Yair Klein claims he was paid by Colombian military

[Judi Lynn]

Yair Klein claims he was paid by Colombian military
Wednesday, 24 November 2010 10:48 Teresa Welsh

Israeli mercenary Yair Klein, convicted of training paramilitaries and drug gangs in Colombia, told RCN that the Colombian military paid him to train "security forces."

Klein, who was recently released from Russian custody and returned to Israel, is wanted for extradition to Colombia for training paramilitaries. The extradition request was blocked, and Klein is now free in his native country. He spoke in the interview about how he was recruited to Colombia to train "security forces" and the military in Magdalena Medio.

The Israeli said he first arrived in Colombia in 1988 with an Israeli company hired to defend banana growers. He claimed the Colombian army, defense minister and businesses owners wanted the company's help in defending the area from guerrillas. He returned to Israel after a week, but was called to Colombia again and met with representatives of DAS.

~snip~
He began training Colombian army officials and soldiers in Puerto Boyaca, but left Colombia again because he was told the army had no money to pay him. Klein said three weeks later, Colombian military official Luis Meneses came to Israel and paid him to return to Colombia. Klein said that at one point, when his work was put on hold because the military was being inspected, he was told that the "security forces" he was training and the military were two different things.

More:
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/13080-yair-klein-claims-he-was-paid-by-colombian-army.html

[Peace Patriot]

1. "Banana growers...," eh? Well, ain't that interesting!

Chiquita International grows bananas in Colombia. During the Bush Junta, its execs admitted hiring death squads for security reasons (FARC guerrillas) they said. And if the death squads also took care of their "labor problem" on Chiquita farms on Colombia, well, how can you control death squads, right? How did they know? Totally innocent guys hire one of the bigger law firms in Washington DC, and partner Eric Holder (now A.G. of the U.S.), to get them off with a handslap from the Bush Junta and make the lawsuit by the victims' survivors (trade unionists) go away.

The time-frame is about right. Is Yair Klein the one who 'trained' Chiquita's death squads? This would have made the whole thing official government policy, since the Colombian government paid Klein--and thus possibly also official though secret U.S. government policy, since billions of U.S. tax dollars were already flowing into Colombia to support the Colombian military and its closely tied rightwing paramilitary death squads. If Israel was involved in the Chiquita death squad scandal, that would explain how Eric Holder got to be A.G. after shilling for Chiquita. And the U.S. government's numerous actions to protect Alvaro Uribe from legal consequences for his death squad regime in Colombia start to make a little more sense if who the U.S. is protecting, in addition to Uribe and his local thugs, is Israel or Israeli death squad businesses.

I've been wondering what the hell power Uribe has over the U.S. government, for this little shit to receive such coddling and protection. For instance, the extradition of death squad witnesses to the U.S. and 'burying' them in the U.S. federal prison system--out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors and over their vociferous objections--by completely sealing their cases in U.S. federal court in Washington DC (an action that Holder was likely involved in). For instance, giving Uribe a prestigious appointment to an international legal commission (--the one investigating Israel's firing on aid boats!). For instance, getting Uribe prestigious academic sinecures at Harvard and Georgetown, and arranging for an unusual overnight "asylum" in Panama to be given to the chief witness against Uribe on the spying scandal (yet another shocking assault on Colombia's legal system).

My suspicion was that he's got the goods on Junior--and Bush Daddy pal, Leon Panetta, has "made" Uribe because of it--has given him CIA protection. They can't afford to have Uribe in the dock in Colombia. EVEN SO, it seems extraordinary the lengths they've gone to, for this murderous little mafioso. But add Israel into the mix, and you get massive help from the corpo-fascist press, from the Democrats and even from Harvard Law School and Georgetown U., in "laundering" Uribe's image, keeping him out of legal trouble in Colombia and covering up the cover up. I'm convinced at least of this: It's not exactly Uribe who is being protected but who he was taking orders from and what he knows. And if Israeli involvement in death squad activity in Colombia is part of what he knows, that certainly would secure his "made man" status and may be the main reason for it.

[Judi Lynn]

