E/CN.4/1995/111 page 31 101. When they saw the Special Rapporteurs, the Procurador General and his deputies also stressed the need to deal with the lack of internal disciplinary control within the armed forces. This would require: "a decision, without waiting for the conclusion of investigations by the Procuraduría General de la Nación, the ordinary criminal courts or the military courts, to dismiss from military or police duty any senior or junior officers, soldiers or policemen against whom there is serious evidence of human rights violations ... The Procuraduría General de la Nación wonders why, when substantiated charges are made of ill-treatment or atrocities against citizens, the top brass does not show the same conscientiousness, strictness and diligence as it does whenever one of the rank-and-file becomes involved in administrative corruption scandals or complicity with organized crime. It would be highly desirable for the lack of official discipline affecting the lives and freedoms of the person concerned to be controlled or punished at the source, in an exemplary manner, without taking the easy way out by invoking the lack of external or judicial disciplinary penalties, which are usually slow to materialize and sometimes never even do". 33/ As for the human rights offices recently established in the military and police barracks as a system of internal control, non-governmental organizations criticized their lack of capacity to investigate abuses against detainees. 102. Non-governmental organizations and personeros also expressed concern about the fact that complaints of torture, summary executions or disappearances received by them or the Procuradurías regionales have to be transmitted to the Procuraduría General in Bogota, which only then requests the regional office to carry out the investigation. This creates major delays and obstacles in the process of gathering evidence. V. CONCLUSIONS 103. Colombian society is beset by criminality and violence. Over the past few years, this problem has not diminished, despite the numerous legislative reforms and initiatives described in this report. Each year, 28,000 to 30,000 murders are committed. The perpetrators are armed groups in the service of drug traffickers and private landowners; paramilitary organizations allegedly linked to the security forces; "death squads", sometimes including off-duty police, killing people suspected of criminality or otherwise considered as "disposable"; the armed forces and police themselves, who kill suspected guerrillas and civilians perceived as supporting them; guerrillas who kill members of the security forces, members of opposing factions, those who refuse to continue the armed insurgency or to continue to belong to an insurgent group and sometimes civilians; and ordinary criminals. 104. Most of the torture, which is widespread, is said to be used by the security forces, and by paramilitary and other armed groups working in parallel with them, if not as a direct part of their campaigns. Torture may be used to extract information or confessions or to terrorize. It may occur before the victims are killed or are subjected to enforced disappearance.