3,500 Colombian state agents investigated for killing civilians

[Judi Lynn]

3,500 Colombian state agents investigated for killing civilians
Monday, 29 August 2011 20:02
Adriaan Alsema

Colombian prosecutors are investigating 3,473 state agents for "false positives," - the extrajudicial execution of civilians to present as guerrillas killed in combat - the country's prosecutor general said Monday.

According to Colombian media, Prosecutor General Viviane Morales said, "the Human Rights Unit has been assigned 8,295 cases (of human rights violations), of which 1,598 regard homicides committed by state agents. At this moment 3,473 state agents are being prosecuted; 1,489 have been indicted and 1,411 are in jail."

Morales added that 315 state agents have been convicted for human rights violations, reported RCN Radio.

The "false positives" scandal broke in 2008 when men who had disappeared from Soacha, a town south of Bogota, were found in a mass grave near the Venezuelan border. It was discovered the men had been registered by the army as guerrillas killed in combat.

More:
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/18649-3500-colombian-state-agents-investigated-for-killing-civilians.html

[Peace Patriot]

1. I didn't know the number of state agents involved was so high. 3,473!

Let's add it all up, thus far (what we know and can make educated guesses at)...

--the U.S. military and U.S. military 'contractors' on the ground in Colombia, providing "training" and "technical assistance."

--the Pentagon and the USAID providing "pacification" plans--very Afghanistan-like--basically for slaughtering sufficient locals to terrorize the area then swooping in, in helicopters, with aftermath teams to set up a puppet local government loyal to the Mob Boss in Bogota. (This is what was happening in La Macarena, where 500 to 2,000 bodies were found--a Pentagon/USAID "pacification" program.)

--U.S. taxpayers providing $7 BILLION in military aid to support to this slaughter.

--No way the U.S. military, the Colombian military, the U.S. government (Bush) and the Colombian government (Uribe) did not know that at least 3,473 state agents were murdering civilians and 'counting' their bodies as FARC guerrillas.

--Bush Jr. giving Mob Boss (er, 'President') Uribe the "Medal of Freedom."

--I just saw a number--62,000 disappeared in Colombia--flash by in the news feed at Colombia Reports; don't know the time frame, nor what the total picture is--how many bodies found, how many reported but not yet found, how many more known murders (bodies) are not counted as "disappeared"--but this number gives some notion of the staggering murder and mayhem in Colombia, with much of it political and some of it related to Uribe's consolidation of the cocaine trade, which I suspect is related to the following point...

--FIVE MILLION peasant farmers driven from their lands by state terror--the worst human displacement crisis on earth. (Small time coca leaf growers and food farmers driven out; big drug lords and major cocaine ops take over the land.)

--Georgetown U. and Harvard U. giving the Mob Boss cushy academic sinecures, to help "launder" his image; Mob Boss Uribe teaching our future leaders all about the law--i.e., what you need to do to be above it; that poor padre in Antioquia where Uribe got his start, Fr. Javier Giraldo Moreno, trying to warn his fellow Jesuits at Georgetown what they were honoring--to no avail.

Then there are...

-- the secretly negotiated U.S./Colombia military agreement (secretly signed by Uribe and U.S. ambassador Brownfield), in summer 2009, giving "total diplomatic immunity" to all U.S. military personnel and all U.S. military contractors in Colombia--a highly controversial agreement that also included greatly expanded U.S. military presence in Colombia, later declared unconstitutional by the Colombian Supreme Court on the grounds of lack of consultation with the legislature;

--the extraditions (also by Uribe and Brownfield) of over 1,000 death squad witnesses to the U.S. on mere "drug charges" and their "burial" in the U.S. federal prison system--out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors--a highly controversial policy that the Colombian Supreme Court stopped in 2010 (and only then did Brownfield talk about amending the U.S./Colombia extradition treaty to allow Colombian prosecutor access to these prisoners);
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/9427-over-1000-colombians-extradited-to-us-under-uribe.html

--both of the above occurred on Obama's watch (circa 2009-2010) (the military agreement and some of the extraditions), and may well have involved CIA Director Leon Panetta (member of Bush Sr's "Iraq Study Group") who was sworn in as CIA Director in Feb 2009 and visited Bogota in Feb 2010 (amidst rumors of a Uribe coup to stay in power). This account of Panetta's meeting with Uribe is amusing in its obtuseness; Panetta also met with prez candidate Manuel Santos (likely vetting and approving him to succeed Uribe).
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/8439-uribe-meets-with-cia-director.html

--the overnight asylum given Uribe's spy chief in the U.S. client state of Panama--out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors; and the Wilileaks cable disclosing that the rightwing prez of Panama, a Uribe pal, had demanded the same kind of spying help from the U.S. embassy in Panama that was being given to Uribe in Colombia;

