Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Contact:  http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Copyright: 1998 San Francisco Chronicle
Pubdate: 19 Oct 1998
Author: Robin Kirk

KILLINGS IN COLOMBIA

Editor -- Your decision to draw attention to Colombia's nascent peace
negotiations (The Chronicle, October 16) is welcome.

However, the piece omitted the element of justice -- what to do about the
thousands of massacres, targeted killings, forced dis appearances, and
forced displacements that continue to occur in Colombia, including in areas
with a growing U.S. presence.

As Human Rights Watch documented in its just-published report, ``War
Without Quarter: Colombia and International Humanitarian Law,'' all sides
in this brutal conflict have committed and continue to commit atrocities
which can't be excused by the blanket amnesty under consideration in
Colombia. Just as the United States must rethink its drug policy and
promote peace, so too must it insist on justice for all of the victims of
abuses in Colombia, including those who have lost loved ones to the
Colombian army's murderous practice of forming and supporting paramilitary
groups.

The United States has pressed for justice in the world's other killing
fields, like the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. We cannot let Colombia be
yet another forgotten footnote in a so-far failed war on drugs.

ROBIN KIRK

Human Rights Watch Washington, D.C. 

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Checked-by: Mike Gogulski