By Hugh Bronstein

BOGOTA, March 27 (Reuters) - Colombian soldiers accused of massacring 11 people in 2005, including three children, have been ordered arrested based on long-awaited evidence from a right-wing paramilitary who helped carry out the killings.

The massacre near the banana-growing town of San Jose de Apartado in northwest Colombia captured international attention because of accusations that the army cooperated with the drug-running paramilitaries.

The attorney general's office said on Thursday the arrest orders against 15 soldiers were based on testimony from former paramilitary Jorge Luis Salgado, who said the illegal militias guided the army on patrols around San Jose de Apartado.

In testimony published on Thursday, he described the long-suspected role played by the army in the massacre.

"The children were under the bed. The girl, about five or six years old, was very nice and the boy was smart as well," Salgado told government prosecutors.

"We suggested to the army officers that we leave the kids at a house nearby, but they said they were a threat, that they would turn into guerrillas in the future," Salgado said.

He then told how one of the officers, known as 'Cobra', took the girl by the hair and cut her throat with a machete.

The government as recently as last year suggested the massacre was the work of Colombia's biggest left-wing rebel group, known as the FARC.

"The tight military-paramilitary collaboration described by this witness should be a wake-up call for Colombia's government to cease denying the accusations and find out how far the collaboration extended," said Maria McFarland, Colombia expert at New York-based Human Rights Watch.

The "paras", many of whom have demobilized in a peace deal, were formed by cocaine smugglers, cattle ranchers and other rich Colombians to help combat Marxist guerrillas fighting the state since the 1960s.

U.S. Democrats have held up a trade deal with Colombia, saying the government has not done enough to reform the army or protect trade union members targeted by the paramilitaries, sometimes with help from state security forces.

Conservative President Alvaro Uribe is highly popular for his U.S.-backed crackdown on the rebels.

But his international standing has been hurt by a scandal linking some close political allies to paramilitaries. A senator from Uribe's coalition was arrested on Thursday, bringing to 23 the number of lawmakers jailed in the scandal. (Reporting by Hugh Bronstein; Editing by Kieran Murray)

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