New Colombian party linked to right-wing gangs

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Mar 16, 2:49 AM EDT
New Colombian party linked to right-wing gangs
By FRANK BAJAK
Associated Press Writer

BOGOTA (AP) -- A new party accused of ties to far-right criminal bands has emerged as a surprising force in Colombian politics, adding to worries that President Alvaro Uribe has failed to weaken drug-funded paramilitaries in the provinces.

Voters made the Party of National Integration, or PIN, Colombia's fourth-strongest party in Sunday's election to replace a Congress already badly tarnished by lawmaker links to far-right militias.

The party, comprised in a large part by relatives and friends of lawmakers jailed or under investigation for alleged paramilitary links, won nearly a million votes in elections dominated by Uribe allies.

"It is no secret that drug mafias and some remnants of paramilitary groups have penetrated Colombia's political system," said Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington. "But their capacity to organize politically in the current context is notable, and deeply troubling."

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LT_COLOMBIA_ELECTIONS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2010-03-16-02-49-45

[SteveM]

1. "...paramilitary groups have penetrated Colombia's political system." For YEARS...

they have "penetrated Colombia's political system." But because they are far-right, they receive only 1/10 of amount of news "coverage" as the left-wing FARC. For most news organizations its "All FARC, all the time." And there should be nothing "surprising" about this.

[iandhr]

2. There are right-wing thugs

and there are left wing thugs like FARC both need to be delt with

[Mudoria]

3. Indeed

[mudplanet]

4. The difference between right wing thugs and "left wing thugs"

Right wing thugs - financed by the fascists, operate with complete impunity, main goal is to suppress freedom of thought and action, primary motivation is money, ranks composed of illiterates trying to earn enough to eat and criminals who have found their true patrons.

"Left wing thugs" - self financed, operate selflessly and in continuous danger of extrajudicial execution, main goal is empowerment of the people of Colombia, primary motivation is the fact that one of their family members was picked up by "the police or army" and disappeared or later found dead after being tortured to death, ranks composed of peasants, workers and university students working together to make Colombia a decent country.

"There are right wing thugs" is right, and they are the Colombian government and the military power structure, and they do need to be "dealt with" (nod nod wink wink)

[wayne fontes]

8. FARC sucks too

The reason the right wing militias have so much power is that they are more popular than FARC. Where the militias and FARC are in conflict the right wing militias take over because they have more support from the people. FARC has been pushed to the least populated areas of the country.

Your description of FARC as self financing leaves out the fact they finance their operations through the drug trade and kidnapping. Their selfless operations are aimed at over throwing a democratically elected government. Fifteen thousand or so rebels are distorting the politics and economy of an entire country. They've been at it for forty years and have yet to achieve much popular support. It's time for the FARC to lay down their arms and call it a day.

[Judi Lynn]

9. Invest your energy and integrity in researching what Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch,

and all the world's real human rights groups have to say about what entity in Colombia is responsible for the lion's share of the atrocities, massacres, tortures, etc.

As long as you play dumb, you can pretend you're dealing with reality.

The rest of us know better because we PAY ATTENTION to what we hear, we THINK, ask questions, talk to people, read, read more, research, pool our information with others. This comes from having a conscience, and having learned long, LONG ago the right-wing #### people pass off as fact is pure crap spun by propagandists.

Gangs tied to paramilitaries spur Colombia violence
By Arthur Brice, CNN
February 3, 2010 -- Updated 1658 GMT (0058 HKT)

(CNN) -- Criminal gangs that emerged from Colombia's former paramilitary organizations are carrying out massacres, rapes and extortion, a human rights group said Wednesday.

Nowhere is that violence more pronounced than in Medellin, which recorded more than 200 slayings in January alone. The city's homicide rate also more than doubled in 2009 from the previous year.

Bogota, the nation's capital, also is seeing a surge in violence, with more than 100 killings reported last month.

A report released Wednesday by Human Rights Watch details widespread abuses by successor groups to the paramilitary coalition of 37 armed groups called the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, better known by its Spanish acronym AUC.

The Colombian government has said it decommissioned more than 30,000 AUC members from 2003 to 2006, but Human Rights Watch said many of those demobilizations were fraudulent. Large numbers of heavily armed paramilitaries never left the organizations, or new recruits took the place of those who stepped down, the rights group said.

