LatinNews Daily - 19 May 2011

COLOMBIA: On 30 March Colombia's interior minister, Carlos Holguí­n Sardi, dismissed allegations made in the US newspaper The Washington Post that in recent years the army has increasingly been killing poor farmers and passing them off as rebels slain in combat. He blamed NGOs for spreading these ideas and singled out recent deaths in the Córdoba province, underlining that these victims were the result of clashes between drug dealers.