Mass graves found in southern Colombia
May 06, 2007 03:15am
INVESTIGATORS have uncovered mass graves containing the bodies of more than 100 people believed to be victims of right-wing militias in southern Colombia.
Judicial authorities and police found the graves in the southern district of Putumayo near the borders of Ecuador and Peru, Interior Minister Carlos Holguin told the Caracol radio station, saying he was "horrified'' at the find.
Public prosecutor Mario Iguaran said there were Ecuadorans among the 105 dead in the series of 65 graves.
A source in the prosecutor's office earlier told AFP that most of those found were local peasants.
He said the discovery was made possible by a law on the demobilisation of paramilitary fighters in the country, allowing for lighter sentences in return for confessions and compensation for victims, even over the worst crimes.
Right-wing paramilitary groups, organised as private armies in the 1980s to protect properties from leftist guerrillas, are accused of numerous massacres of civilians suspected of leftist sympathies.
Hundreds of other corpses have been unearthed in mass graves elsewhere in the country.
The largest umbrella group representing paramilitaries, the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia, is regarded by the United States as a terrorist organisation.
It officially demobilised the last of its 30,000 fighters in April in a deal that guaranteed prison terms of no more than eight years.
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,21680553-5012781,00.html