More:
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/02/03/colombia.violence/index.html

~~~~

Report outlines atrocities in Colombia
Published: Feb. 3, 2010 at 11:02 AM

BOGOTA, Feb. 3 (UPI) -- Violent groups in Colombia are committing atrocities in communities they control including mass murder, rape and extortion, a report says.

The 122-page document released Wednesday by Human Rights Watch calls on the Colombian government to take action against successor groups to the dismantled paramilitary coalition known as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia.

"Like the paramilitaries, these successor groups are committing horrific atrocities and they need to be stopped," said Miguel Vivanco, Americans director for Human Rights Watch.

More:
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/International/2010/02/03/Report-outlines-atrocities-in-Colombia/UPI-30681265212955

~~~~

Colombia: Protect Witnesses in Paramilitary Cases
Government Needs to Stem Skyrocketing Violence in Medellin
December 23, 2009

http://www.hrw.org.nyud.net:8090/en/sites/default/files/imagecache/scale-300x/media/images/photographs/2007_Colombia_AlexPulgarin.jpg

Alexander Pulgarín.
© 2007 Human Rights Watch

(Washington, DC) - The Colombian government should act swiftly to protect witnesses in criminal cases against members of groups that are successors to demobilized paramilitaries in the city of Medellín, Human Rights Watch said today.

Human Rights Watch called on the government to investigate attacks on witnesses and to bolster law enforcement efforts to stem the rapidly rising violence in the city attributed to the successor groups.

On December 20, 2009, unidentified armed men repeatedly shot and killed Alexander Pulgarín, a community leader in the La Sierra neighborhood of Medellín. Pulgarín was a key witness in the prosecution of John William López (known as "Memín"), a demobilized paramilitary member who was recently convicted of ongoing criminal activity. Pulgarín had been receiving frequent threats as a result of his testimony and community work.

"Alexander Pulgarín took enormous risks in testifying against the demobilized paramilitaries who brutally controlled his neighborhood," said Maria McFarland, Washington deputy advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. "His shooting in broad daylight shows that the government is not protecting witnesses adequately or providing desperately needed security in Medellin."

Local authorities told Human Rights Watch that several armed men accosted Pulgarín as he stepped out of a community soccer game that he had helped to organize in La Sierra. The men shot him multiple times, killing him.

More:
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/12/23/colombia-protect-witnesses-paramilitary-cases

~~~~

Executing justice: Which side are we on?
An interview with Colombian human rights activist Padre Javier Giraldo, S.J.

by Ruth Goring

--------

The government of Colombia has long been engaged in a war with two Marxist insurgent groups, the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the ELN (National Army of Liberation). The U.S. government currently bolsters the Colombian armed forces through Plan Colombia, but most Americans receive little news of the conflict and fail to realize that nearly all its casualties are civilians.

In 1988 Padre Javier Giraldo, a Jesuit priest, was instrumental in founding a human rights organization, originally Catholic and now ecumenical: the Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz (Interchurch Commission for Justice and Peace, generally shortened to Justicia y Paz). Over the years Padre Javier has helped compile Proyecto Nunca Más (the Never Again Project), a massive database of human rights violations in his country.

Last year 4,900 political homicides and 734 forced disappearances were recorded in Colombia, according to the Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights of Colombia. Organizations such as Human Rights Watch and United Nations reporting agencies state that 70-80 percent of political murders in that country are the work of right-wing paramilitary forces supported by major economic interests. The government claims to oppose the paramilitaries as well as the guerrillas, yet according to many eyewitness reports the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, AUC) works hand in hand with the army. A key theme of Padre Javier's work has been impunity--the Colombian government's failure to punish, or even properly investigate, crimes committed by paramilitaries, army personnel, and officials of the state.

PRISM: Tell us about the work you have done to bring to light human rights abuses in Colombia.

JG: I worked for some years with CINEP, the Center for Investigation and Popular Education, founded by Jesuits in the late 1960s. Its purpose is to promote education and justice among Colombia's people. However, it became increasingly evident that Colombia needed a small church-based organization that would confront issues of human rights very directly. Most of the Catholic bishops were very tied to the government; they didn't denounce any abuses except those committed by guerrillas.

Among progressive religious orders we began exploring how we might protect the human rights of victims of the Colombian state. The bishops were not interested in helping, but in early 1988 the superiors of 25 orders (which we call congregations) came together to found the Comisión de Justicia y Paz. Its goal was to provide humanitarian and legal support, especially in areas of intense conflict--Santander, Valle del Cauca, Magdalena Medio, Putumayo, and Urabá. We would gather facts about human rights abuses in a databank and would publicize situations of crisis. Some cases we would take to the courts. Our staff developed close relationships with some impoverished communities that were suffering in the midst of the armed conflict and that gained courage to declare themselves peace communities.

I served as the general secretary of Justicia y Paz until the end of 1998 and was often the spokesperson for victims in cases brought before Colombia's courts. In those eleven years I did not witness a single act of justice. Not one government or military official who committed crimes was sanctioned.

PRISM: How would you summarize your analysis of Colombia's crisis?

JG: In the late 1990s I wrote an article, "Lo que en Colombia se llama justicia" (What Is Called Justice in Colombia), published in our Justicia y Paz journal. It recounts 10 exemplary cases that reveal the mechanisms of impunity in our country--how testimony is manipulated, victims or their families are threatened and silenced, false testimony is presented, essential documents are "misplaced." Then I pose a global question. We turn to the state to sanction human rights violations, assign reparations, bring about justice--but the state itself has committed the crimes and is the criminal. How can we turn to the victimizer for justice? It's a terrible contradiction.

My conclusion was that the Colombian state is contradictory. It tries to fulfill two functions. On the one hand it's a violent, discriminatory institution that must favor a small wealthy minority. Even basic necessities are denied to the great majority of its people. By its very nature, at its core, it is not democratic. On the other hand, in public discourse it presents itself as a state based on law, one that respects and implements justice, human rights norms, democratic laws.

How do government functionaries manage this contradiction? They maintain a duality: the parastate, a structure that is illegal and clandestine, increasingly takes over the dirty work, the repression. It doesn't appear to be part of the state. For many years now Colombia's government has been creating and maintaining these structures. The legal, constitutional structure exists parallel to structures of a parastate and paramilitary.

More:
http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/colombia/doc/giraldo1.html

