Colombia's "Para - Political" Scandal Widens

[Judi Lynn]

January 19, 2007
Colombia's "Para - Political" Scandal Widens
By REUTERS
Filed at 2:48 p.m. ET

BOGOTA (Reuters) - More than a dozen Colombian politicians agreed in 2001 to cooperate with right-wing paramilitary criminals, says a document revealed on Friday, fueling the country's worst political scandal in years.

Three members President Alvaro Uribe's congressional coalition have been sent to prison for their links with the drug-running militias, and more lawmakers were under investigation before paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso turned the document over as part of his court case.

Signed by militia bosses including Mancuso, who this week admitted he ordered massacres and 336 assassinations in the name of fighting left-wing rebels, the document also carries the signature of 11 members of Congress, two provincial governors and five mayors from the Atlantic coast region.

It calls for the reinforcement of the rule of law in Colombia, which has suffered waves of bombings, kidnappings and assassinations over 42 years of guerrilla war.

The document was signed by politicians from across this Andean country's political spectrum, with the exception of the main opposition party, called the Polo Democratico.
(snip/...)

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-colombia-paramilitaries.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[Peace Patriot]

1. $1.5 billion Bushite (our taxpayer) money to Columbian military (rightwing

fascists, paramilitaries) over several years. South America is turning against the US "war on drugs" (war on peasants and leftists), but Columbia remains the dinosaur, and, although President Uribe has refused to participate in Bushite plots against Hugo Chavez, I nevertheless feel that this huge amount of money the Bushites are pouring into the military will ultimately be used to destabilize the Andean democracies--Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador--rich in oil, gas, minerals and other resources, where leftist (majorityist) governments are using the country's resources to benefit the people who live there. Also a threat to Peru and Paraguay if leftist movements there succeed in electing leftist governments, as they well might. The Bush Cartel apparently bought a 100,000 acre property in Paraguay, near a US taxpayer-paid military air base; could be a launching pad for a private corporate resource war in the Andes, after the Bushites are done with looting us and the Iraqis.

[regnaD kciN]

20. Try getting the country's name right...

...before offering your opinion on how it should be run. It's "Colombia," not "Columbia," and thus "Colombian," not "Columbian." :grr:

[struggle4progress]

2. Time for US to Cut the Cord (Fellowship of Reconciliation Dec 06)

December 2006 Monthly Update ...
Colombia's "Para-Política" Scandal: Time for US to Cut the Cord ...

As if taken from a passage of Garcia Marquez' Chronicle of a Death Foretold, in March 2003, Edualdo Díaz, an army major in the small Caribbean town of El Roble (Sucre), spoke to President Alvaro Uribe, at a community council in front of hundreds of people and on national TV. He told how major politicians in the province, including Sucre Governor Salvador Arana, the head of the regional Inspector's office head Tatiana Moreno, and regional police chief Norman Arango, had removed him from his post and would later have him killed. The reason: Major Díaz had accused the governor of supporting paramilitary militias. A few weeks later, unidentified men seized Major Díaz. His body was found five days later with signs of torture.

What followed also seems as if from Garcia Marquez' fabled town of Macondo: President Uribe appointed the accused governor Arana and police chief Arango to diplomatic posts. Moreno, the regional head of the Inspector General's office, was appointed to the Attorney General's human rights office, charged with investigating massacres. In the investigation itself there were many irregularities: witnesses were actively discouraged from implicating the Sucre governor and the regional inspector's office faxed fabricated testimony to the prosecutor conducting the investigation. Former Attorney General Luis Camilo Osorio himself closed the criminal investigation against Governor Arana. He added that the charges "appear implausible, because one can not believe that someone with the track record and education of Dr. Arana --he is a medical surgeon with broad experience in the public sector and no criminal or disciplinary records -- would participate in actions as abhorrent as those that are gratuitously attributed to him."

The state of affairs took a turn earlier this year, when a laptop computer belonging to paramilitary leader "Jorge 40" was seized. The computer is said to contain chilling documentation of how politicians, high officials from different branches of power and paramilitaries operate. As a result, the Colombian Supreme Court has ordered the arrest, with no bail, of three Colombian Congressmen. More than two dozen current and former officials are facing accusations of collaborating with paramilitary groups, including diverting public funds to finance the creation of death squads ...

