Piedad Cordoba announces Brazil trip to restart hostage release operation .

[Judi Lynn]

Piedad Cordoba announces Brazil trip to restart hostage release operation .
Monday, 20 February 2012 16:09
Arron Daugherty

Former Senator and peace activist Peidad Cordoba will visit Brazil to restart Colombia's hostage release operation, said local media Monday.

Brazil formally agreed to provide helicopters for the operation last Thursday, which will be used in the release of six Colombian security force members who have been held by the FARC for more than a decade.
Hostage news archive

The FARC announced their intention to release the hostages last month, but later suspended the release, citing a perceived militarization of the exchange zone by the Colombian government.

Cordoba also said she was working not just for the release of the six previously mentioned hostages, but also the release of all FARC captives.

http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/22312-former-colombian-senator-announces-brazil-trip-to-restart-hostage-release-operation.html

[Peace Patriot]

1. This has certainly been a long and complex effort to achieve peace...

...in Colombia's 70 year civil war. I greatly admire Piedad Cordoba's persistence. What a brave woman!

I followed one segment of this long saga--the efforts of Hugo Chavez at the end of 2007 and early 2008. What became apparent in that effort is that the U.S. (Bush Junta) was prepared to do anything to prevent peace. Indeed, they bombed the FARC's hostage release camp, slaughtering 25 sleeping people, in order to prevent the release of Ingrid Betancourt in a major effort toward peace by several LatAm leaders and emissaries from Spain, France and Switzerland. This story has a weird Rumsfeldian twist. It appears that Alvaro Uribe (president and mafia don of Colombia) lured Chavez into negotiations with the FARC, for hostage releases, with the intent of later using this against Chavez, to accuse him of being a "terrorist-lover."

The kicker was to be the "miracle laptop"--an alleged FARC laptop that allegedly contained evidence against Chavez (all since thoroughly debunked)--which was allegedly found at the bombed out FARC camp on Ecuador's border. The camp was totally blown away by 500 lb U.S. "smart bombs." This plot not only smells of Rumsfeld's "Office of Special Plans," but there is evidence of Rumsfeld's particular interest in the failure of Chavez's hostage release efforts: a Washington Post op-ed, by Rumsfeld, published on the weekend of Chavez's first negotiated hostage releases, in which Rumsfeld states, in the first paragraph, that Chavez's efforts are "not welcome in Colombia." Uribe had publicly ASKED Chavez to negotiate hostage releases with the FARC, then, that same week--in concert with Rumsfeld's op-ed--rescinded that request. The hostage releases, however, were in progress, and, with families, human rights groups and other government leaders begging Chavez to continue, he proceeded to get six hostages released before the Colombian military got too hostile and he had to stop.

Then, a few months later, came the "miracle laptop" bombing--and all of Uribe's damned lies about Chavez and warmongering against Venezuela and Ecuador.

Piedad Cordoba was working on this matter then, as well, and is still working on it. With the Bushwhacks gone, she finally has a real chance to achieve peace. She has sacrificed her political career and her safety to do so, and has never given up.

[Peace Patriot]

2. Just wanted to add a thought about Brazil.

I suspected that Brazil's Lula da Silva was among the leaders of the peace movement that Chavez was spearheading with his hostage release efforts, back in 2007-2008, but Lula was very quiet about it and I never saw a reference to it, in any reports. But it was the sort of grand regional scheme that Lula would likely approve of, be part of and even design.

So, I'm not surprised to see Lula's chosen successor, Dilma Rousseff, take up the cause and, given my assessment of Rousseff (or, I should say, my guesses about her) as an even stronger leftist than Lula, make Brazil's role visible--a formal participation, providing helicopters, etc.

Rousseff was imprisoned and tortured by the U.S.-backed fascists in Brazil--horribly tortured--for being a member of an armed resistance group against the fascist regime. She has personal experience of the motives for armed resistance, the desperation and sheer difficulties of such a life choice, and the consequences if you are caught. She would also have great motivation to stop such a civil war, and seek peace, if any hope exists that such a war can be successfully and peacefully ended.

