion" and urged Congress to increase military aid...

...Though MAS claimed responsibility, Army Commander General Fernando Landazabal Reyes announced to everyone's surprise that Elvecio Ruiz "had been detained by members of the national Army in an operation carried out in a Bogota neighborhood...

...Also targeted for death were voluntarily-exiled Garcia Marquez ("if he returns to Colombia...

...In an open-letter to President Julio Cesar Turbay Ayala in April entitled, "Chronicle of My Announced Death," a play on the title of his most recent novel, Garcia Marquez stressed that MAS' methods "reveal a high technical level, surprising power and a freedom of action that is hard to explain except by the complicity or the complacency of the authorities...

...Peasant organizations have denounced the harassment, including torture, by the Army...

...Each boss was to contribute $36,500 and ten of their "best men" to aid the fight against "common and subversive kidnappers...

...According to a January article in Jornal do Brasil, a mainstream Sao Paolo daily, this region has become a "mini Vietnam in the heart of South America," in which "the military siege, including the closing of the main riverways, by the Colombian Army is slowly starving to death the children of that region...

...Thousands of peasants have also been victimized by the government's counterinsurgency campaign aimed at wiping out guerrilla activity entirely...

...From appropriations of under $1 million in 1980 and 1981, Colombia was awarded $13.5 million in 1982...

...When two defense lawyers showed up later at military headquarters to find out where the prisoners were being held, they were told they had come to the right place...

...The Permanent Committee on Human Rights estimates that hundreds of peasant families have abandoned their land and crops, A government-appointed "peace commission," led by expresident Carlos Lleras Restrepo and charged to come up with a negotiated settlement to the conflict, recently made public an amnesty proposal, the second in less than two years...

...Three common criminals, accused of kidnapping, were also murdered in a Medellin jail...

...Responding to the charges of torture of political dissidents, the State Department recognized that there had been some torture but said that abuses are contrary to official policy...

...Duzan, a reporter for the liberal daily, El Espectador, gained notoriety in late February when she was kidnapped by the M-19 and taken to the southern Caqueta Alan Benjamin is Executive Secretary of the USLA Justice Committee...

...update...

...State Department argued in a 10-page report published last February that Colombia is a democratic nation where civil and political liberties are guaranteed by the government...

...Blaming an independent paramilitary group for disappearances and torture makes it easy for the government to wash its hands of responsibility...

...Fifteen men, equipped with walkie-talkies and sophisticated weaponry, surrounded the building in which the two were meeting, eventually entering through the roof...

...Siege Yields Mini Vietnam The Permanent Committee on Human Rights released a report at the end of last year on abuses attriMar/Apr 1982 CP-linked FARC has been most successful in recruiting peasants...

...32 region to interview two of the group's leaders...

...More Aid, More Repression A 1980 report by Amnesty International concluded that the use of psychological and physical torture NACLA Reportupdate updat update update is widespread in Colombia...

...According to the Duzan interview, the M-19 sees no need to differentiate between MAS and government repression, claiming that the new terrorist group was set up and run by the current administration...

...Ignoring rights abuses and the complicity of the Turbay government in the activities of MAS, the recent State Department report may well pave the way for increased aid, facilitating ever more sophisticated repression of the popular opposition movement...

...In January, Guillermo Elvecio Ruiz Gomez, who the military claims was second in NACLA ReportULate Update update . update command of M-19's 1980 seizure of the Dominican Embassy, was kidnapped and tortured by MAS before being handed over to military authorities...

...These figures do not include the estimated 1,200 detentions following the one-day general strike in October, or increased government repression against peasants in the rural regions of Caqueta, Huila and Uraba...

...buted to government and military tims and their families...

...Terrorists Target Left MAS announced its formation with a flourish last December when a small plane buzzed the stadium where a championship soccer match was in progress, depositing thousands of leaflets on the fans below...

...Covering illegal arrests, 242 torture cases, the first eight months of 1981, the 142 assassinations, 53 disapcases were documented through pearances, 61 cases of intimidapress clips and testimonies of vic- tion, 7 kidnappings, 161 -illegal 33update . updat...

...On March 7, MAS claimed responsibility for a bombing attack on Duzan's home...

