[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 14604-14607]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                         MASSACRES IN COLOMBIA

  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I want to bring something to the 
attention of the Senate today. Even though most Senators are gone, I 
want to do this because I think it should be done in as public a way as 
possible. I bring to the attention of colleagues a piece in the New 
York Times. It is a front-page story, ``Colombians Tell of Massacre, as 
Army Stood By.''
  When you read this story, there will be tears in your eyes. I don't 
know whether they will be tears of sadness or tears of anger. I will 
read just the first few paragraphs:
       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, residents said, announced themselves as members of 
     Colombia's most feared right-wing paramilitary group, and 
     with a list of names began summoning residents for judgment.
       A table and chairs were taken from a house, and after the 
     death squad leader had made himself comfortable, the 
     basketball court was turned into a court of execution, 
     villagers said. The paramilitary troops ordered 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 this month. 
     ``They drank and danced and cheered as they butchered us like 
     hogs.''
       By the time they left, late the following Sunday afternoon, 
     they had killed at least 36 people whom they accused of 
     collaborating with the enemy, left-wing guerrillas who have 
     long been a presence in the area. The victims, for the most 
     part, were men, but others ranged from a 6-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 last February, 
     military and police units just a few miles away made no 
     effort to stop the slaughter, witnesses said. At one point, 
     they said, 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 way 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 has made some 
     arrests of paramilitaries, top military 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 has been 
     persecuted by

[[Page 14605]]

     government prosecutors and human rights groups. Last month he 
     was promoted to general, even though examinations of the 
     incidents are pending.

  I ask unanimous consent the entire article be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the New York Times, July 14, 2000]

  Villagers Tell of a Massacre in Colombia, With the Army Standing By

                           (By Larry Rohter)

