Operation False Positive:Behind the Colombia / Venezuela Tensions

[Judi Lynn]

August 3, 2010
Operation False Positive
Behind the Colombia / Venezuela Tensions
By CONN HALLINAN

If you want to understand what’s behind the recent tension between Colombia and Venezuela, think “smokescreen,” and then go back several months to some sick children in the Department of Meta, just south of Bogota. The children fell ill after drinking from a local stream, a stream contaminated by the bodies of more than 2,000 people, secretly buried by the Colombian military.

According to the Colombian high command, the mass grave just outside the army base at La Macarena contains the bodies of guerilla fighters killed between 2002 and 2009 in that country’s long-running civil war. But given the army’s involvement in the so-called “false positive” scandal, human rights groups are highly skeptical that the dead are members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the National Liberation Army, the two insurgent groups fighting the central government.

“False positive” is the name given to the Colombian armed forces operation that murdered civilians and then dressed them up in insurgent uniforms in order to demonstrate the success of the army’s counterinsurgency strategy, thus winning more aid from the U.S. According to the human rights organizations Comision de Derechos Homanos del Bajo Ariari and Colectivo Orlando Fals Borda, some 2,000 civilians have been murdered under the program.

The bodies at La Macarena have not been identified yet, but suspicion is that they represent victims of the “false-positive” program, as well as rural activists and trade unionists. The incoming Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, was defense secretary when the murders were talking place. Santos also oversaw a brief invasion of Ecuador in 2008 that reportedly killed a number of insurgents. The invasion was widely condemned throughout Latin America.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/hallinan08032010.html

[EFerrari]

1. Santos must be up to his eyeballs in these murders.

Poor Colombia.

[naaman fletcher]

2. La Macarena is the cause of tensions?

I thought it was Colombia accusing Venezuela of harboring FARC.

[Bacchus39]

3. yeah, the alleged mass grave has nothing to do with it

if Chavez was so concerned about the welfare of the Colombian people he wouldn't be harboring the FARC.

[Wilms]

4. Repeat a lie often enough...

you become Faux News.

[Bacchus39]

5. is that what the mass grave thing is??

or did you have something else in mind?

[Wilms]

6. No. Just your usual drive-by spamming with link-less, adolescently crafted snipes.

Quite Faux-like, as I indicated.

[naaman fletcher]

7. He has a good point..

The simple fact is that this is a stupid article. The colombia-venezuela crises is over Colombia's FARC allegations. Macarena has nothing to do with it. If it does, then Chavez is a liar, since Chavez said it has to do with the FARC allegations.

Which is it? Is this article stupid and baseless or is Chavez a liar?

[Wilms]

8. His point isn't good.

And I outlined my opinion of it in the previous post.

He wants to be taken seriously? It's not hard to earn.

[naaman fletcher]

9. Really?

the post where you outlined your opinion is somehow invisible to me, could you re-post it please?

[Bacchus39]

10. what is the lie you are referring to???

lets say the mass grave is a depository of false positive perpetrated by the army and or paras, and forget that it may be a local cemetery in an area completely controlled by the FARC for several years. my suspicion it is a combination of various conflict related deaths, innocents, and a cemetery.

even assuming it is the site of on going atrocities by the paras and the army, how is that the source of tensions between Colombia and Venezuela???

its not, and I'll defer to you as an expert in Faux news.

[ChangoLoa]

11. They forget an important component of the tensions which is the Ven govt

openly declaring in favor of the FARC and expressing all their support to FARC members (Ven Minister of Interior) by offering them any help they needed and calling them comrades in front of TV cameras... of course, this was before the Ven govt suddenly became less bold around 2008.

It is absolutely no secret that Chavez supports the FARC's struggle. Before, he wanted the international community to consider them as a belligerent force and, now, he declares he would like them to stop the violence and disarm.

Concerning this issue, there are 2 extreme versions which need to be put aside.

[bherrera]

12. This is not good

Venezuela should allow international inspectors and monitors to enter the country and check these stories about terrorists hiding in Venezuela. They should help end this conflict, wihch should end to help the two countries resume trade and friendly relations. Maybe the president of Venezuela does not want this to end because it is a good distraction from the problems caused by rotten food.

[Wilms]

13. I figured it was the "rotten food" too.

They've got the same "distraction" going on in the US.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4494526&mesg_id=4494526

:eyes:

[Judi Lynn]

14. Yep. And we hear bits and pieces from time to time we have had people here

covering up these events multiple times in the past, as well. Simply covering it up altogether so no one knew when it was happening. The businesses involved are powerful beyond reason.

We have known things are deeply wrong in the process for years and years, yet the system has not been corrected YET.

Too many people along the way in critical positions who can be paid to look the other way, unfortunately, and these secrets stay secret too often.

What’s really in that burger? E.coli and chicken feces both allowed by USDA

Mike Adams
NaturalNews
Friday, Nov 6th, 2009

There are 14 billion hamburgers consumed each year in the United States alone. The people who eat those burgers, though, have little knowledge of what’s actually in them. Current USDA regulations, for example, openly allow beef contaminated with E. coli to be repackaged, cooked and sold as ready-to-eat hamburgers.

This simple fact would shock most consumers if they knew about it. People assume that beef found to be contaminated with E. coli must be thrown out or destroyed (or even recalled), but in reality, it’s often just pressed into hamburger patties, cooked, and sold to consumers. This practice is openly endorsed by the USDA.

But E. coli may not be the worst thing in your burger: USDA regulations also allow chicken feces to be used as feed for cows, meaning your hamburger beef may be made of second-hand chicken poop, recycled through the stomachs of cows

More, as if anyone wants to hear it!
http://www.prisonplanet.com/whats-really-in-that-burger-e-coli-and-chicken-feces-both-allowed-by-usda.html

~~~~~
The Burger That Shattered Her Life
By MICHAEL MOSS
Published: October 3, 2009

Stephanie Smith, a children’s dance instructor, thought she had a stomach virus. The aches and cramping were tolerable that first day, and she finished her classes.

Then her diarrhea turned bloody. Her kidneys shut down. Seizures knocked her unconscious. The convulsions grew so relentless that doctors had to put her in a coma for nine weeks. When she emerged, she could no longer walk. The affliction had ravaged her nervous system and left her paralyzed.

Ms. Smith, 22, was found to have a severe form of food-borne illness caused by E. coli, which Minnesota officials traced to the hamburger that her mother had grilled for their Sunday dinner in early fall 2007.

“I ask myself every day, ‘Why me?’ and ‘Why from a hamburger?’ ”Ms. Smith said. In the simplest terms, she ran out of luck in a food-safety game of chance whose rules and risks are not widely known.

Meat companies and grocers have been barred from selling ground beef tainted by the virulent strain of E. coli known as O157:H7 since 1994, after an outbreak at Jack in the Box restaurants left four children dead. Yet tens of thousands of people are still sickened annually by this pathogen, federal health officials estimate, with hamburger being the biggest culprit. Ground beef has been blamed for 16 outbreaks in the last three years alone, including the one that left Ms. Smith paralyzed from the waist down. This summer, contamination led to the recall of beef from nearly 3,000 grocers in 41 states.

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/health/04meat.html

ETC., etc., etc., etc.

We've heard it all, by now, haven't we?