...While Colombia depends largely on private and multilateral sources for its development needs -the country is among the select few in Latin America to enjoy a sound credit rating-direct U.S...

...The terrorist group, known as "Death to Kidnappers" (MAS), shot and killed Jorge Enrique Cipagauta Galvis on March 9. Two weeks earlier he had been warned to stop defending members of the M-19, the guerrilla organization which takes its name from the April day in 1970 when populist candidate Gustavo Rojas was robbed of his presidential victory...

...The conversations with Jaime Bateman Cayon and Ivan Marino Ospina were published on March 6,7 and 8 along with Duzan's impressions of life in the guerrilla camps...

...Leyva recently claimed that present levels of U.S...

...Alfredo Vazquez Carrizosa, chairman of the Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Colombia and an ex-foreign minister...

...A newly-formed death squad with clear links to the Colombian military claimed responsibility for the recent death of a prominent Bogota lawyer and issued a "hit list" that included 12 other important figures such as noted writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez...

...In some instances the guerrillas, especially the CP-linked FARC, have tied into existing campesino movements involved in land takeovers, movements targeted for extinction by the government and landowners...

...military aid to Latin America...

...No one was injured...

...Moreover, various human rights organizations in Colombia have documented connections between MAS and the Ministry of National Defense...

...We Got Him -No We Did" Two recent slip-ups on the part of the military seem to corroborate the- suspicion about official acquiescence, if not involvement, with MAS...

...A recent article in Vainas de Macondo, a new journal published by the Colombian Studies Center in Mexico, emphasized the similarity between the methods of operation of MAS and the Colombian military...

...A week later, law professor Ricardo Sanchez, member of the human rights committee and of the Revolutionary Socialist Party, was kidnapped along with a student in a spectacularly professional operation...

...military aid has jumped greatly in the last few years...

...In the Amazon province of Caqueta alone, a virtual war of extermination is being carried out by 34 the government's counterinsurgency forces...

...Following Vice President George Bush's November 1981 visit, Colombian Defense Minister General Luis Carlos Camacho Leyva confirmed the purchase of 12 gunship helicopters (for use in counterinsurgency) at a cost of more than $10 million...

...Among the victims were Luis Javier Cifuentes, leader of the tobacco workers' union, Coltabaco, and Jesus Maria Arias Velez, member of the Bank Employees' Association...

...The scheme called for dropping criminal proceedings against those accused or convicted of "rebellion" but not those charged with political murder or kidnapping...

...Reagan has requested almost an equal amount for fiscal 1983...

...and Humberto Criales de la Rosa, a Communist Party senator and president of the Association of Democratic Journalists...

...B2, the military intelligence body, quickly realized the error and went about trying to cover their tracks...

...update fleeing the Army...

...Like its predecessor, the plan was promptly rejected by the guerrilla groups who are holding out for a full and unconditional amnesty...

...The communique said the organization had been formed at an "assembly" of 223 "mafia bosses" from throughout the country...

...The report authorities and in a few instances offers the following figures: 1,063 to paramilitary groups...

...A number of MAS leaders are former Army and police officials, and many are believed to be linked to the cocaine mafia ring...

...break-ins, 60 injuries, 29 cases of robbery or criminal damage, 12 of people forced off their land and 15 seeking refuge in foreign embassies...

...The article speculated that the group represents an alliance between the drug-mafia bosses and the country's elite, both groups threatened by the leftist challenge...

...Despite this and other evidence of continued and increasing political repression, the U.S...

...In others, tacit support for the guerrilla movement has been enough to provoke widespread government repression against the peasant population...

...This makes Colombia second only to El Salvador in U.S...

...Over the past five months, MAS targets have proved less to be common criminals than trade union and opposition leaders such as Cipagauta...

...The bosses appear bent on stopping the Left's use of kidnapping as a means of financing their activities "at the cost of sacrifice by people like us who have brought progress and employment to the country, donating schools, hospitals, etc.," or so reads the communique...

...Guerrillas Seek Rural Base Decimated by government repression in urban areas, M-19 and other guerrilla groups shifted their activities to the country's southern jungles and western regions such as Choco and Caqueta...