~~~~

Colombia Human Rights
Human Rights Concerns

Since 2003, paramilitary groups, responsible for the vast majority of human rights violations in Colombia for over a decade, have been involved in a government-sponsored "demobilization" process. More than 25,000 paramilitaries have supposedly demobilized under a process which has been criticized by AI and other Colombian and international human rights groups, as well as by the OHCHR and the IACHR. The process is lacking in effective mechanisms for justice and in its inability to ensure that paramilitary members actually cease violent activities.

In fact, paramilitarism has not been dismantled, it has simply been "re-engineered."

More:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/all-countries/colombia/page.do?id=1011135

[Judi Lynn]

10. Indigenous Colombians Struggle to Survive (paramilitary violence toward indigenous Colombians)

Indigenous Colombians Struggle to Survive
Americas, Economic, Social & Cultural Rights | Posted by: The Editors, March 16, 2010 at 9:03 AM

The indigenous community of Colombia is in serious danger of extinction if their human rights continue to be ignored and violated. Amnesty International’s new report details a startling increase in attacks against indigenous peoples across the country leaving many communities struggling for survival.

According the National Indigenous Organization of America, 114 men, women and indigenous children were killed and thousands were forcibly displaced in 2009. Among other violations against indigenous peoples are forced disappearances, threats, physical abuse of women, the recruitment of child soldiers, and the persecution of indigenous leaders.

These injustices threaten the very existence of such communities and it is imperative that the Colombian government respond. The Minister of Colombia, Valencia Cossio, recently stated, “The report erroneously assumed that ‘internal armed conflict’ and ‘paramilitaries’ are to blame for the violence, and they do not face the fact that indigenous communities have been displaced and killed by the FARC and emerging criminal groups. ”

However, Human Rights Watch has continued to document great tolerance by the military for paramilitary atrocities. According to Human Rights Watch, the phrase “sixth division” is a common phrase in Colombia when referring to paramilitary groups in the country. At its most wrenching, there is collaboration between the military and paramilitaries of Colombia that according to Human Rights Watch includes:

• communication via radios, cellular phones and beepers, intelligence sharing, including the names of suspected guerrilla collaborators, sharing of fighters, including active duty soldiers serving in paramilitary units and the paramilitary commanders lodging on military bases;

• distribution of vehicles, including army trucks to transport paramilitary fighters;

