Quotes from "The 'Sixth Division'"

I can say that I have myself seen on several occasions members of the government security forces, the Army, conversing in public places with people who are known as Paramilitaries. I can say without doubt that there is not omission [on the part of the security forces], but that what exists here is a coordination between the legal forces that one supposes are legal and the illegal forces that one supposes to be illegal.

The paramilitaries said they would let my aunt go, and that I should just wait. Later they told us to go look in the Cauca River. We found her tortured and dead. We could identify the body because of a ring and a mole on her skin. Her fingers were broken completely back. They had shot her through one eye, and it was missing.

The paramilitaries walk around in the middle of the day with their armbands on, and the police and military just let them pass. When official commissions come, they just take off the armbands. For all strangers know, they are soldiers.

The paramilitaries are not just killing us physically, they are also killing our ability to organize, to be community leaders. We have been forced to shut down projects outside the city, because the paramilitaries have banned us from traveling by river.

When guerrillas attack, the Army responds in less than two hours. But despite killings every three or four days, there was never a response by the Army against the paramilitaries. I can't think of a single clash between them.

There are cases where we cannot execute warrants against paramilitaries because we lack the military weaponry to confront them… [When the Colombian militaryis involved ] the information leaks and when we arrive, nobody is there. In many cases, the military knows exactly where the paramilitaries are, but does nothing.

I think we will waive human rights conditions indefinitely.

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