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LatinNews Daily - 26 June 2008
Colombian generals investigated
Development: On 25 June the attorney
general announced a formal investigation into retired generals Rafael Samudio
Molina and Jesús Armando Arias Cabrales for their role in the siege of the
Palace of Justice in 1985.
Significance: The investigation in to the
military's actions in the Palace of Justice is gathering pace, much to the
chagrin of President Alvaro Uribe. Uribe, who is a staunch defender of the
Colombian military, still peddles a version of events at the Palace of Justice
which exonerates the military of any wrongdoing but which has been
widely discredited by independent investigations.
In late
July Samudio Molina and Arias Cabrales will have testify before prosecutors in
response to charges of “kidnapping and forced disappearance" relating to the
disappearance of 11 people during the siege. Samudio Molina was head of the army
at the time, while Arias Cabrales was in charge
of the army's Bogotá brigade.
The two
generals are considered to have given the orders as the military tried to retake
the Palace of Justice after it had been taken over by the M-19 guerrilla group.
However, the investigation does not believe that blame for the armed forces'
disproportionate and bloody response ends with the top brass. The attorney
general has also called the president at the time of the
siege, Belisario Betancur, to testify.