• coordination of army roadblocks, which routinely let heavily-armed paramilitary pass;

• and payments made by the paramilitaries to military officers for their support

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) delivered several precautionary measures designed to protect the various interest groups in Colombia. A report in 2002, noted that “about 160 men dressed in military uniform, using AUC armbands, entered the Urada Indian reservation, and threatened the community, saying: “Either you join us or you go. The next stop will be the communities of Puerto Lleras and Pueblo Nuevo, we will be getting rid of these communities, either you join us or you leave; you must cultivate palm and coca, if not, you leave. ”

More:
http://blog.amnestyusa.org/escr/indigenous-colombians-struggle-to-survive/

[Judi Lynn]

11. Remember the last massacre at the San Jose de Apartado Peace Community?

We were lucky to learn from D.U. member, Derecho, that 15 people involved in this filthy massacre are currently on trial in Colombia. It's next to a miracle, as the right-wing government has almost NEVER tried any of the military or paramilitary for their evil, totally soulless deeds. It's because they have all been serving right-wing interests.

http://www.wri-irg.org.nyud.net:8090/fr/system/files/images/SanJose-Coffins_small.JPG

Symbolic funeral of the victims

Massacre in Colombian Peace Community
~~~~~

Once again, the trail of blood leads to the SOA:
SOA graduate commands accused brigade
"We have always said, and in that we are clear, that until this very day we are resisting. And our work is to continue resisting and defending our rights. We don't know until when, because the truth we've lived in our story is this: today we are here talking; tomorrow we may be dead. Today we are here in San Jose de Apartado; tomorrow the majority of people here could be displaced because of a massacre." -- Luis Eduardo Guerra, in an interview on January 15 of this year, 37 days before he was assassinated by the Colombian military

On February 21-22, 2005, eight members of the San Jose de Apartado Peace Community in Uraba, Colombia -including three young children, were brutally massacred. Witnesses identified the killers as members of the Colombian military, and peace community members saw the army's 17th and 11th Brigades in the area around the time of the murders.

http://soaw.org.nyud.net:8090/img/Luis%20Eduardo%20Guerra.jpg

Luis Eduardo Guerra

Among those killed was Luis Eduardo Guerra, an internationally recognized peace activist and a co-founder of the Peace Community. In November 2002, Luis travelled from Colombia to Fort Benning, Georgia to speak out against the School of the Americas and to give a first hand testimony about the brutal impact that SOA training and US foreign policy have on the dire situation in Colombia.

General Hector Jaime Fandino Rincon is the commander of the 17th Brigade of the Colombian army. Like Luis Eduardo, Fandino Rincon also travelled to the School of the Americas -- not to speak out for justice and peace like Luis, but to attend the "Small-Unit Infantry Tactics" course in order to become "familiar with small-unit operational concepts and principles at the squad and platoon level, receive training in planning and conducting small-unit tactical operations." Fandino Rincon is a 1976 graduate of the notorious School of the Americas. In December of 2004 he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General.

Since the massacre, the Colombian administration of Alvaro Uribe has done little to investigate the murders. No investigation into the military or the 17th or 11th Brigade has begun. All the focus now of the government agencies intervening in the situation is to force the community members to testify at risk of their lives' instead of focusing on the military that was in the area at the time of the murders.

Police and military forces have flooded San Jose against the wishes of the Peace Community, which has taken a fundamental stance against any and all armed actors. Since the massacre, all but five of the 100 families that formed the Peace Community have been forced to leave their homes and land.

http://soaw.org.nyud.net:8090/img/op/SJABellaniraAreiza.jpg

Bellanira Areiza

Those killed on February 21 and 22 included Luis Eduardo, his partner Bellanira and their son, Deiner, 11. Also massacred were Alejandro Perez, Alfonso Bolivar Tuberquia Graciano, his partner, Sandra Milena Munoz Pozo and their young children, Santiago, 18 months, and Natalia, 6 years old.