       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, residents said, announced themselves as members of 
     Colombia's most feared right-wing paramilitary group, and 
     with a list of names began summoning residents for judgment.
       A table and chairs were taken from a house, and after the 
     death squad leader had made himself comfortable, the 
     basketball court was turned into a court of execution, 
     villagers said. The paramilitary troops ordered 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 this month. 
     ``They drank and danced and cheered as they butchered us like 
     hogs.''
       By the time they left, late the following Sunday afternoon, 
     they had killed at least 36 people whom they accused of 
     collaborating with the enemy, left-wing guerrillas who have 
     long been a presence in the area. The victims, for the most 
     part, were men, but others ranged from a 6-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 last February, 
     military and police units just a few miles away made no 
     effort to stop the slaughter, witnesses said. At one point, 
     they said, 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 way 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 happed here and has made some 
     arrests of paramilitaries, top military 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 has been 
     persecuted by government prosecutors and human rights groups. 
     Last month he was promoted to general, even though 
     examinations of the incidents are pending.
       What happened in El Salado last February--at the same time 
     that President Clinton was pushing an aid package to step up 
     antidrug efforts here--goes to the heart of the debate over 
     the growing American backing of the Colombian military. For 
     years the United States 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 new $1.3 billion aid package from 
     Washington. 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 even during 
     combat.
       ``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 Gen. 
     Barry R. McCaffrey, the White House drug policy director. But 
     he said ``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 here. ``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 killed more people and 
     lasted longer than any other in Colombia this year. But in 
     most other respects it was an operation so typical of the 
     5,500-member right-wing death squad that goes by the name of 
     the Peasant Self-Defense of Colombia that the Colombian press 
     treated it as just another atrocity.
       The paramilitary groups were founded in the early 1980's, 
     mostly funded by agricultural interests to protect them from 
     extortion and kidnapping by the left-wing guerrillas. The 
     groups were declared illegal over a decade ago, but have 
     continued to operate, often with clandestine military support 
     and intelligence, and in recent years have become 
     increasingly involved in drug trafficking.
       Over the past 18 months, more than 2,500 people, most of 
     them unarmed peasants in rural areas like this village in 
     northern Colombia, have died in more than 500 attacks by what 
     the Colombian government calls ``illegal armed groups'' 
     involved in the country's 35-year-old civil conflict. And 
     according to the government, right-wing paramilitary groups 
     are responsible for most of those killings.
       Since the El Salado massacre, nearly 3,000 residents of the 
     area have fled to nearby towns, including El Carmen de 
     Bolivar and Ovejas, as well as the provincial capital, 
     Cartagena. Early this month, more than a dozen of the 
     survivors were interviewed in the towns where they have taken 
     refuge under the protection of human rights groups or the 
     Roman Catholic Church.
       Despite efforts to protect them, however, some have 
     recently been killed in individual attacks or have 
     disappeared, actions for which the same paramilitary group 
     that attacked their village has been blamed. As a result, all 
     of the survivors interviewed for this story spoke on 
     condition that their names not be used.
       Their accounts, however, coincide with investigations 
     conducted by the Colombian government prosecutor's office and 
     by the Colombia office of the United Nations high 
     commissioner for human rights.
       Members of a paramilitary unit had attacked this village in 
     1997, killing five people and warning that they would 
     eventually come back. Many residents fled then, but returned 
     after a few months believing that they were safe until the 
     death squad suddenly reappeared on the morning of Feb. 18.
       ``I looked up at the hills, and could see armed men 
     everywhere, blocking every possible exit,'' a farmer 
     recalled. ``They had surrounded the town, and almost as soon 
     as they came down, they began firing their guns and shouting, 
     `Death to the guerrillas.' ''
       The death squad troops, almost all dressed in military-
     style uniforms with a blue patch, made their way to the 
     basketball court at the center of the village. The took 
     tables and chairs from a nearby building, pulled out a list 
     of names and began the search for victims.
       ``Some people were shot, but a lot of them were beaten with 
     clubs and then stabbed with knives or sliced up with 
     machetes,'' one witness said. ``A few people were beheaded, 
     or strangled with metal wires, while others had their throats 
     cut.''
       The list of those to be executed was supplied by two men, 
     one wearing a ski mask. Paramilitary leaders, who have 
     acknowledged the attack on El Salado but describe it as 
     combat with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known 
     as the FARC, said the two were FARC deserters who had dealt 
     with local people and knew who had been guerrilla 
     sympathizers.
       ``It was all done very methodically,'' one witness said. 
     ``Some people were brought to the basketball court, but were 
     saved because someone would say, `Not that one,' and they 
     would be allowed to leave. But I saw a woman neighbor of 
     mine, who I know had nothing at all to do with the 
     guerrillas, knocked down with clubs and then stabbed to 
     death.''
       While some paramilitaries searched for people to kill, 
     others were breaking into shops and stealing beer, rum and 
     whisky. Before long, a macabre party atmosphere prevailed, 
     with the paramilitaries setting up radios with dance music 
     and ordering a local guitarist and accordionist to play.
       In addition, a young waitress from a cantina adjoining the 
     basketball court was ordered to keep a steady supply of 
     liquor flowing. As the armed men grew drunk and rowdy, they 
     repeatedly raped her, along with several other women, 
     according to residents and human rights groups.
       As night fell, some residents fled to the wooded hills 
     above town. Others, however stayed in their homes, afraid of 
     being caught if they tried to escape, unable to move because 
     they had small children, or convinced that they would not be 
     harmed.
       Saturday was more of the same. ``All day long we could hear 
     occasional bursts of gunfire, along with the screams and 
     cries of those who were being tortured and killed,'' said a 
     women who had taken refuge in the hills with her small 
     children.
       Of the 36 people killed in town, 16 were executed at the 
     basketball court. And additional 18 people were killed in the 
     countryside, residents and human rights workers said, and 17 
     more are still missing, making for a death toll that could be 
     as high as 71.
       By Friday afternoon, however, news of the slaughter had 
     spread to El Carmen de Bolivar, about 15 miles away. 
     Relatives of El Salado residents rushed to local police and 
     military posts, but were rebuffed.
       ``We made a scandal and nearly caused a riot, we were so 
     insistent,'' said a 40-year-old-man who had left El Salado 
     early on Friday because he had business in town. ``But they 
     did nothing to help us.''

