Paramilitary Ties Implicate Colombia's Political Elite (right-winger Congress, ETC.)

[Judi Lynn]

Paramilitary Ties Implicate Colombia's Political Elite

By Juan Forero
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 19, 2006; Page A01

BOGOTA, Colombia, Dec. 18 -- In what has been heralded as a decisive moment in Colombia's shadowy, decades-long conflict, a powerful paramilitary commander is to appear in a special court Tuesday to account for crimes that include massacres and assassinations. Salvatore Mancuso's testimony will be the first by a top death-squad leader in a Colombian courtroom, and it is being touted by the administration of President Álvaro Uribe as evidence that the wheels of justice are turning.

Rather than rejoicing, however, the Uribe government has found itself in the awkward position of being implicated in the wrongdoing. Over the past several weeks, Colombians have been gripped by revelations of ties between paramilitary fighters and several congressmen close to the president, as well as some officials in his administration. The scandal now threatens to unravel his authority.

Uribe won reelection in May after cultivating his reputation as a workaholic technocrat -- someone who would be relentless against corruption and illegal armed groups. But lately, he has joined a cast of lawmakers, intelligence service operatives and mid-level government bureaucrats in publicly denying ties to the paramilitary groups, which for a generation the military used as a proxy force to battle guerrillas.

"The government's smokescreen is becoming transparent," said Venus Albeiro Silva, a congressman from the left-leaning Alternative Democratic Pole party. "What's happening now is they cannot put the lid on this. That's why we're telling the president to come out and say the truth."
(snip/...)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/18/AR2006121801374.html



Salvatore Mancuso
Associated Press

Colombian Warlord Testifies About Crimes
By JOSHUA GOODMAN 12.19.06, 4:32 PM ET

~snip~
According to Mancuso's Web site, the 42-year-old was a national motocross champion and studied at the University of Pittsburgh before taking up arms in 1995 against leftist rebels who were extorting his fellow cattle ranchers.

Like much of the United Self-Defense Forces' leadership, Mancuso soon got deep into Colombia's lucrative cocaine trade, slaughtering enemies while displacing tens of thousands of peasants.

Many Colombians believe that Mancuso and 58 other top jailed warlords plan to divulge only what prosecutors already know while secretly shuttling huge fortunes overseas and maintaining cocaine-smuggling operations.
(snip/)

http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurs/entresales/feeds/ap/2006/12/19/ap3269200.html



Colombian pResident Alvaro Uribe and his friend

[Judi Lynn]

1. Key Colombian leaders linked to death squads

Key Colombian leaders linked to death squads
U.S. lists right-wing paramilitaries as terror groups
Mike Ceaser, Chronicle Foreign Service

Saturday, December 16, 2006

(12-16) 04:00 PST Bogota, Colombia -- A scandal has rocked the administration of President Alvaro Uribe after revelations that dozens of public officials loyal to his party have ties with right-wing death squads listed by Washington as terrorist organizations.

The disclosures reveal that mayors, governors, members of Congress, judges and even the current foreign minister have ties to violence and narcotics traffickers.

"The paramilitaries have taken control of a good part of the (Uribe) administration," former President Cesar Gaviria, leader of the opposition Liberal Party, told reporters last month.

The scandal began early this year when two political parties that support the conservative Uribe -- the Bush administration's closest ally in South America -- expelled five of their congressional candidates for ties to right-wing paramilitary militias, which have killed tens of thousands of civilians and run drug-trafficking networks.

But the affair exploded last month after the Supreme Court ordered the arrest of three legislators and a former congresswoman -- all Uribe allies -- for being part of a paramilitary group that brutally massacred 16 villagers in 2000 using rocks and machetes, a trademark paramilitary method of murder.
(snip/...)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/12/16/MNGM8N0V001.DTL

They are also fond of chain saws, have used them frequently.

[Judi Lynn]

2. BATTERED BUT UNBOWED, COLOMBIA´S SOCIAL ORGANISATIONS FIGHT ON

BATTERED BUT UNBOWED, COLOMBIA´S SOCIAL ORGANISATIONS FIGHT ON
by John Hunt
December 18, 2006

Marina Martinez was busy getting her daughters ready for school one morning in August 2004 and so she missed the radio news report that the Colombian Army had killed three guerrillas in her home province of Arauca. One of those named was her husband Alirio, the popular regional president of ANUC, the peasants´ union. Then Isaias Jaimes, a family friend and human rights campaigner, came to tell her the horrible facts. Isaias had been with Alirio, staying the night at a house following a meeting of local leaders of the CUT, the trade union confederation. Then soldiers came and seized five of their group. They shot dead three of their captives – Alirio, Lionel Goyeneche and Jorge Eduardo Prieto - and planted guns and wires on their bodies.

