" 'These killings permeate the entire military hierarchy and their civilian overseers,' Senator Gustavo Petro, an outspoken opposition figure, said in a telephone interview from Bogota, the Colombian capital. 'General Montoya's resignation was necessary, but the administration must be held responsible for allowing crimes like these to occur.'

"The scandal has focused scrutiny on Mr. Uribe's government and its top ally, the United States, which is responsible for vetting Colombian military units for human rights abuses before they can receive American aid. The United States provides Colombia with about $500 million a year in assistance to fight rebels and drug trafficking.

"Prosecutors and human rights researchers contend that patterns have emerged in recent years in the killing of civilians; they say that in dozens of cases, civilians were killed by the armed forces and then afterward their bodies were dressed in guerrilla uniforms or weapons or rebel communications equipment were placed nearby. The term for these cases in Colombia is "false positives."

This is one of the reasons that Bush regime is the worst administration in US history.  It has carried on the Nixon, Reagan, and H.W. Bush policies of supporting right wing, human rights violating dicators in Latin America, the few that remain.  It is no wonder that the Bush administration is despised by our South American neighbors.