Ecuadorian army backed Colombian military personnel for the operation carried out in Putumayo

The Colombian Army has been subjected to dozens of questions because of the operation that took place in Putumayo on March 28. Although the security forces and the State have assured that the actions were carried out under all the law, the community, with the help of journalists, has denounced that civilians were killed in the place. The Ecuadorian Army assured that it shares the same concerns of its Colombian peers and that it supports General Eduardo Zapateiro.

The commander of that Ecuadorian general institution, Luis Enrique Burbano, stressed that criminal acts affecting that area of Colombia have an 'incidental effect' on the border with Ecuador. “We share the same concern of the Colombian authorities, about the presence of illegal groups in the border areas of both countries that are affecting public order,” the official said.

“Upon learning about the violent acts that irregular groups in Colombia are carrying out in the department of Putumayo, whose effects also affect the border provinces, mainly in Sucumbíos, I tell you, dear Eduardo, that we have and share my concerns,” added the Ecuadorian general.

The high command of the Ecuadorian public forces stressed that it will reinforce actions to prevent any violent attitude from Colombian criminal gangs settled near the border.

This week, the UN Human Rights Office in Colombia questioned the military operation carried out in the Alto Remanso Village in Puerto Leguizamo, Putumayo. 11 people died there. The entity asked the Prosecutor's Office to “conduct a thorough investigation” and to take “all disciplinary and criminal measures to prosecute and punish those responsible for what happened.”

That organization highlighted that a bazaar was being held in the area to raise funds, in which about 200 people had participated. “On March 28, in Alto Remanso, an operation carried out by several military units would have started in which firearms were used, while 30 to 50 people were in the bazaar, including children and women (...) As a result of the military operation and the use of lethal force, at least eleven people were killed in Alto Remanso and five more were injured,” the statement read.

The UN Human Rights Office in Colombia warned that, “under International Human Rights Law, the intentional use of lethal weapons can only be made when it is strictly inevitable and with the purpose of protecting life.”

In an interview with RCN News, the commander of the National Army, General Eduardo Zapateiro, said that it was not a bazaar and that, on the contrary, it was a “collection center where he was trading cocaine base paste.”

Likewise, he confessed that this was not the first time that minors and pregnant women were affected by an Army operation. In this action by the security forces, Brayan Santiago Pama, a minor under the age of 16, died; Ana María Sarrias, a pregnant woman; Divier Hernández, president of the Community Action Board; and Pablo Panduro Coquinche, Indigenous Governor of the Cabildo Kicwa Bajo Remanso.

“It is not the first operation where pregnant women fall, where minors who are combatants, Colombian combatants (...) It was an operation planned and accompanied by a dominant intelligence directed against a criminal structure, the Gaor 48,” he said in his talk with that media outlet.

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