Colombian Military Attacks Campesinos

On August 7th, 2005 the same Calibio Battalion assassinated a known community leader, Luis Sigifredo Castaño. A member of the community remembers him, “He was a kind man. We had known him for over 15 years. He was part of CAHUCOPANA, a new campesino human rights organization. Sigifredo was not an insurgent as the military accused.” Denouncements made by a local campesino association, the ACVC, stated that, “[Sigifredo] was found dressed in camouflage, even though everyone in the region knew he was a campesino and was disabled.”

The Colombian military continuously uses the tactic of killing campesinos, dressing them in camouflage, and denouncing them as insurgency. A member of Sigifredos family stated, “The Calibio Battalion came to the house at six in the morning, they grabbed him, tied him up and demanded to know where the guerrilla camps were. But he knew nothing of the sort. He was in shorts, a t-shirt, and some rubber boots when they took him. At 8 in the morning, about 100 meters from the house we heard machine gun fire. When the military left at 4pm we saw them taking his dead body dressed in camouflage.” Members of the Battalion Calibio have been confirmed by various campesino sources to work with and actually operate as paramilitaries.

Read More (with photos):
http://narconews.com/Issue39/article1488.html