Map highlights striking similarities between former paramilitary and 'bacrim' territory

[Judi Lynn]

Map highlights striking similarities between former paramilitary and 'bacrim' territory
Friday, 17 June 2011 05:56
Jim Glade

A map published by political news website La Silla Vacia shows the striking similarities between territories formally controlled by paramilitary groups and areas that today have an emerging criminal gang (BACRIM) presence.

Departments like Antioquia and Cordoba who had a high presence of paramilitaries before demobilization remain with a high presence of criminal gangs such as "Aguilas Negras," "ERPAC," "Los Paisas," "Los Rastrojos," "Los Urabeños" and "Oficina de Envigado" who reportedly have a presence in 23 of the 28 municipalities in Cordoba.

As opposed to their AUC predecessors who began as militias intended to defend Colombian land owners against leftist guerrilla groups, these criminal gangs focus on drug trafficking and extortion. However there are reported cases of political intimidation such as the case of the Aguilas Negras -- a non-cohesive group dedicated to protecting the economic interests of former mid-level paramilitary commanders scattered across Colombia -- who have been known to pass out political flyers and intimidate human rights workers.

The government of President Juan Manuel Santos has feverishly denied political rights to these criminal organizations who according to Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera, are "pure and simple organized crime, directly associated with narco-trafficking."

More:
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/17040-map-highlights-striking-similarities-between-former-paramilitary-and-bacrim-territory.html

[Peace Patriot]

1. Bush Junta + Uribe = organized crime

It is NO ACCIDENT that Colombia's civil war and the U.S. "war on drugs" were turned into a vast criminal enterprise with $7 BILLION in Bush Junta-controlled U.S. military aid to Colombia, U.S. military bases and "forward operating locations" established all over the country and U.S. military personnel and U.S. military 'contractors' providing "training" and "technical assistance."

What else could anybody expect to happen with the Bush Junta and the Colombian 'mafia' in control? Antioquia (mentioned in the article as particularly gang-ridden) is where Uribe got his start. He is notorious there for the death squad activity on which he built his political career. He was chosen because of this.

What really needs to happen is tracking of this trillion+ dollar cocaine revenue stream. I do NOT believe that this is random or "local" criminal activity--mere "gangs" operating on their own. It is NOT a sort of decentralized or disintegrated AUC. The opposite is true. I believe that Uribe's assigned task was to consolidate the cocaine trade and direct the profits to his bosses--the Bush Cartel, U.S. banksters, the CIA, and who knows who else? THAT is why Uribe is under U.S/CIA protection. HE is the link between Bush Junta principles (Junior, Rumsfeld and others) and the crime wave in Colombia, involving thousands of murders and displacement of five million peasant farmers from their land, by the Colombian military, all aimed (or mostly aimed) at getting control of the coca leaf farms and the cocaine profits. It was a coordinated effort among the Bush Junta, the U.S. military and Uribe's criminal network, with Uribe in control of the Colombian government and able to use it, for instance, to create a vast internal spying system, by which to monitor Colombian prosecutors' investigations and judges' deliberations, and to provide "hit lists" for death threats and murders, to these "gangs." Uribe's spying system also enabled him, for instance, to alert the (Bush appointed) U.S. ambassador to the need to spirit death squad witnesses out of Colombia--suddenly extraditing them, in the middle of the night, on mere drug charges and "burying" them in the U.S. federal prison system, out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors and over their objections.

We are not merely looking at Uribe crimes or at some rogue U.S. military or mercenary crimes, nor at widespread but random criminal activity or "gangs", due to Uribe's malfeasance or corruption, nor merely at the bloody prep for U.S. "free trade for rich." We are looking at the SET-UP of a criminal ORGANIZATION using the Colombian government and the U.S. military for that purpose.

And I think THAT is why the Obama administration would permit the U.S. ambassador and Uribe to collude on spiriting death squad witnesses out of Colombia; why the U.S. needed a SECRETLY negotiated and SECRETLY signed U.S./Colombia military agreement giving "total diplomatic immunity" to all U.S. military personnel and all U.S. military 'contractors' in Colombia; why the U.S. State Department wrote to the judge in the Drummond Coal death squad case pressuring the judge not to force Uribe to testify; why the U.S. pressured Panama to give instant, overnight asylum to the chief spying witness against Uribe; and why Uribe has been given prestigious academic appointments and other honors in the U.S.

As Obama has announced, "we need to look forward not backward" on the crimes of the rich and the powerful. By protecting Uribe they are protecting the Bush Junta--which they seem to have made a deal to do.

I don't know if it's true that, "The government of President Juan Manuel Santos has feverishly denied political rights to these criminal organizations...". I think there may be some truth to it (partly because of Uribe's reaction to the Santos administration--he seems worried and scared that he might not be the "made man" he thought he was), but I fear that Santos' hands are as tied, by subterranean deals, as Obama's are. They will never get to the bottom of it. They are obliged NOT to.

The Bush Junta, in its last year in power, inflicted a similar murder and mayhem "war" on Mexico. This is a very, very difficult phenomenon to penetrate. And I have nothing but sympathy for, say, courageous Colombian prosecutors, who cannot fully penetrate it or the Latin American leaders who are trying to get the U.S. to call off the "war." The cocaine trade itself is subterranean, of course, and who is benefiting is also deeply hidden. We see the EFFECTS--murder, mayhem, lack of safety, lack of democracy, militarism--we see LOTS of effects, but it is extremely difficult to see what is really going on, and we are forced to guess. This is my guess. The Bush Cartel was consolidating the cocaine trade all along its route, starting in Colombia, by putting a mafioso in charge of the Colombian government and giving him carte blanche, and $7 BILLION of our tax dollars, and all the U.S. military and covert support he needed, to direct those enormous profits to themselves and their pals.

This network is now in place and the surviving drug lords (whom this article calls "gangs") are the ones who agreed to "play ball"--to give big payments to the secret, controlling profiteers at the top of the chain. The surviving drug lords, of course, seek political power--to maintain local protection, and to try to re-install Uribe (or someone like him) as president. This will be more difficult without the Bush Junta's aid--but it is a serious threat, just as Bush Junta II remains a grave threat here. And in both cases the threat is exacerbated by the Obama administration's apparent obligation to protect Bush Junta principles from prosecution for their crimes--a protection that includes Uribe. These exceedingly criminal people are thus free to maneuver themselves back into power. The one difference between the U.S. and Colombia is that, if Santos is serious about reform, he has strong allies in Latin America--all the strong leftist governments in the region --as well as having allies in the Colombian justice system. The latter are pursuing Uribe, while our justice system is barely functional. It pursues medical marijuana clinics with a vengeance, but mass murderers, not so much.