COLOMBIA: The death of Aicardo Ortiz
September 5th, 2008
in:
CPTnet
5 September 2008
COLOMBIA: The death of Aicardo Ortiz
by Scott Nicholson
On 8 July 2008, Aicardo Ortiz, fifty-eight, was shot to death inside his home by members of the Calibio Battalion at approximately 5:30 A.M. The army claimed he was a guerrilla whom soldiers had killed in combat.
I was visiting the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) in the city of Barrancabermeja that week. The Cimitarra River Valley Peasant Association asked the team to accompany a commission to Aicardo's house on 10 July. The mission included a representative of the vice-presidential human rights office, five investigators from the prosecutor's office, and two non-governmental human rights lawyers.
Aicardo lived in a ten-foot by ten-foot wood structure above a small corral a few miles from the community of San Francisco. The investigators spent more than three hours analyzing the scene and then allowed some of us to enter the house. When I got to the doorway, I saw a large blood stain on the floor.
When members of the community arrived at the house after the killing, Aicardo's body was laying on the ground outside. Either Aicardo had somehow been able to get off the floor and make his way down the steps after losing all that blood, or someone had moved his body from the house.
Initially, a two-way radio, a grenade and a revolver lay beside the body. Soldiers in previous cases have planted similar items on victims of their extrajudicial executions. In this case, soldiers later removed the radio and the grenade, which they detonated allegedly for safety concerns.
The Calibio Battalion used four informants from San Francisco who apparently told the soldiers three guerrillas were in Aicardo's house. When Aicardo didn't open the door for the soldiers that morning, they forced it open and shot him.
When we returned to San Francisco, Lieutenant Florez had a brief and very tense meeting with the community. He had been in charge of the operation on 8 July, and he said an exchange of gunfire had occurred and the army had responded in a legal manner.
Two days later, Wilson Ramirez (commander of the Calibio Battalion) was quoted in the Vanguardia Liberal newspaper as saying, "the troops reported an armed confrontation, but it appears that never existed." In relation to the supposed guerrillas in the house, he said, "I have information that there were not those guerrillas in the house."
The Colombian president has put pressure on the military to "show results" and national and international human rights organizations have repeatedly expressed concern about extrajudicial executions in Colombia.
"The international accompaniment (of the commission to the community of San Francisco) was very valuable and it encourages people to speak out, " the regional coordinator of the peasant association told us. "The people feel strong and protected, and we'd like to have continuous accompaniment," added another leader of the association.
For photos of the commission’s visit to the site of Aicardo Ortiz’s murder, see http://cpt.org/gallery/CommisiontoinvestigatethedeathofAicardoAntonioOrtiz.
5 September 2008
COLOMBIA: The death of Aicardo Ortiz
by Scott Nicholson
On 8 July 2008, Aicardo Ortiz, fifty-eight, was shot to death inside his home by members of the Calibio Battalion at approximately 5:30 A.M. The army claimed he was a guerrilla whom soldiers had killed in combat.
I was visiting the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) in the city of Barrancabermeja that week. The Cimitarra River Valley Peasant Association asked the team to accompany a commission to Aicardo's house on 10 July. The mission included a representative of the vice-presidential human rights office, five investigators from the prosecutor's office, and two non-governmental human rights lawyers.
Aicardo lived in a ten-foot by ten-foot wood structure above a small corral a few miles from the community of San Francisco. The investigators spent more than three hours analyzing the scene and then allowed some of us to enter the house. When I got to the doorway, I saw a large blood stain on the floor.
When members of the community arrived at the house after the killing, Aicardo's body was laying on the ground outside. Either Aicardo had somehow been able to get off the floor and make his way down the steps after losing all that blood, or someone had moved his body from the house.
Initially, a two-way radio, a grenade and a revolver lay beside the body. Soldiers in previous cases have planted similar items on victims of their extrajudicial executions. In this case, soldiers later removed the radio and the grenade, which they detonated allegedly for safety concerns.
The Calibio Battalion used four informants from San Francisco who apparently told the soldiers three guerrillas were in Aicardo's house. When Aicardo didn't open the door for the soldiers that morning, they forced it open and shot him.
When we returned to San Francisco, Lieutenant Florez had a brief and very tense meeting with the community. He had been in charge of the operation on 8 July, and he said an exchange of gunfire had occurred and the army had responded in a legal manner.
Two days later, Wilson Ramirez (commander of the Calibio Battalion) was quoted in the Vanguardia Liberal newspaper as saying, "the troops reported an armed confrontation, but it appears that never existed." In relation to the supposed guerrillas in the house, he said, "I have information that there were not those guerrillas in the house."
The Colombian president has put pressure on the military to "show results" and national and international human rights organizations have repeatedly expressed concern about extrajudicial executions in Colombia.
"The international accompaniment (of the commission to the community of San Francisco) was very valuable and it encourages people to speak out, " the regional coordinator of the peasant association told us. "The people feel strong and protected, and we'd like to have continuous accompaniment," added another leader of the association.
For photos of the commission’s visit to the site of Aicardo Ortiz’s murder, see http://cpt.org/gallery/CommisiontoinvestigatethedeathofAicardoAntonioOrtiz.