IPS-English COLOMBIA: Inquiry Fails to Clear Up Mystery of Hostages' Deaths Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 19:36:08 -0700 Helda Martínez BOGOTA, Sep 17 (IPS) - ”We didn't need an International Forensic Commission to tell us this was homicide. The Organisation of American States (OAS) report about the deaths of the legislators from Valle del Cauca (in Colombia) saddens and disappoints us,” lawyer Faisury Perdomo told IPS. ”We will take the case to however many national and international courts are necessary, because we need to know the truth,” said Diego Quintero, brother of Alberto Quintero, who was one of the 11 deputies killed in June. Their bodies were handed over to their families last week. The lawmakers, together with their colleague Sigifredo López, were kidnapped by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) from the provincial legislature in the western Valle del Cauca in 2002. On Jun. 28, the leftwing guerrillas said that the 11 politicians had been killed in the crossfire during an armed clash on Jun. 18. The FARC also said that López had survived because at that moment he wasn't with the other hostages. But the Colombian government of rightwing President Álvaro Uribe said that the 11 were murdered in cold blood. In addition to Quintero, the deceased were Carlos Barragán, Carlos Charry, Jairo Hoyos, Héctor Arismendy, Nacianceno Orozco, Rufino Varela, Francisco Giraldo, Ramiro Echeverry, Edinson Pérez and Juan Narváez. In order to clarify how the hostages were shot to death, Bogotá asked the Organisation of American States (OAS) to investigate. The OAS International Forensic Commission's report, which was released Sept. 14, concluded that the hostages died from multiple gunshot wounds, with bullets coming from different directions. Therefore, ”to conclude that this was an execution would be speculative,” said the Commission's coordinator, Canadian forensic doctor James Young, in the report given to OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza at a closed door meeting in Cali, the capital of Valle del Cauca. Young added that the commission was able to conclude that the deputies were victims of homicide, but could not identify the authors of the crime. ”The report does not diminish our suffering during the five years they were kidnapped, plus the four months we've waited for their bodies, with our sorrow measured out in minutes and hours, first imagining how they must be suffering while they were hostages, and now still in doubt as to how they died,” said lawyer Perdomo, Narváez's sister-in-law. ”My sister Fabiola (Narváez's wife, and spokeswoman for the victims' families) says that what you don't know, you can't forgive. I agree with her. And as we're not people who hate compulsively, we will continue to seek the truth,” she said. The International Forensic Commission's report was published, in English only, on the web site of the Colombian president's office late on Sept. 14. ”As relatives of the victims, we hope that a copy of the report in Spanish will be given to us personally,” Quintero told IPS. ”The information we have received is that the gunshots followed different trajectories and two different kinds of ammunition were used,” Quintero continued. ”That makes me think, speaking personally, that it's possible that the deputies were used as human shields.” ”This is why we are going to persevere all the way to the end. I have asked Faisury Perdomo, who is well acquainted with the case, to represent us at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and before the relevant national courts,” he said. ”Six of the families are prepared to empower her and however many other lawyers are necessary to act for us,” he said. According to the forensic report, several bodies showed signs of more than 10 bullet wounds, and the shots came from every direction. But Perdomo said that ”Eighty percent were shot in one direction, from back to front, which suggests that they were taken by surprise. However, speculation only does more harm, which is why the report disappointed us so deeply.” Added to the grief of the relatives of the deceased deputies is the continuing uncertainty of relatives of hostages still held by the guerrillas, like Ingrid Betancourt and Clara Rojas. ”Yolanda Pulecio and Clara González (the mothers of Betancourt and Rojas) came to the funerals of our relatives, as did the wives of six other hostages. They told us they feared that one day it might be we who would be joining them in a similar situation. Let's hope that never happens,” said Perdomo. One way of avoiding such an outcome is to reach a humanitarian agreement to exchange the FARC's remaining hostages for imprisoned guerrillas. Valle del Cauca Peace Commissioner Ángela Giraldo pressed Interior Minister Carlos Holguín to accept a negotiated agreement, in a television interview broadcast on Friday by the private channel RCN. Giraldo, sister of Francisco, another of the murdered deputies, told Holguín that the crimes against humanity committed by the FARC might have been curbed if negotiations to free the hostages had been undertaken. ”But this has not been done in the last five years,” she said. The Colombian government insists that the guerrilla movement bears full responsibility. ”It is clear to us that the FARC has direct responsibility for this crime,” said government Peace Commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo. ”The Forensic Commission was able to fully identify the bodies, as the Attorney-General's Office had also done, and has clearly found that the manner of death was homicide, in the context of a violent action. However, they were not able to give any details about the circumstances of the deaths, basically because the commission did not have access to the site where the events took place,” Restrepo said in a public statement. ”The government is convinced, based on the intelligence that it has received since the events occurred, that the FARC was directly responsible, and obviously it is the FARC that will have to answer to the country for these terrible acts,” the commissioner added. Colombia's ambassador to the OAS, Camilo Ospina, said that in his view there was no doubt that the FARC committed the murders, adding that it was a premeditated execution, according to a statement published on the web site of the president's office. For his part, Insulza remarked that in the wake of the forensic report, securing the freedom of the kidnapped persons is even more urgent, ”because their lives are at increasing risk with every day that passes.” ***** + COLOMBIA: FARC Hostages Died in Military-Rebel Shootout (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38966) + COLOMBIA: Chávez Brokers Pact for Gov't-FARC Talks (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39106) + COLOMBIA: ‘Peace Walker' Welcomed by Tens of Thousands (http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38759) + In PDF: International Forensic Commission Report (http://web.presidencia.gov.co/sp/2007/septiembre/14/informe_diputados.pdf) + Presidencia de la República - in Spanish (http://web.presidencia.gov.co) (END/IPS/LA IP HD BO/TRASP-VD-SW/HML/DM/07) = 09180130 ORP002 NNNN