3. They knew all about him back in 1991, when he appeared on a Defense Department report

and that would have happened when George H. W. Bush was still the President.

~~~~~

U.S. INTELLIGENCE LISTED COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT URIBE AMONG
"IMPORTANT COLOMBIAN NARCO-TRAFFICKERS" IN 1991

Then-Senator "Dedicated to Collaboration with the Medellín Cartel at High Government Levels"

http://www.gwu.edu.nyud.net:8090/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB131/diaexcerpt.jpg

Confidential DIA Report Had Uribe Alongside Pablo Escobar, Narco-Assassins

Uribe "Worked for the Medellín Cartel" and was a "Close Personal Friend of Pablo Escobar"
Washington, D.C., 1 August 2004 - Then-Senator and now President Álvaro Uribe Vélez of Colombia was a "close personal friend of Pablo Escobar" who was "dedicated to collaboration with the Medellín cartel at high government levels," according to a 1991 intelligence report from U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) officials in Colombia. The document was posted today on the website of the National Security Archive, a non-governmental research group based at George Washington University.

Uribe's inclusion on the list raises new questions about allegations that surfaced during Colombia's 2002 presidential campaign. Candidate Uribe bristled and abruptly terminated an interview in March 2002 when asked by Newsweek reporter Joseph Contreras about his alleged ties to Escobar and his associations with others involved in the drug trade. Uribe accused Contreras of trying to smear his reputation, saying that, "as a politician, I have been honorable and accountable."

The newly-declassified report, dated 23 September 1991, is a numbered list of "the more important Colombian narco-traffickers contracted by the Colombian narcotic cartels for security, transportation, distribution, collection and enforcement of narcotics operations." The document was released by DIA in May 2004 in response to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by the Archive in August 2000.

The source of the report was removed by DIA censors, but the detailed, investigative nature of the report -- the list corresponds with a numbered set of photographs that were apparently provided with the original -- suggests it was probably obtained from Colombian or U.S. counternarcotics personnel. The document notes that some of the information in the report was verified "via interfaces with other agencies."

More:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB131/index.htm

~~~~~
You may remember a reporter working for the Miami Herald's Spanish paper, "El Nuevo Herald" assisted Pablo Escobar's ex-mistress, Virginia Vallejo in her book concerning Escobar, the megacriminal narcotrafficker. Here's a consequence of the reporter's work with her on the book:

Last Updated: Sunday, 7 October 2007, 08:06 GMT 09:06 UK
Reporter flees Colombia threats

A foreign correspondent in Colombia has fled the country after being criticised by President Alvaro Uribe over a book and receiving death threats.

Mr Uribe accused Gonzalo Guillen of being "a professional slanderer". In the space of three days Mr Guillen said he received 24 death threats.

Colombia is one of the most dangerous places for a journalist to operate. Drug cartels, Marxist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries all seek to head off negative coverage.

Mr Guillen has been a correspondent for the Miami-based El Nuevo Herald for eight years. He received death threats after Mr Uribe accused him of being behind a book written by Virginia Vallejo, the mistress of the now dead drug lord Pablo Escobar. In the book entitled Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar, it is alleged that Mr Uribe had close ties to the head of the Medellin drug cartel.

More:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7032203.stm

[Peace Patriot]

6. Wow! So Bush Jr gave "an important Colombian narco-trafficker" $7 BILLION in military aid!

A known Medellin Cartel tool! And, get this, "one of the politicians...who attacked all forms of the extradition treaty."

So he was messing with Colombia's legal system even back then--now joined by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, the Obama administration and the CIA, in their various efforts to protect and benefit Bush Cartel "made man" Alvaro Uribe.

Gawd!

Thanks for the info! I had Uribe figured for the Medellin Cartel's "go to" guy, who graduated to becoming the Bush Junta's "go to" guy as pResident of Colombia. But I didn't know that there was such hard evidence that he was actually a narco-trafficker. There was a Jesuit priest, a well-known human rights advocate who wrote to Georgetown U. (a Jesuit school), recently, to object to Uribe's academic sinecure there, and who described Uribe's death squad activities early on. Criminy, this is all worse than even I thought, as to U.S. government collusion on murder, major drug trafficking and no doubt other crimes, both back then AND NOW--with a Democratic U.S. government at the very least KNOWINGLY aiding and abetting--all the while every government since Nixon's perpetrating the utter HYPOCRISY of the corrupt, murderous, failed U.S. "war on drugs" at...

...MINDBOGGLING expense to U.S. taxpayers (the poor, the middle class)...

...and the infliction of MINDBOGGLING horrors on the Colombian people and others.

They knew, back then! The Bush Junta knew during the last decade! And the Obamans know it now! It is immensely disturbing and saddening for the full picture of U.S. policy in Latin America to come into focus, in all of its horrid intentionality, no matter who appears to be in power here.

I want to amend my comment above (which I duplicated by mistake, below) in which I speculated that protecting Israel may be the main motive behind the U.S. government's extraordinary actions to protect Uribe. I'm going back to the Daddy Bush protecting Bush Jr theory as the main motivator, although Israeli involvement in whatever crimes were committed in Colombia by order/authorizations of Bush Jr., may be a factor. I think there is reason enough to suspect U.S. military personnel or at least U.S. military 'contractors' of murders in Colombia. H. Clinton put it on record that Blackwater's "trainings" of people in Colombia "for use in Iraq and Afghanistan" were "unauthorized" (in the State Department announcement that they were "fining" Blackwater), but I think there is reason not to believe that word--"unauthorized." Then there is Uribe/Brownfield's secretly negotiated agreement that includes "total diplomatic immunity" for all U.S. military personnel and all U.S. military 'contractors' in Colombia, secretly signed last year. SOMETHING is going on, with regard to U.S. activity in Colombia during the last decade (Bush Junta). Could be "turkey shoot" practice for Iraq and Afghanistan. Could be the La Macarena massacre. Could be a lot of things, including major drug trafficking. But the extradition of death squad witnesses, the asylum arranged for spying witnesses, the immunity for all U.S. military personnel and 'contractors' and other indications point to Bush Junta authorization of crimes in Colombia. And, for the U.S. to be protecting and even honoring Uribe, and acting to frustrate Colombian prosecutors and judges in pursuing his connection to certain crimes, points to someone BIG being vulnerable--really big. Bush spawn.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Jerusalem Post: Rattling the Cage: A monster comes home