With just one exception, all the Congress people involved in the scandal belong to pro-Uribe political parties. Two of the congressmen in jail are members of a party lead by Senator Mario Uribe, President Uribe's first cousin and the sponsor of the lenient and controversial Justice and Peace law passed to demobilize paramilitaries. And the lone congressman with a party not closely linked to Uribe, Alvaro Araujo, is the brother of current Foreign Minister Maria Consuelo Araujo ...

http://www.forcolombia.org/monthlyupdate/dec2006/

[Say_What]

5. Never happen. Like Israel is the US watch dog in the ME, Colombia is the same in LatAm...

Uribe is Bush's lap dog. That's why Colombia, with the worst human rights record in the Western Hemisphere, is the world's 3rd largest recipient of US military aid after Egypt and Israel. Your tax dollars at work.

:argh:

[struggle4progress]

7. 20 years ago, I thought US support for the apartheid S African govt would never end:

the US rightwing was loud and zealous in their defense of Nationalist Party rule there. International solidarity beat all those bastards back a bit ...

[Say_What]

9. It's a different thing altogether... the US needs Colombia to watch the rest

of the LatAm and although there is much opposition to the funding, especially from Kucinich, I don't see this going away any time soon, not with the lapdog Uribe there. Like we've been reading, the paras control much of Colombia and the kill anyone who gets in their way. US funding goes to the military--the military trains and advises the paras. It's a viscous and very dangerous circle. They're far worse than the FARC and ELN combined.

Here's a little snippet from Kucinich's speech in 2003:

... The AUC's close relationship with the Colombian military is also disturbing because it implicates the United States in human rights abuses. How can the U.S. fund a military which has combined forces with a terrorist group responsible for torture, executions, and disappearances of innocent Colombian citizens? Until the Colombian government ceases its relationship with violent paramilitary groups that terrorize ordinary citizens, the United States must not directly fund it.

http://www.ciponline.org/colombia/030723kuci.htm

[struggle4progress]

11. US support for apartheid S African govt was justified similarly: gotta have em cuz ...

... of Namibia and Angola and Mozambique &c&c.

[Say_What]

13. I agree that it's time to cut the cord, way overdue actually,

but it as an impossible situation as long a we're funding them. Little news about Colombia gets out. There are more than 3 million people displaced in Colombia because of the ongoing civil war, countless dead in massacres carried out by the paras, union leaders, politicians assassinated. The list goes on and on. Many of the indigenous people are forced off their land by paras, usually for natural resources.

BTW, got an email from a friend today who said that General Pace is in Colombia checking out the *progress* on the war on drugs. I don't trust that shit at all. Venezuela and Ecuador have both demanded that Colombia not spray on their borders. More trouble on the horizon probably... watch for the bogus articles about Ven and Ecuador being *uncooperative* in the *war of drugs*.

[struggle4progress]

15. And I agree such cutoff ain't gonna just happen spontaneously.

[regnaD kciN]

21. Bad analogy...

Colombia isn't the "watchdog" of anything. They've got more than enough internal problems to deal with; they don't have the time to bother with the rest of Latin America.

[Judi Lynn]

22. Yep, lap dog is most surely the right term. Uribe is very isolated due to his lashing himself

to _Bush for all the substantial financial and military assistance he's getting to run his violent operation in Colombia.

Should be interesting if the news continues to follow the same direction it has taken with the explosion of public information about the right-wing politicians DIRECT ties to the paramilitary death squads.

[struggle4progress]

3. Warlord says that voters pressured to support Uribe

AP, BOGOTA
Friday, Jan 19, 2007, Page 7

Colombia's most feared paramilitary warlord said death squads under his command pressured voters to cast ballots for President Alvaro Uribe in 2002, prompting an angry response on Wednesday from the conservative leader.

Salvatore Mancuso, a top leader of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), acknowledged his group's support for Uribe in a closed-door court appearance on Tuesday, Omaira Gomez, a lawyer attending the proceedings said.

On Wednesday, Uribe denied the paramilitaries had any impact on his 2002 victory ...

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2007/01/19/2003345455

But .. but .. surely the death squads were polite when asking voters to cast their ballots for Uribe ...

[Judi Lynn]

4. Beautiful! I've read so many times before that paramilitaries "influence" voters,

even getting in the voting booths themselves, but this is testimony ON THE RECORD, FROM A PARAMILITARY. You can't beat that!

From the article:

Gomez, a lawyer attending the proceedings on behalf of the victims of paramilitaries, said that Mancuso ordered his private army to support Uribe "because he thought the same ... and had the same ideological plan."
(snip/)

Interesting. So glad it's officially on the record.

