TUNJA, Colombia - A U.S.-trained Colombian army officer finds himself in a rare and potentially dangerous alliance with international human rights organizations after publicly accusing a senior commander of collusion with paramilitary groups.
Lt. Col. Castro Hernan Orozco, 39, says he fears for his family's safety because he refuses to withdraw his accusations against his former commander, Brig. Gen. Jaime Humberto Uscategui. He accuses Gen. Uscategui of ignoring repeated appeals for intervention when paramilitary groups began massacring dozens of civilians in areas under the general's control in 1997.
Gen. Uscategui, 52, was forced by government prosecutors to step down last week, but he denies all charges against him. He was arrested in May but was released two weeks ago pending a court-martial. Army spokesmen said they could not discuss the case.
International human rights groups and U.S. officials see the case as a key test of whether the Colombian army has changed its human rights record enough to justify an increased share of the nearly $300 million the government receives in U.S. military and law-enforcement aid. The Clinton administration says it wants to boost that aid to a record $1.5 billion next year.
"Up to now, there has never been a senior military official convicted [of a human rights abuse] in a military court," said Robin Kirk, a Colombia investigator at Human Rights Watch/Americas, who described the evidence against Gen. Uscategui and others under his command as "overwhelming."
Diplomats say they are awaiting resolution of the case to determine whether the army is truly changing its ways by punishing human rights abusers while protecting those with the courage to speak out against a longtime suspected alliance between army commanders and paramilitary groups.
Lt. Col. Orozco said that fellow officers have labeled him a "traitor" and "deserter," but he refuses to back down. Instead of punishing him for challenging a senior officer, the army has promoted Lt. Col. Orozco and given him his own battalion command.
"I don't believe in military justice," Lt. Col. Orozco said in an interview at his battalion headquarters in Tunja, 100 miles northeast of Bogota. "I've had some retired officers call to support me. Sometimes, people stop me on the street to thank me for speaking out. But inside the army, nobody is supporting me. Nobody."
Gen. Uscategui denies charges related to two paramilitary attacks that occurred in his zone of command in 1997. Up to 41 people were killed, including civilians decapitated with chain saws.
In one case, paramilitary gunmen opened fire on a 54-member government law-enforcement commission that was attempting to seize a ranch purchased by convicted drug traffickers in San Carlos de Guaroa, in Meta province.
Gen. Uscategui, who could face four years in prison if convicted of the crime of "omission," or failure to carry out his constitutional duties, insists that he did order troops to intervene during the San Carlos de Guaroa attack, which occurred on Oct. 3, 1997. The troops arrived as the massacre was under way, and two army officers and five soldiers were killed in subsequent fighting.
An earlier attack, in the town of Mapiripan, also in Meta, occurred over a five-day period in July 1997. Even before the paramilitary members had begun killing civilians, Lt. Col. Orozco said he had received intelligence that an attack was being planned.
About 120 paramilitary fighters had arrived at an airport in the town of San Jose del Guaviare shortly before the attack, unloading numerous cases of weapons and equipment while at least two army sergeants were present.
Army investigators have recovered a two-page fax message that Lt. Col. Orozco sent to Gen. Uscategui giving details of the gunmen's location and urging the emergency dispatch of troops by helicopter to repel them. Lt. Col. Orozco said Gen. Uscategui ignored the recommendation and continued to reject his repeated telephone requests for help after the attacks had begun.
When the news media began reporting the massacre days later, Lt. Col. Orozco said he received a telephone call from Gen. Uscategui ordering him to rewrite his original fax. He said the general told him that the new fax should discount intelligence reports of a paramilitary presence and minimize the threat posed to civilians. Lt. Col. Orozco, who at the time had the rank of major, said he complied with the general's orders.
"I protected the general. I lied for the general," Lt. Col. Orozco said.
"The fear we lower officers have of our senior officers is tremendous. In the Colombian army, you never speak against a superior, even if he is wrong."
The colonel said he admitted the truth when he was confronted about a year ago by a government investigator who had recovered the original fax.
In an interview with a Colombian radio network last week, Gen. Uscategui denied Lt. Col. Orozco's allegations. He said he holds out hope that prosecutors "will take note of the true situation and that they will acknowledge my innocence."
Ms. Kirk, of Human Rights Watch, said investigators have recovered other evidence of collusion between paramilitaries and Gen. Uscategui's units. The evidence includes encrypted computer files found at an army base in San Jose del Guaviare containing templates for writing letters in the name of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, the main paramilitary group.
Ms. Kirk, who has closely followed the case since 1997, said Colombia has handed over the encrypted files to the FBI.
"This is extremely important to the United States," Ms. Kirk said. "This is so sensitive to the United States because the U.S. Special Forces were only a 15-minute helicopter ride away from Mapiripan when it happened. They had all these U.S.-trained Colombian soldiers at a graduation ceremony right next to a place where they [paramilitaries] are cutting people's heads off."
Ms. Kirk said the U.S. Embassy had sent its human rights officer, Mike Fitzpatrick, to interview Lt. Col. Orozco. Mr. Fitzpatrick could not be reached for comment. A U.S. Embassy official said he was aware of media reports about the case but could not comment.
U.S. military officials say the issue of human rights violations is the single biggest impediment to expanding U.S. aid to the Colombian army.
Both governments have been working hard to root out potential human rights abusers within the army, largely because U.S. law prohibits military aid to units whose officers are linked to rights abuses. But the army, unlike Colombia's navy, air force and national police, has been a reluctant participant and continues to reject accusations that rights abusers remain in its ranks.
"We are not being treated fairly," said Lt. Col. Carlos Castillo, director of the army's human rights office. "The observance of human rights is the obligation of all [combatants]. It is not fair that we are the only ones under scrutiny when no one is looking at the record of the groups that are operating at the margin of the law."
Because the Colombian army has been slow to certify that its ranks are clean of rights abusers, the United States has been limited legally in how much assistance it can provide to existing army units.
U.S. military officers, who spoke on condition of anonymity, expressed frustration with the current restrictions, which they say are impeding the war on drug traffickers and the insurgents who support them. The sources said there is a widespread opinion in the U.S. Southern Command, which is training Colombian troops, that the army is being unfairly singled out despite wanton rights abuses by insurgent groups.
"We killed more civilians in a single bombing in Kosovo than the Colombian army killed in an entire year," one Southern Command officer said, referring to the U.S.-led air campaign against Serbian forces in Yugoslavia. "The Colombian army is responsible for 3 percent of all human rights violations, but they take 100 percent of the blame."
Retired Gen. Harold Bedoya, who was the armed forces chief commander when the incidents occurred, insisted that Gen. Uscategui did nothing wrong.
"The accusations amount to nothing more than myths and lies," he said.
"Nothing has been proven. All Uscategui did was his job."
Lt. Col. Orozco is scheduled to be transferred within two weeks to a new assignment in Leticia, the southernmost town and one of the most remote outposts in the country. His wife, Olga Lucia Garcia Moreno, said the new posting gives them much cause for concern, especially as parents of two young boys.
"What worries me is, this is a country that never forgives and never forgets," she said. "Maybe nothing will happen tomorrow or next week. But then two or three years might pass, and all of a sudden, they come to settle accounts."