by Javier Baena
(Associated Press)
BOGOTA, Colombia - The Colombian workers at a cocaine-producing ranch were sleeping when rebels burst in, tied them up with their hammocks, threw them to the floor and shot dead 34 of them - "like dogs," a survivor said Wednesday.
Tuesday's massacre near La Gabarra, 310 miles northeast of the capital, Bogota, was the bloodiest since President Alvaro Uribe took office nearly two years ago, pledging to bring order to the South American country, which produces most of the world's cocaine and where 3,500 people are killed each year in a three-sided civil war.
Members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, gunned down the civilians in a remote ranch in eastern Colombia along the Venezuelan border, survivors and the government said. The FARC and a smaller rebel group are fighting outlawed paramilitary groups and U.S.-backed government forces in Colombia's war.
"They tied us up and threw us on the floor like dogs and shot us," said one of the peasants, who was shot once and pretended to be dead. There were a total of seven wounded survivors.
The killers allowed two women to escape.
Another survivor told reporters he also played dead, and he recalled how the wounded and dying called out for help after the killers left.
"They asked why they had been gunned down so miserably," he said.
None of the survivors wanted to be identified for security reasons.
One survivor said the killers were young FARC members who accused the field hands of being paramilitary members. He denied that the victims, who worked harvesting coca - the main ingredient of cocaine, were militia members.
"All we care about is (finding) work, not who the boss is," he said.
Gen. Carlos Alberto Ospina, Colombia's armed forces chief, said the killings were provoked by a dispute between rebels and paramilitary gunmen over control over coca production, and the profits it brings when it is converted in clandestine labs to cocaine.
The United Nations' human rights office in Bogota described the killing "as a war crime, since the culprits carried out a premeditated murder of totally defenseless civilians."
Interior Minister Sabas Pretelt said government forces were pursuing the killers.
"I hope ... they understand they can't keep committing these atrocities," Pretelt said.
Uribe lashed out at Amnesty International for not denouncing the killings. Uribe has had bitter relations with international human rights groups, accusing them of being sympathetic to the rebels.
"You know what makes me sad?," Uribe said Wednesday during a military ceremony. "That so far I haven't heard anything from Amnesty International ... Amnesty International stays silent, the same group that abuses its good name to go and accuse Colombian government forces (of committing abuses)."
The human rights group said it has not denounced the killings because it does not know all the facts, but it will condemn the massacres if the government reports prove true.
"We don't rely too much on the government because often times they don't have all the information or manipulate it," Eric Olson, Americas director for Amnesty International USA, told The Associated Press from Washington. "We like to do our own verification."
The worst previous mass killing happened in May 2002, when a homemade mortar round fired by FARC guerrillas landed on a church in Bojaya in Colombia's northwest, killing 119 civilians.
(Associated Press)
BOGOTA, Colombia - The Colombian workers at a cocaine-producing ranch were sleeping when rebels burst in, tied them up with their hammocks, threw them to the floor and shot dead 34 of them - "like dogs," a survivor said Wednesday.
Tuesday's massacre near La Gabarra, 310 miles northeast of the capital, Bogota, was the bloodiest since President Alvaro Uribe took office nearly two years ago, pledging to bring order to the South American country, which produces most of the world's cocaine and where 3,500 people are killed each year in a three-sided civil war.
Members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, gunned down the civilians in a remote ranch in eastern Colombia along the Venezuelan border, survivors and the government said. The FARC and a smaller rebel group are fighting outlawed paramilitary groups and U.S.-backed government forces in Colombia's war.
"They tied us up and threw us on the floor like dogs and shot us," said one of the peasants, who was shot once and pretended to be dead. There were a total of seven wounded survivors.
The killers allowed two women to escape.
Another survivor told reporters he also played dead, and he recalled how the wounded and dying called out for help after the killers left.
"They asked why they had been gunned down so miserably," he said.
None of the survivors wanted to be identified for security reasons.
One survivor said the killers were young FARC members who accused the field hands of being paramilitary members. He denied that the victims, who worked harvesting coca - the main ingredient of cocaine, were militia members.
"All we care about is (finding) work, not who the boss is," he said.
Gen. Carlos Alberto Ospina, Colombia's armed forces chief, said the killings were provoked by a dispute between rebels and paramilitary gunmen over control over coca production, and the profits it brings when it is converted in clandestine labs to cocaine.
The United Nations' human rights office in Bogota described the killing "as a war crime, since the culprits carried out a premeditated murder of totally defenseless civilians."
Interior Minister Sabas Pretelt said government forces were pursuing the killers.
"I hope ... they understand they can't keep committing these atrocities," Pretelt said.
Uribe lashed out at Amnesty International for not denouncing the killings. Uribe has had bitter relations with international human rights groups, accusing them of being sympathetic to the rebels.
"You know what makes me sad?," Uribe said Wednesday during a military ceremony. "That so far I haven't heard anything from Amnesty International ... Amnesty International stays silent, the same group that abuses its good name to go and accuse Colombian government forces (of committing abuses)."
The human rights group said it has not denounced the killings because it does not know all the facts, but it will condemn the massacres if the government reports prove true.
"We don't rely too much on the government because often times they don't have all the information or manipulate it," Eric Olson, Americas director for Amnesty International USA, told The Associated Press from Washington. "We like to do our own verification."
The worst previous mass killing happened in May 2002, when a homemade mortar round fired by FARC guerrillas landed on a church in Bojaya in Colombia's northwest, killing 119 civilians.