The Peace Community sent a delegation to locate and identify their bodies. They found a gruesome scene, with Alejandro, Alfonso, Sandra, Santiago and Natalia in a communal grave. They had all been killed with machetes, with their heads and extremities severed. The community found Luis, Bellanira and Deiner's bodies thrown near a river. They had been beaten badly and had their throats cut.

http://soaw.org.nyud.net:8090/img/op/SJAAlejandroPerez.jpg

Alejandro Perez

The community writes:

"The military presence in the zone before, during and after the massacre points clearly to the Colombian Army as being responsible for this latest attack on the civilian population. We are facing a new humanitarian crisis in the zone and the death of our friends and of Luis Eduardo, leader of the community, is a sure signal. We know that the whole strategy of terror and impunity is going to continue. Soldiers have threatened a number of families and warned them that if they don't leave, the same thing is going to happen to them. They are also looking for the surviving witnesses of the massacre who are terrified at the danger their lives are in."

http://soaw.org.nyud.net:8090/img/op/SJAAlfonsoBolivar.jpg

Alfonso Bolivar

The Colombian military, paramilitary units and guerrilla forces have targeted this community, founded an attempt to created a space free of weapons and independent of any armed actors, since its inception in 1996. One hundred fifty two members of the community have been killed in eight years, and not a single perpetrator has been brought to justice, even though the Colombian justice system has gathered the testimonies of hundreds of people identifying those responsible.

http://soaw.org.nyud.net:8090/img/op/SJADeinerGuerra.jpg

Deiner Guerra

For years, official reports from the United Nations, Human Rights Watch and even the State Department have established the collusion and collaboration between the U.S.-trained Colombian army and right-wing paramilitaries forces in many war-torn regions of the country. With military support, the paramilitaries are operating as surrogate death squads and thugs. A United Nations report confirmed this trend, stating that "Members of the military participated in massacres, organized paramilitary groups, and spread death threats. The security forces also failed to take action, and this undoubtedly enabled the paramilitary groups to achieve their exterminating objectives."



Natalia Tuberquia

The Peace Community writes:

"In this context, it is important to understand the Army-paramilitary strategy to clear villages and take control of the land. First come the indiscriminate bombings and then the operations in which they eliminate everything they come across: animals, crops, homes and, as the most recent events show, entire families. But there is no doubt that the strategy is working: just two weeks ago we pointed out that as a result of these operations in Mulatos and Resbalosa, only 10 families remained, and now nine of them have been displaced to San Jose."

The story of the San Jose de Apartado Peace Community, while appalling, is all too common in Colombia. And yet stories of Colombia's ongoing war recognized by the United Nations as "the world's greatest humanitarian disaster after Congo and Darfur" are absent from much mainstream media coverage.

Since 2000, the U.S. has sent $3.3 billion to Colombia in aid - making it the world's top recipient after Israel and Egypt. The aid is mostly military, and the Pentagon also has troops on the ground (officially barred from combat). In October, Congress approved doubling the U.S. troop presence in Colombia to 800. The cap on the number of U.S. civilian contract agents, pilots, intelligence analysts, and security personnel was also raised, from 400 to 600. The measure came as a little-noticed part of the 2005 Defense Department authorization act, and was a defeat for human rights groups, which had been pushing for a lower cap. The new 800/600 cap is exactly what the White House asked for.

The Colombian conflict is rooted in social inequalities. Between 60 and 68 percent of the population are currently living at or below the poverty line. The Bush administration's military approach has remained at the forefront of their failing strategy to "solve" the problem. The SOA-style repression that is killing thousands every year is supposed to maintain the status quo - to keep the rich powerful and the poor silent.

