In the small town of La Macarena, Meta, 200 kilometers south of Bogota, one of the hottest areas of the Colombian conflict is the largest mass grave discovered in the recent history of Latin America, with a number of bodies "NN " buried without identification, which could reach 2,000, according to various sources and the residents themselves. Since 2005,the Army whose elite forces are deployed in the vicinity has been burying behind the local cemetery hundreds of bodies with the order that they would be buried without any name.

See: U.S. and Colombia Cover Up Atrocities Through Mass Graves

This is the largest burial of victims of a conflict known until now in the continent. We should have to move to the Nazi Holocaust or the barbarity of Pol Pot in Cambodia to find something of this dimension.

Behind the cemetery of La Macarena, 200 km. Bogota, thousands of bodies were buried without name.

The lawyer Jairo Ramirez is the secretary of the Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Colombia and accompanied a delegation of British parliamentarians to the site, when a few weeks ago,he began to discover the magnitude of the grave of La Macarena. "What we saw was terrifying," he told public. "Countless bodies, and hundreds of plates of white wood on the surface with NN and registration dates from 2005 until today."

Missing

Ramirez adds, "Army Commander told us they were guerrillas killed in combat, but the people of the region speak of many community leaders, farmers and community advocates who disappeared without a trace."

While prosecutors announced investigations "from March" after the parliamentary and presidential elections, a parliamentary delegation composed by Jordi Pedret Spanish (PSOE), Inés Sabanés (UI), Francesc Canet (ERC), Joan-Josep Nuet (IC - EU), Carles Campuzano (CiU), Mikel Basabe (Aralar) and Marian Suarez (Eivissa pel Canvi) arrived yesterday in Colombia to study the case and make a report to the Congress and the Parliament. The situation of women as the first victims of conflict and union leaders (only in 2009 were killed 41) also focus their work in different areas of the country.

More than a thousand graves in the country

The horror of La Macarena has been topical since the existence of over a thousand mass graves of unidentified bodies in Colombia. Until late last year, forensic had registered some 2,500 corpses and nearly 600 of them could have been identified and the bodies returned to relatives.

The location of these graves has been possible because of the statements in free version of the middle-rank of the allegedly demobilized paramilitaries and the benefiting from the controversial Justice and Peace Law that guarantees a symbolic sentence in exchange for the confession of their crimes.

The last of these statements was that of John Jairo Renteria, also known as Betún, who has just revealed to the prosecutor and the victim’s relatives that he and his supporters buried "at least 800 people" in the Villa Sandra farm in Puerto Asis, Putumayo. "We had to dismember people. All in the AUC had to learn it and was often made with people alive," the paramilitary leader has confessed to the prosecutor for Justice and Peace.

"The government does not want to investigate"

 - Alfredo Molano
Sociologist and author

Alfredo Molano, one of Colombia's most influential columnists, has toured the country as a chronicler of violence, which earned him exile to escape threats of military and paramilitary.

Part of a mass grave in La Mercerana. Photo: El Nuevo Herald

What is the situation of the graves in Colombia?

The general attorney of the nation speaks about 25,000 "disappeared", must be in a site somewhereThere are huge mass graves in Colombia. Some people eliminated. It is also possible that they have made disappear some remains as did the Nazi in crematoria.

Do these graves have to do with the so called 'false positives?

Yes, this may be related to false positives [Colombian civilians killed and presented as people "killed in action"]. The army buried clandestinely. Many of them will be found in these mass graves.

What might be the magnitude of the findings in these graves?

Terrible. Neither in the fifties there was much brutality in Colombia as shown in the actions of the paramilitaries, but the government has no willingness to investigate thoroughly, and will let appear some tombsThe delays are very long and technical difficulties for identification, chemical and DNA testing are enormous.

Source: Comité Permanente

Also see:

Colombia's new death squads exposed; Army's Mass Grave Found in Macerena by Tom Mellen, February 5, 2010