[Say_What]

6. Paras are stronger than ever...

Demobilization... a sweetheart deal between Uribe and his para pals.

<clips>

....Despite the demobilization and official investigations, some analysts say the paramilitary militias are as strong as ever. They point out that some fighters are organizing new groups with names like the Black Eagles and still hold sway over politics, organized crime and drug trafficking.

Alberto Rangel, a security analyst in Bogota, says paramilitary political power will continue as long as the forces that led to their creation -- civil war, drug money and weak government -- remain.

"If you demobilize the paramilitaries and those factors still exist, you're going to have to continue dealing with paramilitaries," Rangel said.

http://www.forcolombia.org/takeaction/letter

[Judi Lynn]

10. Never thought we'd see the day: this is priceless.

You probably have noticed that almost every article we read on Colombian paramilitaries goes through the very same propaganda formula explanation that (although they have been designated the far more violent group, having killed the major part of the murdered Colombians, and having accomplished their murders sadistically, as well) that the paramilitaries were created when wealthy ranchers hired them to guard their ranches, and fight off the leftist rebels who had been waging a war against the Colombian government for around 40 years or so. This obligatory tale of the beginning of paramilitaries is pasted into almost every article you're going to see which concerns them, and it's done as if there's a law it cannot be ommitted, just like writing "communist" in front of Fidel Castro, or Cuba, and "socialist" or "anti-American" or "fiery, anti-American" in front of Hugo Chavez.

This article breaks with tradition in this rip-roaring departure, a breath of fresh air!

A local cattleman who spoke on condition of anonymity said these fighters demand the sale of farms at bargain-basement prices and that people who resist are killed.

Ranchers used to be able to appease the paramilitary forces by giving them support.

But those days appear to be over, the cattleman said. "We all see now that the medicine was worse than the illness."

It just didn't matter to the ranchers that the paramilitaries were terrorizing the poor, the vulnerable, the isolated people in small villages, ripping them apart with chain saws, even hanging them on meat hooks, as I saw detailed recently.

It's when they start ripping off the wealthy ranchers, intimidating them, taking their property, forcing them to go through the motions of a legal land sale, while basically giving it to them, THAT's when the ranchers finally get worried. Screw them, and hallelujah.

[Say_What]

16. Heard from a friend

:hi: that General Pace is in Colombia checking out the war on drugs. My guess there'll be articles soon that Venezuela and Ecuador are being uncooperative because both are demanding that Colombia cease spaying their borders. Probably should go scare up an article about that if I can find one.

Re that quote, the paras are running the country--wow--and the ranchers are getting their just deserts.

[Judi Lynn]

17. Well, I'm sure he would know! So General Pace won't have to worry

about getting accidently sprayed by a rogue spray airplane, which happened with Democratic Congressman Paul Wellstone, who was there conducting his own investigation, nor will General Pace have to worry that they'll discover a bomb planted where he was supposed to disembark from his vehicle on a planned visit, which happened with Demcoratic Congressman Paul Wellstone.

He's on the right side of everything, politically, isn't he?

His trip surely wasn't publicized, but I'm certain your source knows exactly what he's talking about.

Concerning the flare-up over Colombia's spraying into Colombia, I heard last month Ecuador recalled its ambassador to Bogota over this. Uribe, or some other dipstick used the opportunity to blame Hugo Chavez, claiming he's the one who kicked up the argument, and was contradicted later by the facts, apparently.

If _Bush loses his chance to pretend he's "all about" drug traffic prevention, he'll lose his base in South America, from which he can move against Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador and whoever else thinks he's going to protect his own country.

Is it possible they are trying to build up in Paraguay now because they fear they might lose control of Colombia soon?
Uribe may not remain as cuddly to _Bush if he becomes overwhelmed by a crowd of patriotic, populist, not elitist Latin American Presidents!

[Say_What]

18. Pace is suggesting that Colombia be the model for Afghanistan!!

OMFG I just posted the article. :puke:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2696180

[Judi Lynn]

19. My God. How soon they think we forget! Apparently we don't remember Iran-Contra

any more, so we'll buy all this lock, stock, and barrel! From your article:

Colombia, at the urging of the United States, has sent police and anti-drug experts to train Afghan police and advise Kabul. Afghanistan is the source of 90 percent of the world's opium production, although Colombia is the main supplier of heroin to the United States.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia have financed their four-decade-old leftist insurgency through the drug trade, while in Afghanistan rising poppy production is blamed for fueling an increase in Taliban-led attacks against U.S. troops.
(snip)

Maybe they'll send loads of chain saws to Karzai, so he can get started building his own paramilitary squads to do the work his own military can't legally do itself.

