Colombia's ambassador to Dominican Republic resigns amid paramilitary accusations

[Judi Lynn]

Colombia's ambassador to Dominican Republic resigns amid paramilitary accusations
Friday, 22 July 2011 07:04
Matt Snyder

Colombia's ambassador to the Dominican Republic, former army commander Mario Montoya, has resigned, several local media reported Friday.

According to RCN Radio, the controversial former military handed in his resignation a month ago, but was asked to stay on until mid-August by Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin.

Montoya is being investigated for his alleged involvement in the fake demobilization of members of illegal armed groups, ties to demobilized paramilitary organization AUC and is widely criticized for the extrajudicial killings of approximately 2,000 civilians while he was in charge of the army.

It was the breaking of this "false positives" scandal, in which the murdered civilians were presented as guerrillas killed in combat to inflate the apparent effectiveness of the armed forces, that forced the general to resign in 2008.

More:
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/17805-colombias-ambassador-to-dominican-republic-resigns.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. You recall hearing his name repeatedly during Uribe's regime.

http://wikileakswar.files.wordpress.com.nyud.net:8090/2011/02/colombia.jpg http://www.wired.com.nyud.net:8090/images/article/full/2008/07/ingrid_betancourt_400px.jpg

http://formaementis.files.wordpress.com.nyud.net:8090/2008/11/santos-bush-uribe-montoya.jpg

Anger at minister's photo with Colombian army unit linked to trade unionist killings
· Picture of official visit posted on FO website
· Calls to end UK aid over human rights abuses

Seumas Milne The Guardian, Monday 11 February 2008

http://static.guim.co.uk.nyud.net:8090/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2008/02/11/kimhowells460x276.jpg

Kim Howells with troops of the High Mountain Battalion of the Colombian Army
including General Mario Montoya (behind him and left of Howells)

It might have been any one of hundreds of stiffly posed official photos taken on ministerial visits to military establishments around the world and then duly posted and ignored on government websites - if it had not been for the attention of human rights campaigners.

Surrounding the smiling face of the Foreign Office minister Kim Howells in a picture taken in the Colombian region of Sumapaz are a general linked to paramilitary death squads and soldiers of a notorious unit of the Colombian army accused, including by Amnesty International, of torturing and killing trade unionists.

The photograph, taken in a military base and posted on the Foreign Office website, was yesterday greeted with outrage by Labour parliamentarians and trade union leaders. Howells is pictured with the High Mountain Brigades, a unit held responsible for the killing of trade union activists, peasants and anti-narcotics police during the past three years.

Behind him stand the Colombian defence minister, Juan Santos, and General Mario Montoya, head of the Colombian army, reports of whose collaboration with paramilitary death squads and drug traffickers and links with disappearances and killings - including leaked CIA reports - were cited last year by US congressional leaders as part of the reason for the suspension of tens of millions of dollars of US military aid to the south American regime. The Colombian government denies the accusations.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/11/colombia.humanrights

[Judi Lynn]

2. US declassified document implicates General Montoya

The Truth about Triple-A

U.S. Document Implicates Current, Former Colombian Army Commanders in Terror Operation

Army Commander Montoya Assigned to Intelligence Unit Behind 'American Anticommunist Alliance,' Responsible for Bombings and other Violence

Then-Army Commander Robledo Authorized Covert Plan

First Declassified Record to Tie Colombian Army to Creation of Paramilitary Group

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 223

Edited by Michael Evans

http://www.gwu.edu.nyud.net:8090/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB223/general_montoya_2.jpg

Washington D.C., July 1, 2007 - As a growing number of Colombian government officials are investigated for ties to illegal paramilitary terrorists, a 1979 report from the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá raises new questions about the paramilitary past of the current army commander, Gen. Mario Montoya Uribe.

The declassified cable, the focus of a new article being published today on the Web site of Colombia's Semana magazine, answers long-simmering questions about a shadowy Colombian terror ogranization responsible for a number of violent acts in the late-1970s and early-80s. Long suspected of ties to the Colombian military, the cable confirms that the American Anticommunist Alliance (Triple-A) was secretly created and staffed by members of Colombian military intelligence in a plan authorized by then-army commander Gen. Jorge Robledo Pulido.

Gen. Montoya was first tied to Triple-A by five former military intelligence operatives who detailed the group's operations in the Mexican newspaper El Día. The new evidence tying the Army's 'Charry Solano' intelligence battalion to the terror group is likely to refocus attention on Montoya's role in that unit. The new information follows the publication in March of a secret CIA report linking Montoya to a paramilitary terror operation in 2002-03 while commander of an army brigade in Medellín.

Along with previous Archive postings, the article, also published in English on the Archive's Web site, is part of an effort by the Colombia documentation project to uncover declassified sources on Colombia's armed conflict, particularly the illegal paramilitary terror groups now engaged in a controversial demobilization and reparations process with the government.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB223/index.htm