Pubdate: Sat, 15 Jul 2000 Source: International Herald-Tribune (France) Copyright: International Herald Tribune 2000 Contact: 181, Avenue Charles de Gaulle, 92521 Neuilly Cedex, France Fax: (33) 1 41 43 93 38 Website: http://www.iht.com/ Author: Larry Rohter, New York Times Service COLOMBIA'S RIGHTIST 'DEATH SQUADS' FUEL DEBATE ON U.S. ANTI-DRUG AID EL SALADO, Colombia - The armed men, more than 300 of them, marched into this tiny village early on a Friday. They went straight to the basketball court that doubles as the main square here, announced themselves as members of Colombia's most feared paramilitary group and with a list of names began summoning residents for judgment. A table and chairs were seized from a house, and after the death squad leader had made himself comfortable, the basketball court was turned into a court of execution. The paramilitary troops ordered up liquor and music, and then embarked on a calculated rampage of torture, rape and killing. "To them, it was like a big party," said one of a dozen survivors who described the scene in interviews earlier this month. "They drank and danced and cheered as they butchered us like hogs." By the time they left the following Sunday afternoon, they had killed at least 36 people whom they accused of collaborating with the enemy, leftist guerrillas who have long been a presence in the area. The victims ranged from a six-year-old girl to an elderly woman. As music blared, some of the victims were shot after being tortured; others were stabbed or beaten to death, and several more were strangled. Yet during the three days of killing, military and police units just a few kilometers away made no effort to stop the slaughter. At one point the paramilitaries had a helicopter flown in to rescue a fighter who had been injured trying to drag some victims from their home. Instead of fighting back, the armed forces set up a roadblock on the road to the village shortly after the rampage began and prevented human rights and relief groups from entering and rescuing residents. While the Colombian military has opened three investigations into what happened here and made some paramilitary arrests, top officials insist that fighting was under way in the village between guerrillas and paramilitary forces - not a series of executions. They also insist that the colonel in charge of the region h as been persecuted by prosecutors and human rights groups. Last month he was promoted to general, despite the fact that examinations of the incidents are pending. What happened in El Salado in February, at the moment when President Bill Clinton was pushing an aid package to step up anti-drug efforts here, strikes at the heart of the debate over the growing U.S. backing of the Colombian military. For years the U.S. government and human rights groups have had reservations about the Colombian military leadership, its human rights record and its collaboration with paramilitary units. The Colombian armed forces and police are the principal beneficiaries of a $1.3 billion aid package that Mr. Clinton signed Thursday. The Colombian government says it has been working hard to sever the remnants of ties between the armed forces and the paramilitaries and has been training its soldiers to observe international human rights conventions. "The paramilitaries are some of the worst of the terrorists who profit from drugs in Colombia, and in no way can anyone justify their human rights violations," said General Barry McCaffrey, the White House drug czar. But he added that "the Colombian military is making dramatic improvements in its human rights record," and noted that the aid package includes "significant money, $46 million for human rights training and implementation." But human rights groups, pointing to incidents like the massacre here, say these links still exist and that mechanisms to monitor and punish commanders and units have had limited success at best. "El Salado was the worst recorded massacre yet this year," said Andrew Miller, a Latin American specialist for Amnesty International USA, who spent the past year as an observer near where this massacre occurred. "The Colombian armed forces, specifically the marines, were at best criminally negligent by not responding sooner to the attack. At worst, they were knowledgeable and complicit. " The paramilitary attack on El Salado indeed killed more people and lasted longer than any other in Colombia so far this year. But in most other respects it was an operation so typical of the 5,500-member rightist death squad that goes by the name of the Peasant Self-Defense of Colombia, that the Colombian press treated it as just another atrocity. - --- MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager