CPTnet
July 16, 2002
COLOMBIA: Martens and Young encounter paramilitaries

by Keith Young

On the evening of Friday, June 28, after three months during which no one
from CPT Colombia had had contact with paramilitaries, CPTers Lisa Martens
and Keith Young encountered paramilitaries on the Opon River.

Martens and Young had been traveling on the Opon River when they
noticed nine heavily armed men standing around a civilian's house on
the river bank. Their camouflage fatigues bore no identifying insignia and
their weapons were not Colombian military issue. The commander introduced
himself and said they were from the AUC, the United Auto-defense forces of
Colombia, (a paramilitary group.) He declared that their objective was to
fight the guerrillas, not to bother civilians and that the AUC has not
committed massacres in the last fifteen years.

(According to Amnesty International, at least two paramilitary massacres
occurred in this region in October 2001. Up to thirty-eight people died.
The bodies of ten fishermen abducted by the paramilitaries were never found.
See