GREAT CARTOON on fighting communism, drugs, terrorism. It's got real character.

[Say_What]

8. CIP: Peace - or "Paramilitarization?"

<slips>

Why a weak peace agreement with Colombian paramilitary groups may be worse than no agreement at all

At first glance, a negotiation between Colombia’s government and right-wing paramilitary groups looks easy and uncomplicated. The South American country’s paramilitary blocs (or “self-defense forces”) have always claimed to support the government. In particular, they claim to be ardent supporters of Colombia’s right-of-center president, Álvaro Uribe, who served as governor of a state where they are strong, and who owns land in zones under their total control.

The Colombian military itself helped to found the groups over twenty years ago, as part of a brutal strategy to undermine, through systematic attacks on civilian populations, the leftist guerrillas that have dominated much of rural Colombia since the mid-1960s. Though declared illegal in 1989, the paramilitaries – loosely confederated in a 20,000-strong national organization, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) – continue to benefit all too frequently from military logistical support, advice, or toleration.

Even though their declared mission of defeating the FARC and ELN guerrillas is far from accomplished, in 2002 the AUC decided to consider going out of business. Its leaders were quick to accept President Uribe’s offer to negotiate their demobilization in exchange for a unilateral cease-fire. Uribe took office in August 2002; most paramilitary groups declared a cease-fire in December of that year. Though that cease-fire has been routinely violated – the Colombian government acknowledges 492 paramilitary killings, and non-governmental human rights groups claim thousands more – the talks have continued for over thirty months.2

Nonetheless, what many critics call a “negotiation between friends” has turned out to be far from easy. While both sides at the negotiating table may share an interest in a quick process that forgives most crimes and names few names, the same cannot be said of other stakeholders like victims’ groups, powerful members of Colombia’s Congress, and most international donor governments.

Though they have no seats at the table, these sectors reject any deal that amnesties paramilitary leaders responsible for countless massacres and extrajudicial killings over the past twenty years. Many worry that the negotiations may help some of the country’s most notorious drug traffickers avoid punishment and keep most of their ill-gotten gains, including millions of acres of prime land taken by force. While failure to punish abuses or to right past wrongs risks prolonging Colombia’s generations-old cycle of violence, critics also point out that a weak agreement will leave paramilitary command and support networks in place, allowing the groups to continue to exist in some other form.

http://www.ciponline.org/colombia/0507ipr.htm

[Judi Lynn]

12. I had to find out what happened at Alto Naya, from your photo. Sad, so sad:

February 23, 2004

The Massacre at Alto Naya
by Patricia Dahl

~snip~
Witnesses said the paramilitaries detained Cayetano Cruz, an indigenous governor, and cut his body in half with a chainsaw. Seventeen-year-old Gladys Ipia’s head and hand were amputated with a chainsaw. It is said that one paramilitary carried the head of a victim in his backpack for a week. Naya residents believe 140 lives were lost in that paramilitary operation. However, the government has acknowledged the deaths of only 23. Another 6,000 people fled during the massacre. And while some 5,500 returned without any guarantees for their safety, 540 people are still displaced.

“Massacres of that magnitude have not been repeated,” says Juan. “Instead there are now random assassinations. There is confusion and everyone is afraid to speak,” explains Juan. “There is a proposal to build another dam and to sell the electricity from it. They are beginning to privatize the water. There is a place that provides water to several towns and now the people cannot use it. More and more the multinational presence is felt. The University of Cauca—as well as some religious groups—claims to own the land, but many believe the multinationals are behind the University. Things are blurred. We are confused. We want support, but do not know what path to follow.”
(snip/...)

http://www.forcolombia.org/takeaction/letter

[Say_What]

14. Your tax dollars at work... makes the Texas Chainsaw Murderer look like a school kid...

and still the USSA continues to fund them. How despicable!

[Nevernever]

23. Most people don't realize...

...that the AUC was formed from remnants of the US-backed Contras in the 1980s and that at one time, part of the organization was actually the personal army of cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar...

[Judi Lynn]

24. Had no idea those groups were connected, but it's not hard to believe.

Now the paras are being revealed as connected to Colombian high-ranking Congressmen and higher officials, too.