She has obviously assessed the current situation--the new leadership in Colombia--as hopeful. That is an important assessment (along with Cordoba's) to help us judge the situation from afar. We really can't trust the leader of a U.S. client state (Manuel Santos/Colombia) even if he gives hopeful signals. The last time the FARC demobilized, 5,000 of them were slaughtered after they laid down their arms and committed to peaceful political change. Rightwing death squads are still rampant in Colombia, as the legacy of the Bush Junta and their mafia don 'president' Alvaro Uribe. The favored, protected drug cartels are running rampant as well, and the illicit arms dealers, and criminal portions of the military, and criminal portions of the political establishment allied to Uribe. Uribe throve on the conflict with the FARC and, in my opinion, used it and the U.S. "war on drugs" to consolidate the cocaine trade. And, due in large part to the Obama administration's protection of him, he is still at large and continues to be a political threat. So Santos--who has said that peace with the FARC is possible--could possibly lose out to a Uribe resurgence. FARC guerillas who wish to demobilize face these and other dangers. It is difficult to see, from afar, whether peace is really possible. I sincerely hope that Rousseff and Cordoba are right that it is. They are among the most reliable sources on this matter.

[ocpagu]

3. The problem with these hostage release operations...

... is that the government of Colombia usually set multiple conditions for allowing a "third part" neutral mediation. The objective of these conditions is usually to force the third part to abandon neutrality. Several leaders of the region, including Lula, have considered these conditions to be "over the top".

A notable example: Colombia has been pressuring Brazil to list the FARC guerrilla as a "terrorist group" since Lula's administration. That would, of course, neutralize Brazil as an actor, ilosate FARC and allow Colombia to take its "war on terror" to another level. As you can read in the link, "Brazil has on several occasions refused to list FARC as a terrorist group allegedly not to be eliminated as a possible contributor in any attempt to establish some kind of possible mediation between the Colombian government and the guerrilla group".

http://en.mercopress.com/2010/09/02/santos-invites-brazil-to-list-the-farc-guerrilla-as-a-terrorist-group

http://pt.scribd.com/doc/61572299/Cable-386-Colombia-Pressures-Brazil-to-Deny-Refugee-Status-to-FARC-Militant

Then, comes plan B, i.e. disqualification: if Brazil does not consider FARC as a terrorist group, they must be cozing up to them:

http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/9746-farc-has-permanent-bases-in-brazil.html

http://www.health.am/ab/more/brazil_probes_colombian_rebels_medical_drugs_link/

Of course, right wing media and opposition parties in Brazil followed

http://en.mercopress.com/2010/07/23/brazilian-opposition-links-ruling-party-with-farc-guerrillas

That's one of the reasons why it's so difficult to be a "neutral mediator" in this issue: Colombia is not interested in neutrality. Or mediation.

[Bacchus4.0]

4. nope, the problem is the taking of the hostages in the first place n/t

s

[Judi Lynn]

5. So glad you wrote this post, ocpagu. It's more valuable to some of us than you realize.

It really helps to focus us on what we've been reading about, hearing about for years concerning Colombia's government and its manipulation of its affairs with other Latin American countries. Some of us have been learning about, thinking about these events, trying to grasp the deeper meanings behind events as they were exploited and manipulated and explained by Colombian officials. It has been very odd watching them work.

I wanted to mention that former Senator Piedad Cordoba was violently kidnapped, her bodyguards shot, (can't remember how many were killed, but at least one was) and held by the government-allied paramilitaries. In the last week or two, a para leader formally testified that the Uribe administration was behind it, and wanted them to kill her, and that the AUC finally refused to do it, and she was released.

You may recall Uribe has had his DAS intelligence department watch and wiretap her a lot in later years, and this was made public fairly recently.

One item of difference between the FARCs and their hostages, and the government-connected paramilitaries: when they have taken prisoners they generally didn't kill them, but the death squads of course DID, and made a vicious example of their tortures and murders to terroize everyone who heard about it, in order to paralyze with fear, to neutralize future victims. They were and still are disgusting monstrosities doing the dirty work for the Colombian right-wing, an old, old tradition, specifically to assist them in keeping total control over the population through fear.

What you have described sounds exactly they way we would expect it would happen. ALWAYS an ulterior motive beyond the obvious dishonest method of conducting business with their neighbors. Very crooked. Dishonorable, dirty.

