U.S. to Let Colombia Question Soldiers

[Judi Lynn]

U.S. to Let Colombia Question Soldiers
U.S. to Let Colombia Question Soldiers Accused of Selling Arms to Far-Right Death Squads
By KIM HOUSEGO Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press

BOGOTA, Colombia May 6, 2005 — The United States on Friday said Colombian prosecutors could question two U.S. soldiers accused of selling arms to far-right death squads.

The U.S. concession came amid growing anger in Colombia over Washington's refusal to allow the suspects to be tried in Colombia. But U.S. Ambassador William Wood said the soldiers will be severely punished if found guilty by a U.S. military court.

"Immunity does not mean impunity," he said.
(snip)

The United States has denied secretly helping the paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, which has been blamed for countless atrocities in its two-decade dirty war against Marxist rebels. Washington has labeled the AUC a terrorist organization.
(snip/...)

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=736099

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Plan Colombia Aid and the Paramilitaries
By Sean Donahue,
Posted on Fri May 6th, 2005 at 04:03:04 PM EST
In January of 2001, in a meeting at the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá, one of the top aides to then-U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson ridiculed the idea that any of the weapons or equipment given to the Colombian military as part of Plan Colombia could wind up in the hands of the right wing paramilitaries of the AUC.

Events this week reveal the deceitfulness or naïveté of her comments, and reflect a long-standing pattern of U.S. military collaboration with Colombian paramilitaries going back to the 1960’s.
(snip)

As Dan Feder reported in these pages today, and The New York Times reported yesterday, earlier this week, Colombian authorities arrested Allan Tanquary and Jesus Hernandez, with either 32,000 or 40,000 rounds of ammunition. According to Juan Forero of the Times:

“Authorities said the two had been in contact with a former Colombian Police Sgt. Will Gabriel Aguilar, who has been linked to paramilitary groups. Aguilar, another retired policeman and two other Colombians were also arrested, police said. The ammunition had been sent to Colombia by the United States under its Plan Colombia aid program.”

-- In 1997, paramilitaries carried out a brutal massacre in the village of Maprirpan. Ignacio Gomez Garcia, reporting for El Espectador, later discovered that U.S. Special Forces were training Colombian troops at the military base the paramilitaries passed through on their way to Mapiripan. According to a May 30, 2000 story on Democracy Now:

“Just a few miles away from Mapiripan is a military base built by the United States and used by the US Special Forces for anti-narcotics training. The death squad sent by paramilitary leader Carlos Castano was allowed to land at an airstrip controlled by the Colombian military, and passed through the military base on their way to Mapiripan. On July 12, 1997, over 100 paramilitaries surrounded Mapiripan. By the time they left the village on July 20, almost 50 people were dead - perhaps many more. The total may never be known because the victims were dismembered and their bodies thrown into the nearby river. The paramilitaries would wait until nightfall, cut off the town’s electric generator and knock on doors looking for victims. Then they would hang their victims from meat hooks and cut off their limbs with chainsaws while they were still alive. Despite repeated calls from the local judge to the nearby military base, Colombian troops did not arrive in Mapiripan until well after the massacre was over.”
(snip/...)

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2005/5/6/1636/09285

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Paramilitary death squads spearhead Plan Colombia

By Karl Penhaul

Guamuez Valley, Colombia, Mar. 29— While Colombia insists it is cracking down on outlawed paramilitary groups, commanders of the right-wing units boast that they are actually spearheading the government’s US-funded offensive to wipe out the booming cocaine industry in guerrilla-held jungles in the south.

President Andres Pastrana and the military’s top brass have repeatedly vowed to crackdown on the burgeoning paramilitary forces and on officers and soldiers found collaborating with them. But there is credible evidence to back the paramilitary commanders’ assertions that they are actually functioning as the vanguard of ‘’Plan Colombia’’ - the campaign to eradicate illicit drug crops that Washington is financing with $1.3 billion in mostly military aid.

In months of covert operations in large swaths of Putumayo province in remote southern Colombia, both sides say, the right-wing forces have driven out leftist guerrilla units and killed suspected leftist sympathizers. That cleared the way for the army’s US-trained antinarcotics battalions to move in without fear of ambush and with less risk of having their helicopters and defoliant-spraying aircraft shot down.
(snip/...)

http://www.agrnews.org/issues/116/worldnews.html

Misc. paramilitary photos: http://www.betabodega.com/discography/photogallery2/photogallery.php

http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2005/01/19/ww5_gallery__550x386,0.jpg



Our employee, paramilitary leader, Carlos Castaño.

[TomClash]

1. But the Italians can't?

But the Italians, who supported teh US in Iraq, can't even obtain the identity of the soldiers who killed Nicholas Calipari?