05.06.2002 (By Alfredo Castro, ANNCOL Bogota) In a series of brutal assaults on the civilian population of Colombia's second city Medellin, at least ten people have been killed and scores more wounded or disappeared. In one incident that led to nine civilian deaths a joint army and police detachment stormed a poor neighbourhood in the city whilst helicopter gun-ships indiscriminately fired at homes and fleeing civilians.

The heaviest violence began early on the morning of May 21st when a massive army and police force entered the sprawling Comuna 13 area in the hills of Medellin. This force moved from house to house through the neighbourhoods of 20 de Julio, San Javier, Belencito, las Independencias, Nuevos Conquistadores and Salado, and preceded to shoot, beat, and detain, local residents. Whilst this was occurring helicopter gun-ships of the Colombian air force hovered overhead and saturated buildings, including homes and schools, with heavy machinegun fire. Armoured vehicles and tear gas were also used during the assault.

Urban guerrilla militias of the FARC, ELN and CAP (Armed Commando of the People) rebel organisations fought back against the security forces and heavy combat took place for over eight hours. Many local residents took to the streets with some waving white flags and calling for the government forces to withdraw and others actively joining with the militias and fighting back. Witnesses report that in at least two places the guerrillas offered to provide arms to local residents to defend themselves.

The Medellin daily paper, 'El Colombiano', reported that hundreds of adults and teenagers joined with children as young as seven in the streets chanting, "the people, united, will never be defeated" and photos showed groups of local residents with their faces covered hurling rocks at the invading troops and police.

Other reports said that local paramilitary death squad members joined the assault after arriving in armoured vehicles belonging to the 4th Brigade of the Colombian army. Although the army has denied this the security forces cordoned off the entire area for at least 24 hours before humanitarian workers, human rights activists and journalists were permitted to enter the zone thus giving ample time to allow paramilitary units into and out of the area undetected.

During the day security forces killed nine civilians, including a baby boy and two girls aged four and nine, and seriously wounded 37 others. The police and soldiers also forced various civilians into armoured personnel carriers and took them away and it is believed that over 50 people were detained - many of who have not been seen since. Although, as is usual in such cases, the army claims that those taken away were all guerrillas, witnesses and human rights groups say that most if not all were in fact unarmed civilians.

Local human rights activists compared the operation to the recent Israeli terror attacks on the Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin and pointed out that the similarities where of no coincidence in that both the Israeli and Colombian security forces have been trained by the US military and follow the Pentagon's standard urban counterinsurgency doctrine.

In a May 21st press release the Permanent Assembly of Civil Society for Peace condemned the operation by "state forces against the popular militias" and called on them to respect "International Humanitarian Law" and to distinguish between combatants and the civilian population. In a press release the following day the Assembly and three regional human rights groups accused the security forces of being a "hostile actor carrying out actions to terrorise the civilian population and generate massive displacement".

By May 23rd the fighting in Comuna 13 had ended and both the police and paramilitary death squad units were making regular patrols in and around those areas that had been secured during the offensive. Guerrilla militias made sporadic attacks on these patrols - including killing two paramilitaries and a policeman who had been involved in murdering a child on May 21st - although in general the city remained calm if tense.

On May 30th violence again erupted in the Belencito neighbourhood of Comuna 13 when urban militias of the FARC fired on a heavily guarded convoy carrying Medellin's mayor Luís Pérez Gutiérrez. Despite a ten-minute shootout the mayor, who is accused by human rights activists of covertly supporting the paramilitaries, escaped unharmed. A special-forces police unit and local paramilitaries subsequently attempted to raid the apartment building from where the shooting had come. During this raid the government forces executed four local residents who they accused of supporting the guerrillas.

The ongoing violence in Medellin is part of a substantial offensive by the security forces and paramilitary death squads to win control of the city. According to local experts and human rights groups the operation is being organised by regional death squad commanders and General Mario Montoya Uribe, commander of the 4th Brigade of the army, and Colonel Leonardo Gallego, the head of the Medellin metropolitan police.

The apparent objective of the new offensive is to bring the poorer neighbourhoods under the control of the state, either directly via the police or indirectly via the paramilitaries, in an effort to dislodge the guerrillas from these zones. Both the FARC and ELN rebel groups have a strong presence in the slums of Medellin and support for the revolutionary organisations is so high that the possibility of an urban insurrection in the country's second city has become a major worry to those currently in power in Colombia. It is believed, for example, that the FARC alone has some 4,000 activists in Medellin most of whom are armed.