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 in Colombia, drug traffic and the guerrilla are the mother of all evils. Or so the official version claims. Statistics on extrajudicial executions, socio-political homicides and forced disappearances reveal, though, that of the 31,656 mortal victims between 1996 and 2006 (1), 13.55% were killed by the guerrilla, 45.63% by paramilitary groups, and 5.12% by agents of the state (2). In Colombia, “left-wing” trade unionists, activists, academics and journalists are viewed as belonging to the guerrilla’s political wing and are selectively murdered. Members of the indigenous people and rural dwellers, both farmers and labourers, are regarded as less than human, and are indiscriminately killed. Many of those now living in the massive suburbs invading the periphery of the major colombian cities are peasants who, having been forcefully driven from their lands by one of the three armed groups, have come here to seek refuge in anonymity. (1) Source: colombian commission of jurists: www.coljuristas.org (2) of the remaining cases, 25% are being studied, and the authors of a further 10% have yet to be identified. |
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