1 The Colombian government's willingness to assume responsibility for a massacre in which victims were tortured and cut up with chainsaws brought praise and a call for further investigation Tuesday from human rights advocates.
2 The Organization of American States' independent human rights commission heard representatives of victims and human rights groups and government witnesses at a closed hearing on the brutal and gory killings of 107 people between 1988 and 1991.
3 A statement being drafted by the commission will say it fully agrees with steps taken by Colombian President Ernesto Samper, elected last August, to investigate the killings in Trujillo, 161 miles (255km) west of Bogota, said Jose Miguel Vivanco, director of Human Rights Watch Americas.
4 Vivanco said the OAS group also will urge further investigation and prosecution.
5 He said justice still must be pursued, including prosecution, payment of moral reparations and compensation to victims, public apologies and punishment of the killers.
6 'We still need to see whether the government will be able to produce concrete results,' he said, noting that the commission so far has uncovered details on only 34 of the 107 killings.
7 Last week, the Colombian government acknowledged that police, judges and soldiers allowed right-wing paramilitary groups to commit the murders and that some soldiers participated. The victims included men, women and children accused of supporting or being members of left-wing guerrilla groups.
8 The OAS commission's hearing was part of its annual review of human rights violations in the Western hemisphere. The results are to presented to OAS foreign ministers at their summer meeting in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
9 First word of the massacres in Bogota came in April 1990, when a man from Trujillo, Daniel Arcila, traveled to the capital with a tale of torture and chainsaw killings in his town.
10 Arcila, a fruit picker, was sent to a psychiatrist who judged him a paranoid psychopath. His claims were dismissed. A year later, Arcila was arrested by security forces and hasn't been heard from since.
11 The government commission report on the killings, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press in Bogota, slams Colombia's judicial system. It recommends that the judge and psychiatrist who dealt with Arcila be investigated, and that the accused killers be prosecuted.
12 Arcila's testimony about water torture and beheadings -- discarded as rubbish by prosecutors after they heard the psychiatrist's evaluation -- were reprinted Monday in the Semana weekly newsmagazine.
13 'They were blindfolded . and put into large coffee sacks,' he said.
14 'Later, Maj. (Alirio Antonio) Uruena took a 2-inch hose, and the first he put it to was a 55-year-old lady, who began to shout: `Don't you have children? For holy God's sake, what are you going to do to me?'
15 'The major repeated the same torture with everyone. Then he told one of the paramilitaries to get a chainsaw. Then he cut off their heads . and later cut everyone into pieces.'
16 Just last week, Samper fired Uruena, who had been promoted to the rank of colonel, for his alleged role in the killings.
17 Vivanco said it is 'an outrage' that Uruena remains free and uncharged.
18 The government was represented before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights by Carlos Vicente ve Roux, presidential human rights adviser.
19 The country's ombudsman, Jaime Cordoba Trivino, also participated as head of a special Trujillo commission that investigated the crimes. The Rev. Javier Giraldo, a Catholic priest, represented the victims.

The Colombian government ' s willingness to assume responsibility for a massacre in which victims were tortured and cut up with chainsaws brought praise and a call for further investigation Tuesday from human rights advocates .
massacre
Who were the participants of the massacre?