Colombia war data 'unbelievable'

[Judi Lynn]

Source: BBC News

Page last updated at 20:26 GMT, Saturday, 13 December 2008
Colombia war data 'unbelievable'
By Jeremy McDermott
BBC News, Colombia

Colombian government figures on the number of guerrillas killed, captured or surrendered are vastly exaggerated, a human rights group says.

Codhes, a respected Colombian NGO, analysed the statistics of recent successes claimed by the armed forces in the 44-year civil conflict.

About 114,000 members of the warring factions were said to have been dealt with by the army in the last six years. However, other estimates say there are only 30,000 in the warring factions.

Even allowing for recruiting to replenish depleted ranks, the government figures suggest that eight members of the warring factions are killed every single day in Colombia, something not substantiated by any other sources.

~snip~
Also there is mounting evidence that members of the security forces have killed hundreds of unarmed civilians and presented them as members of the illegal armies shot in combat.







Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7781991.stm

[Sarah Ibarruri]

1. Uribe is a friend to Bush. That about says it all. nt

[EFerrari]

4. You are a lot more charitable than I am. n/t

[Sarah Ibarruri]

15. ROFLMAO! I was in a great mood, that's why. ;-)

On a less nice evening I might have used some ugly expletives lol


:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[pattmarty]

2. Hopefully Colombia will be the next "to fall" in South America.

[Judi Lynn]

3. "We feel ashamed of what has happened": Vice President Francisco Santos

"We feel ashamed of what has happened": Vice President Francisco Santos

Headlines
December 11, 2008

Francisco Santos, Colombia's Vice President, admitted in an interview with Edwin Koopman, of Dutch newspaper Trouw, that he feels ashamed of what happened during the 'false positives' scandal, in which civilian victims are executed and then presented as members of an illegal armed group.

"This is something that has hurt Colombia, especially the armed forces at their best moment after the liberation of Ingrid Betancourt", said Santos. "I have no words. To be very frank, I am out of words to try to even understand it myself, but we have to make sure this never happens again".

More:
http://www.semana.com/noticias-headlines/we-feel-ashamed-of-what-happened-vice-president-francisco-santos-listen-to-the-interview/118637.aspx

:eyes:

Link to interview, in English:
http://www.semana.com/multimedia-politica/francisco-santos-habla-sobre-falsos-positivos/1377.aspx

[amdezurik]

12. yet not sorry enough to resign

or testify in open court for crimes against humanity at the Hague or someother venue. Yeah real "sorry" there Santos.

[Peace Patriot]

5. Uribe's "phenomenal popularity"--BBC

"Popular president

"President Alvaro Uribe owes his phenomenal popularity to his tough 'democratic security' policy, but Codhes suggests that while there have been great advances, government claims are vastly exaggerated." --BBC

-----

In truth, Uribe owes his "phenomenal" popularity to the fear among the poor, workers, union leaders, community organizers, human rights workers, journalists, political leftists and ordinary voters that, if you raise your head in Colombia, and express your true opinion, you will be murdered by the "Black Eagles"--the rightwing death squads with close ties to the government and the military. Uribe's popularity is not genuine. He is president of the well off.

Democratic conditions do not exist in Colombia. You cannot trust opinion polls. You cannot trust the votes. The BBC knows this, and they are just plain lying about Uribe's "phenomenal popularity."

Fernando Lugo, the beloved "bishop of the poor," who was recently elected president of Paraguay, overturning 61 years of rightwing rule, including a heinous dictatorship, and who is allied with the Bolivarian leaders (Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, Evo Morales in Bolivia) and other leftist leaders (such as Lula da Silva in Brazil and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in Argentina) is "phenomenally" popular. He has a 90% approval rating in a country that just overturned their oppressors. The same is true of Chavez (60% to 65% approval), Correa (70% approval), Morales (65%). These are phenomenal numbers because these countries have governments that don't dismember the poor, while alive, and throw their body parts into mass graves, or lure youths with jobs then murder them to up the Colombian military's "body count" to impress the ghouls in Washington DC, but rather encourage maximum citizen participation, and are the heads of state in flourishing democracies, where even the most virulent criticism of the government and its leader is routinely expressed by the opposition.

The BBC knows this as well, but, unfortunately, the BBC has become a mere echo chamber of the corpo/fascist 'news' monopolies. They disgust me as much as the New York Times does, on South American issues, because they both know better.

This sneaky shit--where the corpo/fascist 'talking points' are slipped in sideways (Uribe's "phenomenal popularity") --disgusts me most of all. The BBC knows that opinion polls and votes don't count in conditions of violence and intimidation.

On the other hand, if you read this article sideways, they are saying the truth (but they don't mean it). Uribe owes his "phenomenal popularity" to the ten thousand dead union leaders and other leftists who can't express their opinion because of his "tough democratic security" policy.

[truedelphi]

6. Yep reporters are gonna praise your administration to the heavens if the alternative is

Getting killed. Which in Columbia happens an awful lot, to those brave and independent ones who cannot help but speak Truth to Power

[dipsydoodle]

8. self delete

.

[judasdisney]

7. Colombia has the world's second-largest number of displaced refugees

The world's second-largest population of internally-displaced refugees:

Colombia.