[Judi Lynn]

25. Colombian Government Is Ensnared in a Paramilitary Scandal

Colombian Government Is Ensnared in a Paramilitary Scandal
By SIMON ROMERO
Published: January 21, 2007

BOGOTÁ, Colombia, Jan. 20 — The government of President Álvaro Uribe, the largest recipient of American aid outside the Middle East, has found itself ensnared in a widening scandal as revelations surface of a secret alliance between some of the president’s most prominent political supporters and paramilitary death squads.

Testimony this week from Salvatore Mancuso, a former paramilitary commander who admitted to orchestrating the killing of more than 300 people, as well as a document made public on Friday implicating more than a dozen politicians in the pact with paramilitaries, have injected fresh detail into a slow-burning scandal that has caused Colombia’s elite political class to shudder in recent weeks.

Senior members of Mr. Uribe’s government and Mr. Uribe himself have said that anyone shown to have had illegal ties to the paramilitaries, which terrorized Colombian cities and the countryside in the nation’s internal war, which has gone on for decades, and made fortunes in cocaine trafficking, should be prosecuted in courts of law.

The scandal has already touched Mr. Uribe’s cabinet, with Senator Álvaro Araújo, the brother of Foreign Minister Maria Consuelo Araújo, under investigation for collaborating with militias.
(snip)

Mr. Mancuso, 48, who studied English at the University of Pittsburgh, wept during the first days of his testimony at a special hearing in Medellín last month. This week, however, he simply read from a statement describing how he oversaw the assassinations of hundreds of people, with some operations made possible with information from military intelligence.

Mr. Mancuso also put Mr. Uribe in the spotlight by saying that militias pressured people to vote for the president in 2002, when Mr. Uribe was first elected. Mr. Uribe responded quickly by going on a national radio network to say he had never sent any emissaries to strike deals with the paramilitaries.

On the heels of Mr. Mancuso’s testimony, a document rumored to exist in recent weeks was published in the daily newspaper El Tiempo on Friday. It describes a secret pact in 2001 between Mr. Mancuso, other paramilitary leaders and 11 congressmen, two governors and five mayors, in which those present agreed to work together to forge “a new social contract,” largely in order to protect private property rights.
(snip/...)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/world/americas/21colombia.html?em&ex=1169528400&en=1b9c3700bbdd83ac&ei=5087%0A

[Judi Lynn]

26. Colombia militia oppose live TV crime testimony

Colombia militia oppose live TV crime testimony
25 Jan 2007 00:44:53 GMT
Source: Reuters

More BOGOTA, Jan 24 (Reuters) - Colombian paramilitary bosses, who gave up their guns under a peace deal with President Alvaro Uribe, on Wednesday opposed a plan that would broadcast their live testimony about atrocities committed under their command.

The testimonies are a key part of the peace accord between U.S.-ally Uribe and right-wing militia commanders who surrendered their weapons and promised full confessions in exchange for reduced prison terms of up to eight years.

The paramilitaries were responding to a prosecutor decision to allow televised sessions. Top paramilitary boss Salvatore Mancuso, who led a brutal dirty war, has been testifying in closed sessions open only to some victims until now.

Rights groups, who say the transmissions would allow victims of paramilitary violence to better scrutinize proceedings, worry the militiamen could use the disagreement over broadcasts to avoid giving complete confessions.

Jailed leaders of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia or AUC, which once battled Marxist rebels still fighting a four-decade conflict, said broadcasts would put their families at risk and undermine due process.
(snip/...)

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N24461272.htm

[Judi Lynn]

27. Parapolitics Scandal Heats Colombia

Parapolitics Scandal Heats Colombia

Bogota, Jan 25 (Prensa Latina) The scandal of Parapolitics, the alleged links between politicians and paramilitaries, for the control of regions and State machinery, is Thursday attracting Colombians attention.

After Colombia returned to normalcy last week, new details appear every day on the so-called Parapolitics scandal.

The demobilized chief of the AUC mercenary group Salvatore Mancuso handed over on January 16 to the Attorney of Justice and Peace the text of the Ralito agreement signed between several paramilitary commanders and 32 politicians from the Atlantic coast of the country.

Between the signatories of the document that dates from July 2001, in secret until now, there are 12 congressmen that the Supreme Court of Justice is analyzing whether to call them for questioning to explain why they met the paramilitaries.

Most of the Colombian parties agreed that any congressmen called for questioning or required by the Supreme Court of Justice for being involved in the Parapolitics scandal must be removed from the legislative.
(snip/...)

~~~~ link ~~~~