[[Page 14606]]

       Besides not coming to the aid of villagers here, the armed 
     forces and the police set up roadblocks that prevented others 
     from entering the town to help. Anyone seeking to enter the 
     area was told the road was unsafe because it had been mined 
     and that combat was going on between guerrilla and 
     paramilitary units.
       In a telephone interview, three Colombian Navy admirals 
     said that residents of El Salado were accusing the military 
     of complicity in the massacre because they have been coerced 
     by guerrillas. The roadblock was set up, they said, to 
     prevent more deaths or injuries to civilians.
       ``At no point was there collaboration on our part, nor 
     would we have permitted their passage'' through the area, Adm 
     William Porras, the second in command of the Colombian Navy, 
     said on the death squad unit. ``We never at any point were 
     covering up for them or helping them, as all the subsequent 
     investigations have shown.''
       But local residents, Colombian prosecutors investigating 
     the massacre and human rights groups say there was no combat. 
     Villagers say that the armed forces had not been in the 
     center of El Salado recently, and that they had left the 
     outlying areas a day before. Residents also say they had 
     passed over the dirt road that Friday morning and there were 
     no mines.
       ``The army was on patrol for two or three days before the 
     massacre took place, and then suddenly they disappeared,'' 
     recalled a 43-year-old tobacco farmer. ``It can't be 
     explained, and it seems very curious to me.''
       What has been established is that the villagers were simple 
     peasants, and not the guerrillas the paramilitary leader says 
     his troops were fighting. ``It is quite clear that these were 
     defenseless people and that what they were subjected to was 
     not combat, but abuse and torture,'' said a foreign diplomat 
     who has been investigating.
       Residents said the paramilitaries felt so certain that 
     government security forces would stay away that late on 
     Friday they had a helicopter flown in. It landed in front of 
     a church and picked up a death squad fighter who was injured 
     when a family he was trying to drag out of their house to be 
     taken to the basketball court resisted.
       In a report published last February, Human Rights Watch 
     found ``detailed, abundant and compelling evidence of 
     continuing close ties between the Colombian Army and 
     paramilitary groups responsible for gross human rights 
     violations.'' All told, ``half of Colombia's 18 brigade-level 
     units have documented links to paramilitary activity,'' the 
     report concluded.
       ``Far from moving decisively to sever ties to 
     paramilitaries, Human Rights Watch's evidence strongly 
     suggests that Colombia's military high command has yet to 
     take the necessary steps to accomplish this goal,'' the 
     report stated.
       At the time of the El Salado massacre, the senior military 
     officer in this region was Col. Rodrigo Quinones Cardenas, 
     commander of the First Navy Brigade, who has since been 
     promoted to general. As director of Naval Intelligence in the 
     early 1990's, he was identified by Colombian prosecutors as 
     the organizer of a paramilitary network responsible for the 
     killings of 57 trade unionists, human rights workers and 
     members of a left-wing political party.
       In 1994, Colonel Quinones and seven other soldiers were 
     charged with ``conspiring to form or collaborate with armed 
     groups.'' But after the main witness against him was killed 
     in a maximum security prison and the case was moved from a 
     civilian court to a military tribunal, the colonel was 
     acquitted.
       According to the same investigation by Colombian 
     prosecutors, one of Colonel Quinones's closest associates in 
     that paramilitary network was Harold Mantilla, a colonel in 
     the Colombian Marines. Today, Colonel Mantilla is commander 
     of the Fifth Marine Battalion, which operates in the area 
     around El Salado and is one of the units said by residents 
     and human rights workers to have failed to respond to appeals 
     for help.
       After the paramilitary unit left El Salado, the police 
     captured 11 paramilitaries northeast of here on the ranch of 
     a drug trafficker who is in prison in Bogota. Along with four 
     others who were arrested separately, they are facing murder 
     charges, but their leaders and most of the others who carried 
     out the killings remain free.
       More than four months after the massacre, El Salado is 
     virtually deserted. Only one of the town's 1,330 original 
     residents was present when a reporter and human rights 
     workers visited early this month, and he said the village 
     remains as it was the day the death squad left, except for 
     the two mass graves on a rise near the basketball court where 
     the bodies were buried and later exhumed for investigators.
       The tables and chairs used by the paramilitary ``judges,'' 
     smashed or overturned as they left, are still strewn across 
     the basketball court.
       ``I don't know if the people are ever going to want to come 
     back again,'' the resident said. ``What happened here was 
     just too terrible to bear, and we didn't deserve it.''