More:
http://soaw.org/article.php?id=1024

http://www.semana.com.nyud.net:8090/photos//1406/ImgArticulo_T1_61198_2009411_130811.jpg

http://fotos.cdpsanjose.org.nyud.net:8090/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=311&g2_serialNumber=2

http://images.huffingtonpost.com.nyud.net:8090/2009-05-13-sanjose.jpg http://www.semana.com.nyud.net:8090/photos/generales/ImgArticulo_T1_60405_200939_164223.jpg http://www.iacenter.org.nyud.net:8090/img/aparto1040108.jpg

Foto: Jesús Abad Colorado - Este niño y su padre lloran después
de la masacre de dos familias en San José de Apartadó, en
el Urabá antioqueño en 2005. Un paramilitar confesó que la
matanza se habría cometido en complicidad con las fuerzas armadas.

[mudplanet]

13. Wrong. All you've got to do is look at the recent history of El Salvador

to see exactly what's going on in Colombia.

FARC has always been in the least populated areas of the country. They haven't been "pushed" there. Right wing militias are more popular than the FARC! In cocktail parties at the clubs of the exclusive, maybe. Everywhere in the countryside, where they murder and rape with impunity, I think not. The militias murder more innocent unarmed people each year in Colombia than the FARC has killed in the entire history of the conflict. And why not. The rich pay them well for it, and guarantee they won't be called to answer for it.

I'm having difficulty imagining how the government of Colombia can be described as "democratically elected" when activity in a union or serious opposition party results in murder by the government or their hirelings with impunity.

If the FARC was like the government of Colombia and their militias, they wouldn't ransom their captives, they'd torture and kill them. Shame on the FARC for letting them live. I'm sure FARC would be glad to finance their struggle by accepting billions of dollars from the U.S.

Do you really think that if the Colombian military wanted to they couldn't defeat the FARC in one year? Instead, it's leadership is corrupt and incompetent and motivated by how much money they garner for themselves by the struggle.

The govt. of Colombia objects so loudly to any involvement by other govts in the drug trade, simply because they don't like the competition.

Long live the struggle for freedom from corrupt fascists.

[Judi Lynn]

14. Not FARC, but "Paramilitaries suspected of 150,000 murders."

Paramilitaries suspected of 150,000 murders
Monday, 18 January 2010 08:20 Adriaan Alsema

Home News News Paramilitaries suspected of 150,000 murders
Paramilitaries suspected of 150,000 murders
Monday, 18 January 2010 08:20 Adriaan Alsema



Former members of demobilized paramilitary organization AUC have confessed to 30,000 murders so far, and prosecutors suspect them of a total 150,000 killings, newspaper El Tiempo reported on Monday.

Some 2,000 paramilitaries, whose organizations were founded in the mid-1980s to counter left-wing guerrilla attacks, made confessions as part of a settlement with the government that gives them milder punishments in exchange for the truth about their crimes.

However, another 1,200 paramilitaries have still not responded to requests by investigators to make statements.

Paramilitary fighters taking part in the demobilization program have so far confessed to the murders of 30,000 Colombians, but, according to the Prosecutor General's Office, this leaves a further 120,000 murders of which paramilitaries are suspected still unsolved.

Luiz Gonzalez, boss of the Prosecutor General's Justice and Peace Unit, stresses that his office will revoke benefits granted to the 30,000 demobilized paramilitaries if they are found guilty of committing crimes to which they did not voluntarily confess.

The apparent lack of will of paramilitaries to fully cooperate with the authorities is not the only thing obstructing the finding and identifying of tens of thousands of the paramilitaries' victims; Colombia's clogged judicial system is delaying the interrogation and investigation of hundreds of paramilitaries who have expressed their wish to cooperate, Gonzales said.

So far, investigators have exhumed 2828 victims from 2316 graves. The remains of 721 victims of paramilitary violence have been returned to their families, but thousands of mass graves are still waiting to be opened.

http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/7711-demobilized-paramilitaries-confess-150000-murders.html

