Colombia suspends top officer over "paras" probe
Source: Reuters
By Patrick Markey BOGOTA, Jan 26 (Reuters) - Colombia on Friday suspended a high-ranking army officer under investigation for links to illegal paramilitaries who are accused of committing some of the worst atrocities in the country's four-decade conflict. The colonel, removed from his post pending a probe, is the first active top military officer caught up in a widening scandal involving ties among the right-wing militia commanders, politicians and business leaders. President Alvaro Uribe, a conservative Washington ally who has received billions of dollars in U.S. aid to fight Marxist guerrillas and drug traffickers, says he backs the growing probe to allow a purge of those tied to the paramilitaries. Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said the colonel was under investigation for links to militia boss Rodrigo "Jorge 40" Tovar, corruption, human rights violations and falsifying military results against insurgents. "After receiving this information, the ministry moved to ensure the accusations were passed on to military justice," the ministry statement said without naming the colonel. Santos declined to name the officer, but an army spokesman said it was Col. Hernan Mejia, who was once a commander in Valledupar province, the center of influence of Jorge 40's paramilitary movement before he joined a peace deal to demobilize in exchange for reduced prison time. As part of his U.S.-backed crackdown on armed groups, Uribe has negotiated the disarming of more than 31,000 paramilitaries who agreed to demobilize, confess, and compensate victims in return for prison terms of no more than eight years. Rights groups and victims have long denounced links between the military and the paramilitaries, who carried out a vicious counterinsurgency campaign. Thousands of victims were massacred or kidnapped, often only on suspicion of guerrilla sympathies. Details are emerging of one of darker chapters of Colombia history as imprisoned paramilitary leaders begin to testify about their part in murders and massacres and their links to the political elite. Several of Uribe's congressional allies have been arrested and others are under investigation for aiding, financing or helping organize paramilitary groups set up in the 1980s by rich landowners looking for protection for guerrillas. Salvatore Mancuso, a top militia commander, has testified that he received support from some military officers and recently revealed an accord he signed with a group of politicians. (Additional reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta in Bogota)
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