Colombia's far-right warlords to acknowledge crimes, ask allies to do the same

[Judi Lynn]

Colombia's far-right warlords to acknowledge crimes, ask allies to do the same
The Associated Press
Published: November 23, 2006

BOGOTA, Colombia: Colombia's far-right paramilitaries called Thursday for the creation of a truth commission where they can confess their actions in the brutal civil war and urged their allies in politics, business and the security forces to do the same.

The announcement comes as a scandal deepens over ties between the paramilitaries, responsible for dozens of large-scale massacres and thousands of killings, and the political class in this country.
(snip)

The paramilitaries, created by drug-traffickers and landowners to wrest control of the country from leftist rebels, also alluded to their supporters in the rest of society, especially politicians and the security forces. The paramilitaries' targets included leftist guerrillas, their civilian supporters, civic leaders, human rights workers, journalists and anyone who revealed the extent of the paramilitaries' infiltration of Colombia's public institutions.

"We ask publicly that those who urged us on, collaborators and direct beneficiaries, the businessmen, industrialists and political leaders ... members of the security forces, join us in this task without apprehension or fear," said the letter. "We don't want to seem as informers."

Authorities are investigating five politicians, including a former governor and two senators, for their close ties with the paramilitaries, with some accused of murder and others of forming the paramilitaries to help steal public funds, kill political opponents and extort votes from a terrorized politician.
(snip/...)

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/11/23/america/LA_GEN_Colombia_Paramilitary_Truth.php




Colombia's right-wing President Alvaro Uribe and his buddy.

[Judi Lynn]

1. Crisis in Congress shakes Colombia

Crisis in Congress shakes Colombia

Some politicians arrested, linked to death squads

By Juan Forero
The Washington Post
Posted November 22 2006

BOGOTA, Colombia · The government of President Alvaro Uribe is being shaken by its most serious political crisis yet, as details emerge about members of Congress who collaborated with right-wing death squads to spread terror and exert political control across Colombia's Caribbean coast.

Two senators, Alvaro Garcma and Jairo Merlano, are in custody, as is a congressman, Eric Morris, and a former congresswoman, Muriel Benito. Four local officials have been arrested, and a warrant has been issued for a former governor, Salvador Arana. All are from the state of Sucre, where the attorney general's office has been exhuming bodies from mass graves -- victims of a paramilitary campaign to erode civilian support for Marxist rebels in Colombia's long conflict.

The investigation, which has revealed how legislators and paramilitary commanders rigged elections and planned assassinations, has shaken Colombia's Congress to its core. One powerful senator from Cesar state, Alvaro Araujo, has warned that if he is targeted in the investigation, it would taint relatives of his in the government and, ultimately, the president, whom he has strongly supported.

The arrests and disclosures about the investigation, which is focusing on at least five more members of Congress, come weeks after prosecutors leaked a report revealing how paramilitary fighters have killed hundreds of people, trafficked cocaine to the United States and sacked government institutions while negotiating a disarmament with Uribe's government.
(snip/...)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/caribbean/sfl-acolombia22nov22,0,431549.story?coll=sfla-news-caribbean

[MGKrebs]

2. Hmm. Sounds like the work of SOA grads.

Allow me a moment to urge activists to get involved with closing the "School Of Assassins".

The School Of the Americas, located within Fort Benning Georgia, trains soldiers, police, and civilians (aka paramilitary militias) in counterinsurgency techniques, sniper training, psychological warfare, interrogation techniques, and other combat methods. Graduates of the school have consistently gone on to use their training for torture, death squads, and terrorism against their political opposition, including priests, teachers, students, and union organizers.

In 2002, Bush stopped training militaries from 22 Latin American and Caribbean countries in order to pressure them to pass laws exempting US personnel from war crimes charges. (Why would we need that?) The effort has failed, so Bush is now allowing the militaries of certain countries back in- right wing countries only.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2006/11/us_to_lift_ban_.html
This is effectively encouraging right wing governments to use terror tactics against their political opponents.

The governments of Venezuela, Argentina, and Uruguay have said they will no longer participate in the school.

Plenty more to read here:
http://www.soaw.org

With the recent election results, chances are greatly enhanced of closing this embarrassment to the US and to democracy. Here is the take action page:
http://www.soaw.org/new/article.php?id=1215

[Judi Lynn]

3. Great post. Had never heard of Bush's smooth move in 2002.

It's conspicuous, all right. It's spectacular learning it failed. Wow.

Your first source linked to this Washington Post article by Dana Priest:

U.S. Instructed Latins on Executions, Torture Saturday, September 21st 1996

Dana Priest, Washington Post

By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer

U.S. Army intelligence manuals used to train Latin American military officers at an Army school from 1982 to 1991 advocated executions, torture, blackmail and other forms of coercion against insurgents, Pentagon documents released yesterday show.

Used in courses at the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas, the manual says that to recruit and control informants, counterintelligence agents could use “fear, payment of bounties for enemy dead, beatings, false imprisonment, executions and the use of truth serum,” according to a secret Defense Department summary of the manuals compiled during a 1992 investigation of the instructional material and also released yesterday.
(snip/...)

http://www.soaw.org/new/newswire_detail.php?id=851

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I hope the number increases of other countries joining the three you mentioned in abstaining from this vicious right-wing monster training program. So many broken hearts and lives have been destroyed, entire villages have been wiped off the face of the map, so many people live in fear already due to the application of its utterly unforgiveable, fiendish training.

[EFerrari]

4. LOL!

Like Bush's numbers aren't already in the sewer.

:rofl:

[Eugene]

5. Reuters: Colombian senator admits right-wing militia link

Colombian senator admits right-wing militia link
26 Nov 2006 21:12:55 GMT
Source: Reuters

By Hugh Bronstein

BOGOTA, Colombia, Nov 26 (Reuters) - A member of Colombian President
Alvaro Uribe's congressional coalition has admitted to supporting illegal
right-wing militias, deepening the worst political crisis to hit this Andean
country in years.

In a newspaper interview published on Sunday, Senator Miguel De la Espriella
became the first member of Congress to admit to dealing with the militias,
fueling a scandal over long-suspected links between cocaine-smuggling
paramilitaries and public officials.

"In Cordoba you couldn't practice politics without getting the nod from the
self-defense forces," De la Espriella told leading Colombian daily El Tiempo,
referring to his home province in northern Colombia.

"There were no exceptions," said De la Espriella, who is a member of the
Uribe-friendly Democratic Colombia party.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N26463541.htm