  Mr. WELLSTONE. We just voted, with essentially no strings attached, 
to be involved in a military operation in Colombia with the money going 
for a military operation, to a military that does not lift a finger 
while these paramilitary death squads go in and massacre innocent 
people. I say to Senators, Democrats and Republicans, this is no longer 
Colombia's business. This is our business because we now have provided 
the money for just such a military, which is complicit, not only in 
human rights violations--I spoke about this on the floor of the 
Senate--but in this particular case in the murder of innocent people, 
including small children.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter I sent 
to Secretary Albright.
  There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                                  U.S. Senate,

                                    Washington, DC, July 14, 2000.
     Hon. Madeleine K. Albright,
     Secretary of State,
     U.S. Department of State,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Secretary Albright: I write to express my profound 
     concern over the reported murder and disappearance of 71 
     civilians in February in El Salado and six civilians this 
     past weekend in La Union, Colombia. Both massacres were 
     allegedly committed by paramilitary groups in collaboration 
     with members of the Colombia Armed Forces. I urge you to move 
     swiftly to investigate these claims and to ensure that those 
     involved in these atrocities are brought to justice.
       According to a report today in the New York Times, on 
     February 17th a paramilitary group killed 36 people in El 
     Salado, sixteen of which were executed in the town's 
     basketball court. Another 18 were killed in the surrounding 
     countryside, and 17 are still missing. At the time of the 
     massacre, the senior military office in the region was Col. 
     Rodrigo Quinones Cardenas, commander of the First Navy 
     Brigade, who has since been promoted to general. Not only did 
     military and police units in the area not come to the aid of 
     the villagers, they allegedly set up road blocks which 
     prevented others from entering the town to provide assistance 
     to the victims. While the evidence in this case strongly 
     indicates the link between the armed forces and the 
     paramilitaries in the massacre at El Salado, it clearly 
     confirms a negligence of the duty of the Colombian military 
     and police to protect the civilian population. Similarly, on 
     July 8, helicopters and soldiers from the Colombian 17th Army 
     Brigade appear to have facilitated killings of six men by a 
     paramilitary unit in La Union.
       Yesterday, the President signed a bill that will provide 
     approximately $1 billion in emergency supplemental assistance 
     to the Colombian government to support its counter narcotics 
     efforts. During the debate in Congress over Plan Colombia, I 
     and many of my colleagues objected to the plan's military 
     component, the ``Push into Southern Colombia,'' given the 
     detailed and abundant evidence of continuing close ties 
     between the Colombian Army and paramilitary groups 
     responsible for gross human rights violations. The final 
     package was conditioned on the Administration and the 
     Colombian government ensuring that ties between the Armed 
     Forces and paramilitaries are severed, and that Colombian 
     Armed Forces personnel who are credibly alleged to have 
     committed gross human rights violations are held accountable.
       Instead of moving decisively to sever ties to 
     paramilitaries, some elements in Colombia's military high 
     command continue to work with paramilitary groups and have 
     yet to take the necessary steps to accomplish that goal. For 
     example, Col. Cardenas was the senior military officer 
     overseeing the El Salado area at the time of the massacre, 
     and was identified by Colombian prosecutors in the early 
     1990's as the organizer of a paramilitary network responsible 
     for the killings of 57 trade unionist and human workers. 
     Nevertheless, since the killings in El Salado in February, he 
     has received a promotion to general. How does this 
     demonstrate the Colombian military's stated commitment to 
     clean up its house? Is it the policy of the Colombian 
     military to offer promotions to officers involved in 
     incidences about which investigations for human rights abuses 
     are pending?
       I am very concerned about the credibility of the vetting 
     process used to insure that Colombian soldiers accused of 
     human rights violations will not serve in the battalions 
     scheduled to receive training from the United States 
     military. It is my understanding that the vetting process 
     checks only for those accusations of direct involvement in 
     human rights violations and does not consider the fact that 
     soldiers may indirectly facilitate abuses. This is reported 
     to have been the case in El Salado.
       During the debate surrounding Plan Colombia, the 
     Administration and the Colombian government pledged to work 
     to reduce the production and supply of cocaine while 
     protecting human rights. The continuing reports of human 
     rights abuses in Colombia confirm my grave reservations 
     regarding the Administration's ability to effectively manage 
     the use of the resources that will be provided while 
     protecting the human rights of

