Colombia cable: Army murder of civilians “widespread”

[Judi Lynn]

Colombia cable: Army murder of civilians “widespread”
By Bill Van Auken
21 December 2010

A classified cable from the US embassy in Bogota confirms that Washington was told the Colombian army’s murder of civilians was “widespread,” yet still approved military aid.

The February 2009 message from the embassy to the US State Department recounts a meeting between American Ambassador William Brownfield and Major General Carlos Suarez, the Colombian army’s inspector general, who was charged with the investigation into the widespread extrajudicial murder of civilians by elements of the Colombian military.

The general told Brownfield that “the extrajudicial execution problem was widespread.” He went on to state: “he Soacha phenomenon originated in the 4th Brigade in Medellin (commanded at one time by both former Army Commander Mario Montoya and current Army Commander Oscar Gonzalez). The practice later spread to other brigades and commands in the region, including the Joint Caribbean Command.”

Soacha is an industrial, working class city on the outskirts of the Colombian capital of Bogota. Beginning in 2008, it was revealed that dozens of youth from poor families in the city had been the victims of premeditated murder by the military.

More:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/dec2010/colo-d21.shtml

[Peace Patriot]

1. Excellent article, on the whole, but it missed what may be a very important fact.

The conclusion of the article:

Within five months of the conversation between Gen. Suarez and Ambassador Brownfield, Washington concluded a deal with the Uribe government giving the US military access to seven air, naval and ground bases inside Colombia, augmenting its capacity to project armed force throughout the hemisphere.

Last September, claiming that the Colombian government had made progress in protecting human rights, the Obama administration released more than $30 million in US aid to the country’s military. Over the past decade, under Plan Colombia, Washington has poured more than $7 billion into the country, which receives more military aid than any other country outside of the Middle East.

Within barely a month of Washington’s approval of the aid, Colombia was shocked by the revelation of another horrendous crime by the military, in which three children from an impoverished family were murdered by an army unit in the northeast of the country and their bodies dumped in a shallow grave. One officer is charged with raping the oldest of the children, a 14-year-old girl, before she and her two brothers, ages 9 and 6, were killed.--from the OP

(my emphasis)
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I think one of the most important parts of that secretly negotiated U.S./Colombia military agreement was that it granted total diplomatic immunity to all U.S. military personnel and all U.S. military 'contractors' in Colombia. The article doesn't mention this. (See the underlined portion above.)

Around the time that Brownfield and Uribe secretly negotiated this agreement (circa 2009), they also suddenly extradited a number of death squad witnesses from Colombia to the U.S., on mere drug charges, and buried them in the U.S. federal prison system--out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors and over their objections--by completely sealing their cases (an unusual action) in U.S. federal court in Washington DC.

So, at the same time that Brownfield was getting this earful from the Colombian military's investigator (that he was being obstructed), Brownfield was obstructing justice himself, with the extraditions, and, if my guess is right, was furthermore acting to cover up U.S. war crimes in Colombia.

Recently, the U.S. State Department "fined" Blackwater (Xe) for "unauthorized" "trainings" of "foreign persons" (don't know who) IN COLOMBIA "for use in Iraq and Afghanistan." (I don't believe the word "unauthorized").

Also, a mass grave was discovered late in 2009 containing 500 to 2,000 bodies (the La Macarena massacre) in an area of special interest and activity by the U.S. military and the USAID (a very Afghanistan-like "pacification" program, where military force is used to wipe out local community leadership, followed by USAID methods of installing "friendlies"). Although the graves were individual--with date markers but no names (2005-2009)--the graves were so shallow that the corpses poisoned the local water supply, sickening local children. Anonymous community members have said that the bodies are of local 'disappeared' community activists and other community members.

What strikes me about the "total diplomatic immunity" for U.S. soldiers/'contractors,' in the secretly negotiated U.S./Colombia military agreement (besides its secrecy) was that it came so late in the day, just last year. The U.S. military had been present for years. Why did Brownfield want this in written form last year? Also, those who touted this agreement, once it became public (and it caused a firestorm when it did)--such as Pentagon spokespeople--claimed that the agreement merely ratified "existing arrangements." Why the need for a presidential signature on "existing arrangements"?

I suspect that U.S. forces committed war crimes in Colombia, authorized by the Bush Junta, and that these extraditions of death squad witnesses, the "total diplomatic immunity" for all U.S. soldiers and 'contractors' and the U.S. State Department "fining" of Blackwater are pieces of a coverup puzzle.