After a campaign the Attorney General’s office held an enquiry which conceded that the three murdered men had been unarmed. Marina gave evidence about her husband. “I told them that he had never carried a gun and was a man of peace” she said. But despite this victory for the truth the brutal persecution of Arauca’s social organisations continues.

The key reason is that potent three-letter word: oil. Arauca is home to the Caño-Limón oilfield from which oil is pumped to the Caribbean and then shipped out to the USA. The pipeline was bombed many times by left wing guerrillas and the Colombian government massively increased its military presence, which is reinforced by US special forces. Now any trade unionist or community leader can be targeted as a ´guerrilla´.
(snip)

Colombia is the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionist and in Arauca it can be particularly dangerous to be a member of the teachers´ union. 19 members of ASEDAR been murdered by paramilitaries in the past five years. Juan Luis Granados, the union´s regional president, spends much time evaluating death threats issued against his members. 150 have had to flee the region. Juan explained that teachers are often leaders of their local juntas de acción communales (neighbourhood committees).
(snip/...)

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=9&ItemID=11664

[Judi Lynn]

3. Top Colombian warlord testifies in key test of peace pact

Top Colombian warlord testifies in key test of peace pact
The Associated PressPublished: December 19, 2006

~snip~
Mancuso, handcuffed and wearing a bulletproof vest, arrived at the court under heavy guard. In a small deposition room, Chief Federal Prosecutor Mario Iguaran warned that anything short of "the complete truth" would cost Mancuso benefits such a reduced jail term of 5-8 years and protection from extradition to the United States.

Under a law that codified the peace deal, Mancuso and more than 2,000 AUC strongmen must give detailed confessions of their involvement in massacres, torture and other crimes.

Mancuso's victims were allowed to see him testify via closed-circuit television. The news media were not permitted entry, but witnesses said Mancuso essentially presented a history lecture on the paramilitaries' rise.

"He didn't confess to a single crime and at times even seemed to justify them," said Gustavo Gallon, head of the highly respected Colombian Commission of Jurists, and who is representing several victims.

But Mancuso shed tears and begged for victims' forgiveness before his testimony was suspended for lunch, Gallon said.

Human rights groups say the government is being too lenient with Mancuso and other warlords, and placards hung outside the courthouse demanded justice and reparations.

"Being here surrounded by other victims gives me hope the truth will come out," said Miladis Restrepo, 33, who watched as armed men raped her sister and burned down her house during a 1997 massacre by Mancuso's men.

Her 14-year-old brother Wilmar was one of 15 farmers murdered in the two-day El Aro massacre, for which a Colombian court in 2003 convicted Mancuso in absentia, sentencing him to 40 years in prison.
(snip/...)

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/12/20/america/LA_GEN_Colombia_Paramilitary_Trial.php

[Judi Lynn]

4. Paramilitary Leader Submits to Justice

Paramilitary Leader Submits to Justice
Seeking 'Real Truth,' Victims Gather For Testimony on Colombian Violence

By Juan Forero
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, December 20, 2006



A police officer removes the handcuffs of paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso, Colombia's first paramilitary commander to testify. (Prosecutor Press Office Via Associated Press)

MEDELLIN, Colombia, Dec. 19 -- Some came to the Palace of Justice on Tuesday with huge color photographs of their loved ones strapped around their necks. Others wore T-shirts that read "Justice" and "Truth." Maria Eugenia Cobaleda, whose two older brothers were kidnapped in 1998 and never seen again, summed up the prevailing mood.

"We're waiting to have them tell us the real truth, no matter how much it hurts," she said.
They all came to press for answers from Salvatore Mancuso, the first commander from Colombia's paramilitary organization to submit himself to justice.

The strapping commander, known as "Blondie" to his friends but as a mass murderer to human rights groups, sat in a hearing room Tuesday, rattling off key events in his life while leaving out his complicity in the more unpleasant chapters, according to victims who heard the testimony. The proceedings were closed to the public.
(snip)

In Mancuso the victims have a man they consider the personification of evil. In 2003, a judge sentenced him to 40 years in prison for arranging the 1997 massacre of at least 15 people in the town of El Aro. Warrants have been issued for his arrest in selective assassinations, as well as other mass killings in villages.

The country's attorney general, Mario Iguaran, told El Espectador newspaper that 1,200 people had complained to prosecutors about crimes Mancuso allegedly committed.
(snip/...)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/19/AR2006121901507.html

[formercia]

5. The usual suspects:

http://www.orderofmaltacolombia.org/