[[Page 14607]]

     Colombian citizens. To that end, I respectfully seek answers 
     to the following questions:
       (1) How will the Administration ensure a vetting process 
     guaranteeing that Colombians indirectly facilitating human 
     rights violations, as well as those accused of direct 
     violations, will not serve in battalions being trained by the 
     United States military?
       (2) What will the Administration do to ensure that the 
     alleged murders and human rights abuses in El Salado are 
     investigated, and that those responsible are prosecuted?
       (3) How will the Administration address the needs of the 
     victims at El Salado, including the nearly 3,000 residents 
     displaced by the incident?
       Thank you for your attention to this matter. I look forward 
     to your response.
           Sincerely,
                                                Paul D. Wellstone,
                                                     U.S. Senator.

  Mr. WELLSTONE. I conclude this letter:

       During this debate surrounding Plan Colombia, the 
     Administration and the Colombian government pledged to work 
     to reduce the production and supply of cocaine while 
     protecting human rights. The continuing reports of human 
     rights abuses in Colombia confirm my grave reservations 
     regarding the Administration's ability to effectively manage 
     the use of the resources that will be provided while 
     protecting the human rights of Colombian citizens. To that 
     end I respectfully seek answers to the following questions.
       I respectfully seek answers to the following questions from 
     Secretary Albright.
       No. 1, How will the Administration ensure a vetting process 
     guaranteeing that Colombians indirectly facilitating human 
     rights violations, as well as those accused of direct 
     violations, will not serve in battalions being trained by the 
     United States military?
       I want an answer to that question from the Secretary of 
     State.
       No. 2, What will the Administration do to ensure that the 
     alleged murderers and human rights abuses in El Salado are 
     investigated, and that those responsible are prosecuted?
       No. 3, How will the Administration address the needs of the 
     victims at El Salado, including the nearly 3,000 residents 
     displaced by the incident?

  Mr. President, I want to conclude by thanking my colleague, Senator 
Bryan, for his graciousness, but also by saying to Senators, again, 
this front-page story--and I just wrote the administration about 
another massacre just a few days ago in Colombia--this is our business.
  We support this government. We are supporting the military operation 
in the south. We are supporting this military with this kind of record, 
complicity in this kind of slaughter of innocent people.
  I hope Secretary Albright will respond to this letter in an 
expeditious way. I will continue to come to the floor of the Senate and 
speak out about what is going on in Colombia. Senator Durbin is very 
concerned. Senator Reed is very concerned. Senator Biden is very 
concerned. He had a different position on this Colombia aid package. 
All should speak out, whatever our vote was on this legislation, 
because this is our business. This is being done, if not directly, 
indirectly, in our name.
  I thank my colleague from Nevada. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. BRYAN. Mr. President, I am always pleased to yield to my friend 
and colleague from Minnesota. I know how deeply he feels about these 
issues. I was happy to provide him the time to speak.

                          ____________________