Mother in Colombia: 'Never crossed my mind' that army killed her son

mariacvetanoski says on Jun 16, 2009, 04:32:

SOACHA, Colombia -- Julián Oviedo wanted to become a Colombian army soldier as soon as he turned 20.

The young construction worker needed one more year to fulfill his family's military tradition: His father, three male siblings and an uncle (who was killed by the guerrillas) had been in the Army.

''It never crossed my mind that my son had been killed by the army,'' his mother, Blanca Nubia Monroy, said in a recent interview with El Nuevo Herald.

Oviedo, 19, was one of several young men who disappeared last year in Soacha, a populous city south of Bogotá. Weeks after their disappearance, they were found by their families in unmarked graves, about 190 miles from the capital. They had been buried there as guerrillas of the FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, killed in combat.

The death of the young men of Soacha marked the beginning of the scandal of the ''false positives'' in Colombia, a journalistic term that describes the systematic execution of innocent civilians by servicemen who later collect rewards in money, promotion or vacations. In military jargon, a ''positive'' is an enemy kill.

After the denunciations of mothers such as Monroy, a flood of similar cases from different parts of the country inundated the nation's attorney general's office. The prosecutor is investigating the murder, under circumstances similar to Oviedo's, of more than 1,800 people, a situation that has triggered an international scandal.

The investigation is the motive for the visit to Bogotá this week of Philip Alston, the United Nations' special rapporteur for nonjudicial and summary executions.

Soacha, population 700,000, is the capital of displaced persons in Colombia. In many of the half-built dwellings crammed on the hillsides overlooking the city live thousands of peasant families that have been displaced once or twice by actions of the guerrilla or the paramilitaries in the regions where they had farmed.

With few differences, the testimonies of several Soacha mothers who lost their sons in ''false positive'' executions coincide in the fact that the tragedy began early last year, when some recruiters persuaded their sons to move to Colombia's northeast, telling them they would find jobs with good salaries.

In Oviedo's case, says Monroy, 50, he was contacted by two young men whom she remembers only by the names Pedro and Alexander. The latter owned a bar in Soacha. Both called her son several times on March 2, 2008, to summon him to a meeting where they would make him a job offer.

Oviedo, whom Monroy described as a reserved, not very sociable young man who devoted himself to writing rap songs and watching gospel programs on TV, prepared for the appointment and left his home at about 7 p.m.

'When I came home after buying food at the store, he was ready to leave and said he didn't want to eat. ``Save me some food, 'cause I won't take long. Truth is, I'm hungry,' '' Monroy recalls him saying. ``Then he went out and never returned.''

According to the investigation, Oviedo was murdered the following day in the municipality of Villa Caro, near Ocaña, a city in the province of Norte de Santander. He was wearing a guerrilla uniform.

That afternoon, Monroy felt that something awful had happened to her son.

'As I prepared dinner at about 6 o'clock, I felt -- I don't know if it was a hunch -- I heard his voice calling me, `Mamá,' '' the mother said. 'I rushed to the window to see if he was outside, on the street. Then I burst into tears, and kept saying, `What has happened to my son, what has happened?' ''

Word of the disappearance of Oviedo and other young men spread throughout Soacha and reached the ears of Fernando Escobar, a kind of community ombudsman. Escobar decided to support the efforts to speak out against the disappearances. He also persuaded the relatives to tell everyone about their tragedy.

Since then, Escobar has been the object of several threats against his life, which has forced him to move about with bodyguards, in an armored vehicle.

Little by little, the truth emerged. Most of the young men had been taken to Santander and Norte de Santander, enticed by job offers.

Save the street children of Colombia Now!!

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jonny305 says on Jun 16, 2009, 06:13:

terrible the things people do

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Robert Jorge says on Jun 22, 2009, 23:26:

Horrible story. And incentives to whack a FARC? ......

"You can not take the barrio out of the girl you really can't." Oneforamillion

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