Another piece of the puzzle is the U.S. coddling and protection of Alvaro Uribe--academic sinecures at Georgetown and Harvard, appointment to a prestigious international legal commission and probable CIA involvement in the recent escape of spying witnesses against Uribe, from Colombia to Panama (out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors, who are incensed about it), where the most important witness was given weird overnight asylum and the others have applied for it. Protection of Uribe from illegal domestic spying charges (the crime that he is most vulnerable on, at the moment) may be part of a deal to prevent him from spilling the beans on U.S. war crimes, say, under pressure of prosecution.

Uribe has claimed that he has "sovereign immunity" in the U.S. (with regard to a death squad case against Alabama-based Drummond Coat filed in the U.S.--the plantiffs wanted to depose him). He has asked the State Department to declare him sovereignly immune. As a Bush Junta tool, he seems to think that he is entitled to the same immunity that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld clearly have, never to be accountable for what they did.

One more point about this cable and the article: The cable has the smell of ass-covering--that is, Ambassador Brownfield cleverly distancing himself from Uribe by reporting to Washington what the military's Inspector General said about Uribe (no interest in human rights, etc.), and distancing himself from the military's death squad murders in the same way--pretending concern. Diplomatic game-players know very well how easily a cable like this can be made public. It's important to keep this in mind when reading the cables. All kinds of hidden agendas can be at work. The article merely points out the U.S. hypocrisy (Obama administration)--that they KNEW about the Colombian military's war crimes yet authorized more funding. True enough. But WHAT ELSE is going on? One good question is why the Obama administration left this Bushwhack appointee (Brownfield) in place in Bogota--through the death squad extraditions and the secret negotiation and signing of the U.S./Colombia military agreement--until fairly recently? Did they do it specifically so that Brownfield could get a coverup of U.S. war crimes wrapped up?

[EFerrari]

2. When you say "they" buried those Colombians in our prison system,

you mean, the DoJ, don't you? I don't think anyone else could do that.

[Peace Patriot]

3. I presume it was DOJ and A.G. Eric Holder. So does the Washington Post...

Reggie B. Walton* was the federal judge. But I can't find out who requested the complete sealing of these cases--nor could the Washington Post, apparently. The Post says only this...

--

"An agreement involving secrecy would require authorization at the highest levels of the Justice Department. Prosecutors must obtain approval from the deputy attorney general before requesting, or agreeing to, the sealing of a criminal case." (my emphasis)

--

The Post also says this...

--

"A year after the AP report (on judicial secrecy), the federal judiciary strongly urged courts to mark sealed cases as "under seal" rather than completely omitting them from the record, as happened in the Colombian cases." (my emphasis)

--

It also says that the problem is widespread...

"Human rights lawyers have been unable to track the status of at least 25 other Colombian paramilitary members being prosecuted in various U.S. courts because substantial portions of their cases have been sealed."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/11/AR2010091100080.html

--------

Here is another report on the sealing of these cases. This article points out that at least 25 death squad witnesses have gone "off the radar" with partial or complete sealing of their cases. For some of them, there is not even a court case number. EVERYTHING has disappeared from the public record. These confessed death squad criminals could have been released from prison and, for all we know (my speculation) could have been hired by the U.S. government or one of its 'contractors' or by some entirely private entity to kill again. To me, this is a prime example of the utter corruption of the U.S. "war on drugs." Drug charges are being used to cover up the murders of trade unionists, human rights workers, political leftists, peasant farmers and others, and the involvement of U.S. tools like Uribe and Colombian military generals, if not the U.S. military itself and its 'contractors." And that may not even be the worst of it. Are some of these people now for hire in Miami? On the hit teams being whisked in and out of Honduras? where are they?

http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/11810-colombia-extradition-paramilitary-justice.html

-------

There have been so many such extraditions that it's difficult to pinpoint dates, but the most important ones (in my opinion) occurred in 2008 (Brownfield/Uribe, and possibly connected to the "total diplomatic immunity" for all U.S. soldiers/'contractors' secretly negotiated during that period, disclosed in 2009). The main complete case sealings occurred this year.



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*Here's an interesting bit on Reggie Walton. Sybil Edmonds found out that he redacts his entire financial disclosure report.

FBI Whistleblower Files Motion for Judge's Recusal
http://www.antiwar.com/edmonds/