Brazil has never had that image, never since Lula was elected, and in the present. Hope the Brazilian right-wing will eventually die out, and the Colombian, and the U.S. ugly right. If only they knew how much they are hated, disliked, distrusted, all for real reasons, by so many.

In the end, the PEOPLE will win.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Regarding earlier kidnapping of Uribe target "enemy" Cordoba: Jailed paramilitary names high profile

Jailed paramilitary names high profile kidnappers
Tuesday, 14 February 2012 17:24
Arron Daugherty

Extradited AUC commander "Don Berna," has named a deceased AUC comrade and ex-Colombian intelligence agency official in several high profile kidnappings, reported local media Tuesday. Diego Fernando Murillo Bejarano alias, "Don Berna," gave his latest testimony from a prison cell in Miami, where he is serving a 31 year sentence for cocaine trafficking.

According to the testimony Jose Miguel Narvaez (former sub-director of now dismantled Colombian intelligence agency DAS) and AUC commander Carlos Castaño were the masterminds behind the 1994 kidnapping of then Colombian Senator Piedad Cordoba, for her perceived ties to the FARC (Colombia's largest guerrilla group).

Don Berna said, "Narvaez wanted (the AUC) to kill her, to shoot her. He always thought anything left wing was dangerous for the country."

According to the paramilitary, Castaño carried out the kidnapping and stopped short of murdering Cordoba. Which according to him, "could be why (Castaño) was later killed."

More:
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/22210-jailed-paramilitary-names-dead-comrade-and-former-intelligence-official-in-kidnappings.html

[Judi Lynn]

7. More on Piedad's kidnapping: Piedad Córdoba says trial proves links between government and paramili

Colombia: Piedad Córdoba says trial proves links between government and paramilitaries

Colombian defender of human right Piedad Córdoba said on Friday that the public trial of former subdirector of the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad (DAS – Administrative Security Department), José Miguel Narváez, demonstrates the truth of charges she has made for years concerning links between paramilitaries and the government.

“The link between the paramilitaries and the government, through DAS, is confirmed, there is overwhelming proof,” Córdoba declared in an interview granted to TeleSUR.

She added, “I participated in a series of meetings where paramilitary chiefs, like Don Bernán, for example, admitted who had ordered my kidnapping.”

~snip~
The human rights defender stated as well that all these actions are intended to cause the disappearance of the Colombian democratic left.

More:
http://lo-de-alla.org/2011/01/colombia-piedad-cordoba-says-trial-proves-links-between-government-and-paramilitaries/

[center]~~~~~[/center] ~snip~
In 1999 Carlos Castaño, leader of the paramilitary group United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), kidnapped Senator Córdoba. After several weeks she was freed and exiled with her family in Canada. After one year and 2 months in exile and reports by Colombian authorities that security had improved, Córdoba returned to Colombia, leaving her family behind to resume her political duties. She has been the victim of two assassination attempts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piedad_C%C3%B3rdoba

[center]~~~~~[/center]
A Chilling Crime Network Rears Its Head in Colombia

Latin America: Tactics used by the powerful group La Terraza recall the days of the Medellin cartel.

March 16, 2000|JUANITA DARLING | TIMES STAFF WRITER

MEDELLIN, Colombia — Sen. Piedad Cordoba knew she was a target. As chairwoman of the Senate Human Rights Committee in this country where politicians are regularly kidnapped or assassinated, she had alienated guerrillas, right-wing private armies and even members of the government.

Still, Colombians were shocked when she and her bodyguard were surrounded by 15 armed people in uniforms of national investigative police at a clinic in the fashionable El Poblado district of this violent city. With so many powerful enemies, who had pulled off the audacious midday kidnapping?

Nine months after the senator was released unharmed by paramilitary leader Carlos Castano, prosecutors think they have the answer. They believe that Castano had hired the job out to La Terraza, the most powerful criminal organization operating in Colombia since drug baron Pablo Escobar was gunned down by police in 1993.

The kidnapping was the first firm link between urban organized crime related to drug trafficking and Castano's rural federation of seven right-wing anti-insurgency forces, which have an estimated strength of 11,000 troops and their own narcotics ties.

More:
http://articles.latimes.com/2000/mar/16/news/mn-9425