COLOMBIA-MISSING Former rebels aid Colombian authorities in exhumation of mass graves

Record ID: 145739

  • Title: COLOMBIA-MISSING Former rebels aid Colombian authorities in exhumation of mass graves
  • Date: 28th July 2015
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE MISSING FATHER
  • Embargoed: 12th August 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Colombia
  • Country: Colombia
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVAA5BQRF8IT2AAZ7NL0IJ6DP6WI
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Forensic staff, prison guards and ex-rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have begun digging trenches in the wooded hillside in central Colombia, hoping to find the bones of some 52,000 victims who disappeared in the 50-year conflict.
    An estimated 220,000 people have been killed during the country's long conflict, and the majority of those who disappeared were killed and buried in unmarked graves.
    As the government wades through complex peace talks with the FARC, rights advocates and many families of the disappeared hope the rebels will reveal grave locations as part of a deal for them to avoid long prison terms and enter politics.
    The violence, and the unknown fate of so many missing people, has stalled Colombia's development. The government says peace could add 2 percentage points to annual growth, but that would be at risk if implementation goes badly.
    Experts say the challenge facing Colombia could be even greater than in Argentina, Chile and Guatemala - where the disappeared of late-20th century conflicts were largely victims of the government - because so many armed groups are involved, complicating efforts to collect information.
    Victims' groups warn that unless more bodies are exhumed, identified and returned to their families, Colombia risks handicapping its post-conflict development.
    Alvaro Polo, head of excavations for the attorney general's office in Bogota, where forensic staff pore over skeletons in their morgue, says that excavations aim to help in the nation's post-conflict development.
    "We hope that when the (rebel) groups are demobilised, they will leave their zones of influence, and that as the state is able to get closer to local families, they will feel more confident to speak out about the reality before the competent authorities. I am sure that in this way we will return to a universe which is much greater than that which we have projected with the demobilisation. But it is also a factor which will determine a rise in the number of victims of several crimes, disappearances in particular," said Polo.
    The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) calculates that nearly 70,000 people remain unaccounted for, more than the government's estimate, though some disappearances may be unrelated to the war.
    Polo's unit has excavated 6,000 bodies since 2007, 11 percent of the government's missing count.
    "I would say that if we are talking of some 50,000 (victims) from the evidence we already have, with these (new testimonies) we can aim at some 70,000 or 80,000. I think we can aim at a 20 or 30 percent rise on this figure," said Polo.
    The numbers are high even by the standards of Latin American conflicts. In Guatemala's brutal civil war, up to 45,000 people went missing. About 30,000 "disappeared" under military rule in Argentina, while 3,000 were lost during Chile's period of dictatorship.
    Nearly half of the remains have been returned to families, but another 3,000 bodies lie unidentified in morgues.
    Some have preliminary identifications, based on witness testimony or other evidence, but the majority are "pure unidentifieds" - meaning investigators have zero leads.
    Victims mostly come from poor, isolated rural families who lack decent communication, hobbling efforts to get DNA samples to match to found bodies.
    Daughter of one of these victims, 28-year-old Marcela Granados, says that she was brought a sense of peace by having found her father's remains, after he was taken from their ranch in northeastern Casanare province by paramilitaries in 2003.
    ""Finding my father's remains would bring me a certain sense of calm knowing the reality that he no longer exists. Until we have his bones or something similar we cannot say goodbye. He was alive when I last saw him and so for me he has remained alive, so finding his remains is a way to accept the reality that they killed him and he is no longer here," Granados said.
    Despite testimony from a neighbour, who saw him beaten, and the capture of one perpetrator, his remains were never found.
    Rights groups say investigators rely too much on testimony from ex-fighters and fail to use other techniques: interviews with communities, records of armed groups' movements or satellites and radar.
    Excavations in dangerous areas require army protection or helicopter transport. Captured insurgents sometimes withdraw testimony following threats, cancelling exhumations.
    Even when digs do occur, they fail to turn up remains at least half the time.
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