MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Colleague of Colombian squad involved in killing of Haiti president says his friends were tricked into it

The former commando missed the job opportunity because he did not have a passport

Former Colombian serviceman who was to be among the commandos involved in the assassination of Haiti President Jovenel Moïse a week ago has claimed they were not “mercenaries.”

Carlos Arturo García Zamora, a retired professional soldier of the Colombian National Army, who was unable to travel because he did not have a valid passport, has told Radio Caracol that like his colleagues now under arrest or killed in the mission, he had received a text message on his cell phone to be handled “with the greatest possible discretion.”

The proposal was the following: “There is an American company that needs special forces personnel, experienced commandos, to carry out a job in Central America, the payment is between 2,500 and 3,500 dollars a month...”

According to García Zamora, the group was to engage in urban combat operations, “to help the recovery of that country in terms of security and democracy.”

The recruiter went on: “The order I have for now is to form two companies of special forces, a total of 100 men to enter that country, after this, the formation of 400 more men is coming, for a total of 500, the work to be carried out is strong, we are going to warm up the first months, due to the public order situation in that country, the project is already underway.”

The message explicitly expressed the government of the United States was behind the operation: “If everything goes well, it is a short-term project, no longer than three months, I stop going, we are under the protection of the American government, they are going to equip us and they are going to pay us our salaries,” the text went on.

García Zamora explained his colleagues had only been paid their tickets into Port-au-Prince, but he could not join the party because he did not have a passport. “They were used as guinea pigs; It is hard to know that it could have been me; it is very painful to know them, and above all to talk with the wife of one of the deceased, the professional soldier Miguel Guillermo Garzón… it is very hard,” he lamented.