~~~~~~~~

http://static.canalcaracol.com.nyud.net:8090/sites/caracoltv.com/files/images/ae2c68f047904ed9f814a691e6b426ca.jpg

Former paramilitary, the late Francisco Villalba, man who testified
about what they had done to innocent Colombian citizens. He was
murdered after he gave his testimony.

Written by an editor at Colombia's largest newspaper, "El Tiempo" regarding the article they did on Colombian massacres:~snip~
They Gave Quartering Classes

When we decided at El Tiempo to do a special report on the phenomenon of common graves a scene began to repeat itself in our newsroom: one by one, reporters coming back from the field, returned mortified.

Few discoveries have shaken us so deeply and few are as difficult to write about: from the scale of the horror, to the way they died, and by the insatiable pain of the families, as well as—perhaps most unsettling—realizing the magnitude of the work that remains to be done throughout the country. Will a significant number of the dead be unearthed and identified to alleviate their families? Will we be able to mourn, as we should, to prevent a third chapter of extreme violence from enrapturing Colombia?

Paramilitary testimonies and the results of forensic teams lead us to conclude that the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a paramilitary umbrella group, not only designed a method to quarter human beings, they also took the extra step of actually giving classes on the subject, using live people taken to their training camps.

Francisco Villalba, the paramilitary commander that directed the barbarism of the Aro massacre in the department (province) of Antioquia in which 15 people were tortured and butchered over five days, has revealed previously unknown details of those acts. “They were elderly people and were taken in trucks, alive, with their hands tied…. They were divvied up in groups of five … the instructions were to take off their arms, their heads … quartering them alive,” reads the testimony in his file.More:
https://nacla.org/node/1467

Please see a far better account of Villalba's testimony in post #3, shared by D.U. member rabs:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=405x14640#14664

[laughingliberal]

12. +1 nt

[Peace Patriot]

5. 2,000 bodies found in a recent mass grave in La Macarena, Colombia.

Grave dates (but no names) from 2005 through 2009. Local people say they are the bodies of 'disappeared' local community, political, human rights and union activists.*

That's some election system they have in Colombia. The dead can't vote, the terrorized don't vote (or vote the way they are told), and the rest get bought with the huge amounts of money floating around from U.S. taxpayers ($7 BILLION) to the Colombian military and its closely tied rightwing death squads, and from the narco-thug drug lords running Colombia's government.

How can anyone say that the "rightwing" has "won" this election in Colombia--with a straight face?

Well, the Associated Pukes can say it. They don't care. But I mean decent people with respect for the truth. The rightwing MURDERED their way into power, bought and paid for by the USA.

--------------------------

*La Macarena, where this massacre of 2,000 people has been occurring, is also a region of particular interest and activity by the U.S. military (and apparently by the U.K. military as well). This is especially horrendous, but we need to know that it is not unique. There are mass graves all over Colombia, containing the bodies of the political opposition. This particular horror, in La Macarena, has not made it into our corpo-fascist press, possibly because of U.S. military involvement.

The La Macarena massacre (includes a description of, and links to docs about, U.S. ops in La Macarena)
http://www.cipcol.org/?p=1303

The UK military connection
http://www.tribunemagazine.co.uk/2010/02/04/silence-on-british-army-link-to-colombian-mass-grave/

[Judi Lynn]

6. Indigenous Colombians Struggle to Survive

Indigenous Colombians Struggle to Survive
Americas, Economic, Social & Cultural Rights | Posted by: The Editors, March 16, 2010 at 9:03 AM

The indigenous community of Colombia is in serious danger of extinction if their human rights continue to be ignored and violated. Amnesty International’s new report details a startling increase in attacks against indigenous peoples across the country leaving many communities struggling for survival.

According the National Indigenous Organization of America, 114 men, women and indigenous children were killed and thousands were forcibly displaced in 2009. Among other violations against indigenous peoples are forced disappearances, threats, physical abuse of women, the recruitment of child soldiers, and the persecution of indigenous leaders.

These injustices threaten the very existence of such communities and it is imperative that the Colombian government respond. The Minister of Colombia, Valencia Cossio, recently stated, “The report erroneously assumed that ‘internal armed conflict’ and ‘paramilitaries’ are to blame for the violence, and they do not face the fact that indigenous communities have been displaced and killed by the FARC and emerging criminal groups. ”

However, Human Rights Watch has continued to document great tolerance by the military for paramilitary atrocities. According to Human Rights Watch, the phrase “sixth division” is a common phrase in Colombia when referring to paramilitary groups in the country. At its most wrenching, there is collaboration between the military and paramilitaries of Colombia that according to Human Rights Watch includes:

• communication via radios, cellular phones and beepers, intelligence sharing, including the names of suspected guerrilla collaborators, sharing of fighters, including active duty soldiers serving in paramilitary units and the paramilitary commanders lodging on military bases;

• distribution of vehicles, including army trucks to transport paramilitary fighters;

• coordination of army roadblocks, which routinely let heavily-armed paramilitary pass;

• and payments made by the paramilitaries to military officers for their support

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) delivered several precautionary measures designed to protect the various interest groups in Colombia. A report in 2002, noted that “about 160 men dressed in military uniform, using AUC armbands, entered the Urada Indian reservation, and threatened the community, saying: “Either you join us or you go. The next stop will be the communities of Puerto Lleras and Pueblo Nuevo, we will be getting rid of these communities, either you join us or you leave; you must cultivate palm and coca, if not, you leave. ”The indigenous peoples of Colombia are at particular risk of forced displacement because they live in areas of intense military activity and rich in biodiversity, minerals and oil.

More:
http://blog.amnestyusa.org/escr/indigenous-colombians-struggle-to-survive/

[Xenotime]

7. Drugs, guns and corruption. Sounds right-wing to me.