Colombia's Prosecutor's Office and Police blamed for disappearances

Columnist Daniel Coronell on Sunday questioned the actions of the National Police and the Attorney General's Office of Colombia in relation to the missing persons, who amount to dozens, in the context of the national strike in Colombia.

In the Sunday program Los Danieles, he explained that the Attorney General's Office is going through the darkest period of its history, and covering up the crimes of the powerful now seems to be its main mission.

The prosecutor seeks to attenuate, by means of linguistic euphemisms, the seriousness of the disappearances which, according to data compiled by human rights organizations, total 132 so far, he commented.

'Just as they have wanted to replace the expression massacre with 'collective homicide', they want to change disappearance with the term 'people which whereabouts is unknown',' Coronell stressed in his column entitled 'Doblemente Desaparecidos' (Disappeared Twice).

He warned that the issue is especially sensitive because many relatives of the disappeared prefer not to report the facts for fear of suffering the same fate.

The silence of the families contributes to impunity because the lack of formal public denunciations serves to erase the traces of the disappearances, he added.

Given the current situation in the country since April 28 when the national strike began, the Attorney General's Office itself recognizes that 99 cases of disappearances persist, only up to May 10, 'an alarming figure, although notably lower' than that reported by human rights groups, he said.