Colombia Fighters Assaulting Women

October 13, 2004 (AP) An international human rights group accused Colombian rebels, paramilitary gunmen and soldiers of sexually abusing women during the country's insurgency, and charged that the government hasn't done enough to punish the offenders.

Amnesty International USA said in a report Wednesday that right-wing paramilitary groups are the main violators.

One woman, identified only as Ana Maria, was quoted in the report as saying army soldiers forced her from a bus she was traveling in near the southern city of Neiva, killed her male companion and raped her.

``I was raped by eight or nine soldiers,'' Ana Maria said, adding that later in her journey she was raped by a paramilitary commander in the town of Dabeiba, in northwest Colombia.

``Amnesty International believes the Colombian state has failed to respect or protect people's human rights with regard to sexual violence,'' said the report.

A spokesman for Vice President Francisco Santos, who leads the government's office on human rights, said Santos was reviewing the report and had no immediate comment.

The report provides testimony of brutal treatment of women and girls by Marxist guerrillas. Based on testimony from a relative, it describes a young girl who was kidnapped by a front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, of which her father was a member.

``They subjected her to what they call 'self-criticism': she had to keep repeating 'I am a cowardly Colombian woman' while being beaten all over,'' an unnamed relative said.

The girl's mother was also kidnapped by the FARC. She was taken into the mountains, stripped, tortured and buried in a hole she had to dig herself. Only with the help of a peasant farmer did she survive the ordeal, the relative said.

Colombia's four-decade rebel conflict pits government forces and right-wing paramilitary fighters against two Marxist rebel groups that seek to overthrow the government.

The Amnesty International report said more than 3,000 people were killed due to the conflict last year in non-combat situations, which would include executions and massacres. It said 220 of the victims were women.

From: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Colombia-Sex-Crimes.html