Colombian soldiers 'faked' FARC attack

The head of the Colombian army has accused his troops, including two officers, of participating in a deadly car bombing on the eve of President Alvaro Uribe's swearing-in ceremony last month that was originally blamed on left-wing rebels. The revelations come with the army already reeling from a series of scandals linking troops to drug traffickers and extra-judicial killings of civilians. General Mario Montoya, head of the army, said in a brief statement deploring the alleged actions of his subordinates that initial accusations against left-wing rebels "didn't correspond to the reality." He said the army was cooperating fully with prosecutors investigating the two unnamed officers and other soldiers. "A recent car bomb which injured several soldiers and killed a Colombian and which was attributed to illegal groups, and the discovery of explosives over the last two months, appear to be false," Gen. Montoya said. "These cons could have been carried out by a group of unscrupulous people who include two army officers." On July 31, a week before President Uribe was sworn in, a car bomb exploded in Bogotá as trucks carrying soldiers passed by. One civilian was killed and 10 soldiers hurt. The blast came as a shock to Bogotá's residents, who have grown accustomed in recent years to living out of harm's way and seeing political violence related to their country's four-decade-old civil war on the evening news, not their own streets. Officials had blamed the bomb attack on the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the country's largest rebel group that has waged a four-decade war against the state. Bogotá's main daily newspaper, El Tiempo, said on its website on Sept. 7 that authorities had video and taped phone conversations, in addition to witness testimony, linking four army officers–including a colonel–with the attack. The newspaper said the officers remain on active duty even though the accusations had been known about for more than three weeks. Gen. Montoya also said corrupt soldiers were behind the high-profile seizures in recent weeks of several weapons stockpiles. The authorities originally said the weapons belonged to rebels but the seizures now appear to have been staged by soldiers to impress their superiors. Colombia's army–the main recipient of more than $4 billion in US anti-narcotics military aid since 2000–is struggling to clear its battered reputation, with officers accused of trying to pass off as rebels the bodies of innocent civilians killed illegally. An army colonel and his platoon have also been arrested for the ambush of an elite anti-narcotics unit near the southern town of Cali. Gen. Montoya originally said it was a case of friendly fire, but prosecutors believe that the attack was performed on behalf of drug traffickers. Human rights groups often say the army has cooperated with illegal right-wing paramilitary militias in the massacre of civilians in its war against the rebels. A UN rights report this year said Colombian forces had killed civilians and covered it up by dressing the bodies as rebels to count them as part of the security success. Gen. Montoya was the only one of Colombia's top four military chiefs to hold on to his job after a shake-up of the armed forces that coincided with the start of Uribe's second four-year term.