--early this year ('11), the U.S. State Department "fining" Blackwater for "unauthorized" "trainings" of "foreign persons" IN COLOMBIA "for use in Iraq and Afghanistan" ("unauthorized"? yeah, right.);

--recent testimony (this week) that the U.S. (Bush Junta) was supplying millions of dollars, equipment, technical assistance and an American monitor (reporting to the U.S. embassy) for Uribe's illegal domestic spying operations--even spying on judges and prosecutors--the spying likely tied to the creation of "hit lists" for assassination and death threats. (The spying is also likely tied to the 1,000+ extraditions to the U.S., i.e., by spying on judges and prosecutors, Uribe could identify who they were talking to and what level of danger that presented to him and his Mob and possibly to the Bush Junta; then those prisoners and confessees were yanked out of Colombia and "buried" in the U.S. federal prison system by complete sealing of their cases--an unusual procedure.)

And the cocaine just keeps on flowing out of Colombia.

So, the picture of the Bush Junta/Mob Boss Uribe relationship is getting ever sharper. 3,473 state agents slaughtering civilians and 'counting' their bodies as guerrilla fighters--to please and impress the U.S. senators and congresspersons who were appropriating the $7 BILLION, and to bolster Uribe's image as a "law and order" president (what a sick joke!). Many thousands of innocent people killed--the "false positives" plus the spy operation "hit lists" of trade unionists and others, plus the Colombian military's murder of trade unionists (Amnesty International report) and others (teachers, human rights workers, community activists, journalists, etc), plus the rightwing paramilitary death squad murders in the field (political murders, cocaine murders, land theft murders).

I suspect that Uribe's death toll is in the 100,000 range--figuring that some "disappeareds" have not been reported for fear of retaliation (--like many of the displaced farmers don't register as displaced out of fear), some political murders misreported as private or gang-related murders, some mass graves not found yet, individual people murdered and no report made (out of fear or because no family to report it), etc. The fear level must have been very intense in Colombia over the last decade--and 40,000 more deaths (added to the known "disappeareds") could well be hidden under that "iron curtain" of fear.

It's worse than Afghanistan and possibly as bad as Iraq.

The Bush Junta had THREE wars going--Colombia the least known by the American people. Sold as the "war on drugs" but in truth a "war" to control and profit from the trillion+ dollar trade. Mid-term amended to include the "war on terror" but in truth a "war" on trade unionists, human rights workers, political leftists and others opposed to rightwing government and Uribe's crime wave.

Theory: The Bush Junta twisted every law, agreement and government power to its opposite purpose. For instance: Is FEMA there to protect the American people in natural disasters? No, it's there to be looted by private 'contractors' in times of disaster. Dead bodies floating in the flooded rivers--who cares? They even prevented a U.S. battleship near New Orleans (with 2 hospitals aboard) from entering New Orleans. The only thing they were concerned about was switching crews who were trying to restore power to hospitals to restoring power to the east coast oil pipeline (order came from Cheney). And to top it off, they had put a horse racing expert in charge of FEMA!

Does the U.S. have an extradition treaty with Colombia to remove death squad and drug trafficking convicts to U.S. prisons to prevent their continued commission of crimes from corrupt prisons in Colombia? No, the U.S. has an extradition treaty to protect top level criminals like Uribe who get to conveniently extradite anyone who poses a danger to him and his Mob operations.

Is the U.S. committed to fighting drug trafficking in Colombia? No, the U.S. is committed to driving the small coca leaf farmers out so that the big, protected, insider operations can move in, with collateral benefit, say, to Monsanto and biofuel farms.

Is the U.S. committed to fighting "terrorism"? Not even a little bit. If they were, they would have arrested Uribe, his Mob lieutenants in government and half the Colombian military commanders. The U.S. was committed to murdering LEFTISTS: Teachers, human rights workers, peasant farmer organizers, farm worker union members, coal miner union members, Indigenous leaders, journalists, community activists, leftist political activists and organizers, environmentalists, etc. Colombia's 70 year civil war with guerrilla fighters was just the excuse. The Colombian military committed far, FAR more murders and other crimes than the guerrillas did. (92% vs 2%, on trade union murders, according to AI.)

The use of the extradition treaty clued me in to this quite adequate theory of Bush Junta policy: twisting every law, agreement and government power to its opposite purpose. Somebody ought to write a book about it.


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BTW, here is a book that we need to get:

Beyond Bogotá: Diary of a Drug War Journalist in Colombia by Garry Leech is published by Beacon Press http://www.beacon.org/

Review here: http://londonprogressivejournal.com/article/371/book-of-the-month:--

Edited to fix url.