Reports of extrajudicial killings and domestic wiretapping in Colombia are troubling, but Bogota has made enough progress on human rights to receive the remainder of its US military aid, the US State Department said on Friday.
Colombia, the world’s top cocaine exporter, has received more than US$6 billion in mostly military and anti-narcotics aid from Washington since 2000 to help it battle drug traffickers and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas waging Latin America’s oldest insurgency.
Under US law a portion of the aid is withheld each year until the State Department certifies to Congress that Colombia is meeting requirements regarding human rights and paramilitary groups.
US lawmakers placed the condition on the aid because of concerns about the increase in right-wing paramilitary activity and extrajudicial killings amid Colombian President Alvaro Uribe’s drive to end the country’s 45-year leftist insurgency.
“There is no question that improvement must be made in certain areas,” State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said.
“However, the Colombian government has made significant efforts to increase the security of its people and to promote respect for human rights by its armed forces and has thereby met the certification criteria,” he said.
Kelly voiced concern about extrajudicial killings of men and boys from the poor Bogota suburb of Soacha. Nineteen young men from the suburb were slain by troops who tried to pass the bodies off as dead rebels in the guerrilla war.
An investigation found the soldiers were trying to inflate the body count in order to win promotions and bonuses promised by officers trying to crush the insurgency.
Kelly said the armed forces and prosecutor general in Colombia were swift to take action, dismissing 45 service members and investigating 75 soldiers.
He also expressed US concern about allegations of domestic wiretapping and surveillance by the Department of Administrative Security, calling them “troubling and unacceptable.”
Meanwhile, police said two bombs carried by donkeys exploded in northeastern Colombia, killing two coca-eradication workers and wounding six soldiers.
Police General Orlando Pineda said the workers were heading for a field to destroy coca plants when the explosives went off.
Officials attributed the attack to FARC.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in