Document Points to Military/Paramilitary Nexus in Murder of Popular Colombian Comedian

[Judi Lynn]

Who Killed Jaime Garzón?

Document Points to Military/Paramilitary Nexus in Murder of Popular Colombian Comedian

Garzón Had Been "Deeply Troubled" by Meeting with Senior Army Officer

Ongoing Impunity in 12-year-old Case Spurs Inter-American Commission Complaint

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 360

Posted - September 29, 2011

Washington, D.C., September 29, 2011 - Twelve years after the assassination of beloved Colombian journalist and political satirist Jaime Garzón, a newly-declassified State Department cable, published on the Web today by the National Security Archive (www.nsarchive.org), supports longstanding allegations that Colombian military officials ordered the killing. Written just days after the murder, the cable from the U.S. Embassy in Colombia says that Garzón “had been killed by paramilitaries in league with ‘loose cannon’ active or retired members of the security forces.”

One of Colombia's most popular television personalities, Garzón was also a high-profile advocate for government talks with leftist rebel groups when he was gunned down on August 13, 1999. Carlos Castaño, top leader of an illegal right-wing militia known as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), was convicted in absentia of masterminding the plot in 2001 but was never brought to justice and is now presumed dead. Castaño remains the only individual ever sentenced in the case, though the involvement of Colombian security forces has long been suspected.

The document published today is among key evidence cited by lawyers representing Garzón's family who are seeking to hold the Colombian state responsible for his murder. Last month, human rights attorneys from the Colectivo de Abogados “José Alvear Restrepo” and the Comisión Colombiana de Juristas jointly requested a hearing on the Garzón case before the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR).

Of particular interest in the newly-declassified cable is the revelation that retired general Rito Alejo del Río Rojas may have lied in a 2001 declaration before Colombian prosecutors when he denied that he had ever met Garzón. Quite the contrary, the embassy report says that Del Río “upbraided” Garzón when the two met to discuss his efforts to restart peace negotiations with the ELN guerrilla group. The embassy’s confidential source said that Garzón "came away from the meeting very troubled by the depths of the anger that Del Río vented."

More:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB360/

[Peace Patriot]

1. This is a can of worms, ain't it? The AUC = Uribe = Bush/U.S.

The 40 year civil war HAD to be kept going, for how else justify the billions of U.S. tax dollars for war profiteers, the U.S. military bases in Colombia and prep of Colombia as the new launching pad for U.S. wars on democratic leftist governments in the region (particularly those with lots of oil), and U.S. militarization of these societies as the best climate for U.S. corporate/bankster/war profiteer rape. For this, Clinton is certainly responsible. It was, without question, covert U.S. policy to pretend to demobilize the AUC while allowing them to regroup--and allowing fascist mob bosses like Alvaro Uribe to gain power using AUC thugs and networks--during the Clinton government. But the U.S. "war on drugs" was not enough food for the U.S. war monster. It had to be abetted by the U.S. "war on terror." Enter Bush and 9/11.

The GOAL of U.S. policy in LatAm during the Bush Junta was to PREVENT a peaceful settlement of the Colombian civil war. This covert policy lurks behind many events--including, for instance, Uribe luring Chavez into negotiating with the FARC for hostage releases, pulling the rug out from under him after that request and using those negotiations to pinpoint FARC commander Raul Reyes' location (the FARC commander most interested in peace) and blowing him to smithereens (along with 24 other sleeping people) in the U.S./Colombia bombing/raid on Ecuador in March 2008--an act that nearly started a war between the U.S./Colombia and Ecuador/Venezuela. Swiss, Spanish and French envoys were in the country (Ecuador) on their way to that camp to receive Ingrid Betancourt--a FARC gesture that likely was intended as a opener to peace talks.

War is lucrative. War is useful. War is DESIRED by the U.S. "military-industrial complex." And war has become a necessity of the U.S. economy. We produce little else but war.

Michael Moore made a movie called "Sicko" about the U.S. health care system. He should make a movie called "Even Sicker" about U.S. policy in LatAm--sick from the beginning, getting even sicker during the Reagan regime with that disease of war and death on the rampage in Colombia under Bush after covert prep by Clinton.

This assassination was not committed by "loose cannon" elements of the Colombian military. It was committed as U.S. POLICY. Who controls the Colombian military? Who funds them? Who trains them? And who stands to benefit from the thousands of murders of trade unionists, human rights workers, community activists, teachers, peasant farmers, political leftists, journalists and others whom the COLOMBIAN MILITARY has murdered? U.S. corporations! Chiquita. Drummond Coal, Exxon Mobil, Occidental Petroleum, Dole, Coca-Cola and others, plus U.S. war profiteers (Bell, Dyncorp, Silorsky, Blackwater, et al)!

See http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/colombia/corporate.html

Colombia is a U.S. CLIENT STATE, and targeted political assassination against those who oppose war, killing and oppression is part of the deal that the rich elites in such countries make with the U.S. political establishment. It is now happening in Honduras--same status for the country, same deal. KILL THE DISSENTERS! It is done officially by the U.S. funded/controlled military or state security apparatus with impunity or by their closely tied rightwing paramilitaries, also with impunity.

We really, REALLY need to wake up to this reality. It is "sick" in the sense of demonic. It is evil. And this evil is done IN OUR NAME.

I know that it's extremely difficult to face and address all that is wrong with our government and society. And we need to act on very practical remedies--such as tossing the corporate controlled 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines (Priority No. 1, in my opinion). But we first need simply to REALIZE how much evil our out-of-control war machine is doing in the world and what it is costing us, not just in money (trillions of dollars!) but in the prevailing sickness of hopelessness and disempowerment, here, as well as other places. This is not who we are as a people. We are, on the whole, a creative people with great good will toward others--but we have been egregiously lied to and manipulated in a very focused effort to defeat our progressive tendencies. We have first to REALIZE this, then get to work dismantling Corporate Rule.