Colombia elections vulnerable to corruption: Report

[Judi Lynn]

Colombia elections vulnerable to corruption: Report
Monday, 25 July 2011 13:27
Matt Snyder

Colombia's local government is vulnerable to criminal infiltration in the coming elections and action by Bogota should be taken, the International Crisis Group reported Monday.

The International Crisis Group is a non-governmental organization dedicated to preventing deadly conflict.

The report stated that paramilitaries and guerrillas posed a threat to local government and are seeking to "consolidate and expand their holds over local governments in the October 2011... elections."

The group noted that this years high number of assassinated local candidates did not bode well for the elections and that armed groups might use other techniques, including intimidation and bribery, to cement their control over mayors, councilmen, and other local officials.

More:
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/17853-colombia-elections-vulnerable-to-corruption-report.html

[Peace Patriot]

1. It is absolutely wrong to equate "paramilitaries" and "guerrillas" because of the huge disproportion

of violence committed by the paramilitaries, which are rightwing entities tied to the Colombian military and to the country's rightwing political establishment. For instance, Amnesty International attributed 92% of the murders of trade unionists, in the mid-2000's, to the Colombian military (about half) and to its closely tied paramilitary death squads (the other half), while it attributed only 2% to the FARC guerrillas.

The RIGHTWING is by far the greater problem in political violence in Colombia, NOT the leftwing. This does not exonerate the leftist guerrillas for the few murders that it commits or other crimes (kidnapping, intimidation), but I see this equation of the two often and it is very distorted.

Thousands of trade unionists, human rights workers, teachers, community activists, peasant farmer and Indigenous leaders, journalists, political leftists and others have been murdered, virtually all by the Colombian military and the rightwing death squads, and in addition these same rightwing forces have driven 5 MILLION peasant farmers from their lands--the worst human displacement crisis in the world--all in the interest of U.S. multinational corporations and war profiteers, of the big drug operations and of Colombia's fascist elite.

Furthermore, this article does not address the fact that Colombia was run by a massive criminal organization over the last decade, supported by the Bush Junta, and led by Alvaro Uribe. Some 70 of Uribe's closest political cronies are under investigation or already in jail for ties to the death squads, illegal domestic spying, drug trafficking, bribery and other crimes. His spy chief fled the country and is wanted on an Interpol warrant. (--fled to the U.S. client state of Panama, where she was given instant, overnight asylum). The illegal spying and the death squads are connected. The spying provided "lists" to the death squads for assassination, threats of assassination and other intimidation, including threats against judges and prosecutors, as well as illegally monitoring the activities of judges and prosecutors so that Uribe could anticipate their actions.

I think that this is how and why Uribe and the Bushwhack U.S. ambassador to Colombia instigated midnight extraditions of death squad witnesses to the U.S. and their burial in the U.S. federal prison system, out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors and over their objections, during the 2009-2010 period, while Obama/Panetta/Clinton were cleaning the Bush Junta's trail in Colombia. The extraordinary measures they have taken to protect Uribe and to "launder" his image point to probable U.S. military and embassy involvement in Uribe's crimes.

When Panetta ousted Uribe--likely because of the huge scandals in progress (including the spying and the "false positives" scandals), in favor of Manuel Santos (Uribe's defense minister for several years, who seems cleaner and possibly is), clearly this did not dismantle Uribe's widespread criminal organization. The primary purpose of this organization, besides decapitating the grass roots leftist leadership of the country and serving corporate/war profiteer interests, was very likely to consolidate the trillion+ dollar cocaine revenue stream into fewer hands and direct more of its profits to U.S. banksters, the Bush Cartel and others. Uribe was using all the powers of government in addition to military force to do this. The U.S. "war on drugs" ($7 BILLION in military aid to Colombia, plus U.S. military training and technical support and establishment of many "forward operations locations" in Colombia) was being used to consolidate the drug trade, not to curtail it. The only people who were "curtailed" were the small peasant farmers growing a few coca leaves for local use or a little extra income to support their families. Their crops including food crops were destroyed with U.S. corporate toxic pesticide spraying and they and their families were poisoned, murdered, terrorized and driven from their lands.

This U.S.-supported criminal organization awaits Uribe's return to power. He is running around free--like Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld--teaching at Georgetown and Harvard, trying to evade warrants to testify in death squad cases, here (with the help of the U.S. State Department), "Twittering" his embittered criticism of Santos, providing aide and comfort to his indicted cohorts and plotting his return. If the Bushwhacks get back in power here--which can easily--EASILY!--be arranged, with all U.S. elections now run on 'TRADE SECRET' programming code, largely controlled by one, private, far rightwing-connected corporation (ES&S, which bought out Diebold)--he WILL return to power in Colombia and continue to utilize the death squad and terror services of the criminal network that he consolidated.

There are huge murder and intimidation problems in Colombia's political system FOR A REASON--NOT because Colombians are inherently criminal or corrupt, but because criminality and corruption have been FOSTERED by the U.S. government (Bush Junta), and covered up by the U.S. government (Obama/Panetta/Clinton), with the chief operator of this criminal network still under U.S protection. The democracy cosmetics that our Democratic leaders smear over this mountain of dead leftist bodies in Colombia are similar to the democracy cosmetics in Honduras and Haiti. There is no real reform or democracy. Fascist 'mafias' run all three countries, with various facades in front of them and various kinds of corruption--up to and including murder, and including the creation of social chaos and mayhem--as the means of control.