To Carry Out Murder

"According to journalist Grace Livingstone, as of 2003 more Colombian School of the Americas graduates have been identified as alleged human rights abusers than SOA graduates from any other Latin American country." Human Rights Watch concluded that the resulting military intelligence networks, organized and operating according to the US suggestions incorporated by Order 200-05/91, subsequently laid the groundwork for continuing an illegal, covert partnership between the military and paramilitaries. HRW argued that the restructuring process solidified linkages between members of the Colombian military and civilian members of paramilitary groups, by incorporating them into several of the local intelligence networks and by cooperating with their activities. In effect, HRW believed that this further consolidated a secret network that relied on paramilitaries not only for intelligence, but to carry out murder". Human Rights Watch argued that this situation allowed the Colombian government and military to plausibly deny links or responsibility for paramilitary human rights abuses. HRW stated that, far from diminishing violence, the military intelligence networks created by the U.S. reorganization appeared to have dramatically increased violence, citing massacres in Barrancabermeja as an example."