By IANS,
Bogota : A former commander of Colombia’s right-wing militias has confessed that he and his men were responsible for more than 1,000 killings in the Pacific port city of Buenaventura between 2001-02, EFE news agency reported Saturday, quoting officials.
The erstwhile chief of the Calima and Bananero blocs of the militia federation the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), Ever Veloza Garcia, made this admission before prosecutors in the northwestern Colombian city of Medellin.
He also said that Senator Juan Carlos Martinez received numerous votes in Buenaventura due “to the pressure exercised by the militiamen (on voters) to elect him.”
The militia leader added that this support for Martinez “was a payback from the paramilitaries to the Gonzalez brothers, known drug traffickers who financially supported the militias”.
Veloza also said the police in the Buenaventura suburb of Calima-Darien “received a monthly stipend to provide backing for the militias”.
In the early part of this decade, he said, paramilitaries under his command exercised “strict control” over the poor neighbourhoods of Buenaventura, Colombia’s main port on the Pacific, and for that reason he organised “groups of 10 men” to patrol the area and commit any murders considered necessary.
The Colombian government last month authorized Veloza’s extradition to the US for trial by a federal court on drug-trafficking charges, but his transfer was postponed for four months “to allow him to finish his testimony in Colombia”.
At home, Veloza faces charges of homicide, terrorism, forced displacement and drug trafficking.