Rattling the Cage: A monster comes home
By LARRY DERFNER
11/24/2010 22:56

Let the Colombians have Yair Klein, let justice be done

There are lots of big-time villains loose in the world – Islamic master terrorists, Latin American drug lords, African militia commanders, Russian and Sicilian mafia figures and so on. We read about them in the media and assume automatically that they’re at least as evil as they’re made out to be. When they invariably claim innocence, we laugh; what do you expect a villain to do, admit he’s a villain?

Arch-mercenary Yair Klein is another of the world’s notoriously monstrous figures, and he just got out of a Russian prison and came home to Tel Aviv over the weekend. In the 1980s and 1990s, he was sentenced in absentia in Colombia for training death squads working for fascist groups and drug cartels, and imprisoned in Sierra Leone for training and arming the unimaginably barbaric Revolutionary United Front.

That’s what he’s been convicted of; he’s also suspected of involvement in blowing up a Colombian airliner, of training right-wing assassins and narco-terrorists not just in Colombia but in other South and Central American countries, and of sticking his hands in Africa’s “blood diamond” trade.

After three years in a Russian jail on an Interpol warrant for aiding terrorists, Klein was freed when a European human rights court agreed he should not be extradited to Colombia because it wouldn’t be safe for him in prison there.

More:
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=196653

On edit:

The connection to other right-wing violence in Latam, and bombing a Colombian airliner cries out for more investigation. This is the 1st I've seen of it, and I've been looking for years for English information on him.

[Peace Patriot]

2. "Banana growers...," eh? Well, ain't that interesting!

Chiquita International grows bananas in Colombia. During the Bush Junta, its execs admitted hiring death squads for security reasons (FARC guerrillas) they said. And if the death squads also took care of their "labor problem" on Chiquita farms on Colombia, well, how can you control death squads, right? How did they know? Totally innocent guys hire one of the bigger law firms in Washington DC, and partner Eric Holder (now A.G. of the U.S.), to get them off with a handslap from the Bush Junta and make the lawsuit by the victims' survivors (trade unionists) go away.

The time-frame is about right. Is Yair Klein the one who 'trained' Chiquita's death squads? This would have made the whole thing official government policy, since the Colombian government paid Klein--and thus possibly also official though secret U.S. government policy, since billions of U.S. tax dollars were already flowing into Colombia to support the Colombian military and its closely tied rightwing paramilitary death squads. If Israel was involved in the Chiquita death squad scandal, that would explain how Eric Holder got to be A.G. after shilling for Chiquita. And the U.S. government's numerous actions to protect Alvaro Uribe from legal consequences for his death squad regime in Colombia start to make a little more sense if who the U.S. is protecting, in addition to Uribe and his local thugs, is Israel or Israeli death squad businesses.

I've been wondering what the hell power Uribe has over the U.S. government, for this little shit to receive such coddling and protection. For instance, the extradition of death squad witnesses to the U.S. and 'burying' them in the U.S. federal prison system--out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors and over their vociferous objections--by completely sealing their cases in U.S. federal court in Washington DC (an action that Holder was likely involved in). For instance, giving Uribe a prestigious appointment to an international legal commission (--the one investigating Israel's firing on aid boats!). For instance, getting Uribe prestigious academic sinecures at Harvard and Georgetown, and arranging for an unusual overnight "asylum" in Panama to be given to the chief witness against Uribe on the spying scandal (yet another shocking assault on Colombia's legal system).

My suspicion was that he's got the goods on Junior--and Bush Daddy pal, Leon Panetta, has "made" Uribe because of it--has given him CIA protection. They can't afford to have Uribe in the dock in Colombia. EVEN SO, it seems extraordinary the lengths they've gone to, for this murderous little mafioso. But add Israel into the mix, and you get massive help from the corpo-fascist press, from the Democrats and even from Harvard Law School and Georgetown U., in "laundering" Uribe's image, keeping him out of legal trouble in Colombia and covering up the cover up. I'm convinced at least of this: It's not exactly Uribe who is being protected but who he was taking orders from and what he knows. And if Israeli involvement in death squad activity in Colombia is part of what he knows, that certainly would secure his "made man" status and may be the main reason for it.

[Peace Patriot]

5. Sorry for the duplicate! Had computer trouble this morning. Just noticed it. nt