Double killings?

Nicholas Casey of the NY Times reported today that Colombia's Army had ordered up "double killings" and then backpedaled following the front page NY Times article several days ago that we reported on earlier.  After the Times report, Gen. Nicacio Martinez Espinel refuted the story but told the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo that he would withdraw the pledge required of officers.  On Monday, Oct. 20, 2019, Guillermo Botero, Colombia's Defense Minister released results that indicated there had been a 33% surge in overall operations since mid-December, including a 124% increase in combat operations.  Between Dec. 11 and May 18, there were 67 deaths, up 6% from the same period last year, the number of those arrested increased 132% to 1, 713 arrests this year.

Reliable sources reported that a meeting of 15 members of the military was taking place right now at the headquarters of the Second Division of the Army, located in Bucaramanga, in order to get them to "confess" that they served as the sources for the Times report that was published earlier. Jose Miguel Vivanco, head of Americas Division, Human Rights Watch, sent a Twitter message to the Colombian Minister of Defense, in which in inquired whether this meeting was taking place.  "It would be very serious if reprisals were taken against officials for telling the truth" he stated.