More than any other nation (more than Iraq, more than Somalia) except Sudan.

Find info on this fact here at this podcast mp3, at the 10:00 mark:

http://antiwar.com/radio/2008/08/27/adam-isacson/

More here:

http://www.educweb.org/webnews/ColNews-Apr05/English/Articles/CICR-deplaces.html

Alvaro Uribe has right-wing Death Squads and mass graves. Hugo Chavez doesn't, Evo Morales doesn't, and Rafael Correa doesn't.

[mwb970]

9. Unlike our body counts from Iraq, which are precisely accurate.

This takes me back to the Vietnam Days, when each day's news announced that American forces had killed 457 Viet Cong in a huge battle while suffering two minor injuries of their own. This was when I first realized that the American government would lie to the people. (I have seen many more examples in succeeding years, primarily from - ugh - Republicans.)

[acmavm]

10. I hope Uribe gets a good taste of how bitter paybacks can be after his

little murderous buddy Smirky leaves office. Without American help he couldn't do the things he does, wield the power he does. I hope Uribe gets a Pinochet-type rude awakening.

[niceypoo]

11. The military in Columbia kill peasants to boost their 'Kill numbers'

I remember McCain bragging how wonderful the government there was, how he had been there and Obama hadn't then Obama slapping him down with actual facts about how messed up it really is.

Latin America is a mess after Reagan got through with it.

[Judi Lynn]

13. Found an interesting item on McCain last night, regarding his visit to Pinochet!

McCain meets Pinochet in 1985
October 24, 2008 ·

Document-maven and father, John Dinges, writes in the Huffington Post and CIPER about John and Cindy’s vacation to the south of Chile to eat salmon and ride horses, to Santiago to meet with Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and to Vina del Mar to celebrate the New Year. Relevant documents are here and here.

“The trip was arranged by Chile’s ambassador to the United States, Hernan Felipe Errazuriz. According to a contemporary government document obtained from Chile, Errazuriz arranged for a special government liaison to help McCain while in Chile for the “strictly private” visit, and described him as “one of the conservative congressmen who is closest to our embassy.”

“McCain, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee at the time, made no public or private statements critical of the dictatorship, nor did he meet with members of the democratic opposition in Chile, as far as could be determined from a thorough check of U.S. and Chilean newspaper records and interviews with top opposition leaders.”

“McCain’s visit with Pinochet took place at a moment when the Chilean strongman held virtually unrestricted dictatorial power and those involved in public, democratic opposition were exposed to great risk.”

It came also at a moment when “methods of torture reported include beatings, electric shocks to the genitals and other parts of the body and rape of women prisoners,” according to an Associated Press report.

Only 12 days later Democratic Senator Edward Kennedy was welcomed with eggs and a road blockade when he visited in a show of support to the Catholic Church and human rights groups.

More:
http://tomasdinges.wordpress.com/2008/10/24/mccain-meets-pinochet-in-1985/

~~~~~~~~~~~
McCain seems just wild about mad-dog right-wing South American killers, doesn't he?

Who on EARTH would dream of even speaking to a piece of filth like Nixon's bloody puppet, Augusto Pinochet?

McCain's championing of Uribe, whose entire administration, even his family, is intimately involved with the narco-trafficking death squads, is true to course, unfortunately.

[Judi Lynn]

14. Dirty money:"shameful that the EU is so willing to overlook Colombia's deteriorating human rights"

Dirty money
It is shameful that the EU is so willing to overlook Colombia's deteriorating human rights situation in order to strike trade agreements

~snip~
Alvaro Uribe, the country's president, tried to use Betancourt's bloodless rescue to cultivate an image of cuddliness for himself. But his continued – and unfounded – assertions that trade unionists are engaged in terrorism has given right-wing paramilitaries a licence to kill and intimidate.

Uribe stated that a senior figure in Human Rights Watch was an accomplice of the Farc after HRW published a report in October suggesting that his government was sabotaging investigations into the influence wielded by paramilitaries over policy-makers. Accusing critics of Farc sympathies is a convenient way of distracting attention from Uribe's own record. Mark Thomas's new book Belching Out the Devil says that in 2002 the state was responsible for 17% of human rights violations in Colombia. By the end of Uribe's first term as president four years later, that proportion had risen to 56%.

Despite all this evidence, the European commission has still not opened a formal investigation into whether Colombia is complying with the terms on which its trade preferences were granted.

Even worse, the commission has confirmed recently that it wishes to negotiate a full free trade agreement with Colombia and Peru. This represents a climbdown from a decision taken in 2006 to pursue an accord with the entire Andean community. Because the leftwing governments of Ecuador and Bolivia are reluctant to completely hand over their countries to unscrupulous western firms, the EU side has decided to ditch them and negotiate with Bogota and Lima only. An official commitment made by Brussels officials last year to use trade as a means of bolstering regional integration in Latin America has now been overlooked.

The EU's policy for all free trade accords stipulates that they should contain a clause on human rights. In the case of Colombia that sounds like a joke, until you remember that it will be written with the blood of trade unionists.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/14/colombia-human-rights-trade