Colombia ordered to pay US$7.8 million in massacre of 12 judicial workers by paramilitaries

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Colombia ordered to pay US$7.8 million in massacre of 12 judicial workers by paramilitaries
The Associated Press
Published: June 8, 2007

BOGOTA, Colombia: Colombia must pay US$7.8 million (€5.8 million) in damages to relatives of 12 judicial workers killed in a 1989 massacre by army-backed paramilitaries, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered.

The May 11 ruling made public by the victims' lawyers Friday is the largest yet against Colombia by the Costa Rica-based court, which investigates human rights violations when justice cannot be guaranteed in national courts. The judgment cannot be appealed.

"It's the first time that the state has been found guilty of collaborating in the murder of other agents of the state," Rafael Barrios, a lawyer for the victims, told The Associated Press.

President Alvaro Uribe was in New York on Friday, and a spokesman for his office said no official was available to comment on the ruling. The government previously acknowledged its responsibility in the case and has in the past paid damages ordered by the court, an autonomous branch of the Organization of American States.

The 12 victims of the La Rochela massacre were killed while investigating another paramilitary massacre of 19 merchants in Santander state. Three judicial workers survived the massacre.


Read more: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/06/09/america/LA-GEN-Colombia-Massacre-Ruling.php

[Peace Patriot]

1. Where are all the DU Chavez-haters who are so concerned about the freedom of

speech of fascist corporations in Venezuela, when REAL LIVE BLOODY AWFUL TERROR by their rightwing kindred brethren in Colombia gets exposed?

THIS is what RCTV wanted to see in Venezuela: a fascist dictatorship enforced by a police state and rightwing paramilitaries, who would slaughter any honest people in government, as well as thousands of union organizers, peasants and leftists, and silence free speech in Venezuela with bullets.

THIS is what they have been supporting in their numbskull attacks on the Chavez government, with their little assemblage of "talking points" from the Bush State Department and the Wall Street Journal. Chavez is a "dictator." Chavez is "authoritarian." Chavez is a "scumbag." When REAL atrocities, and REAL dictators, and REAL scumbags have operated freely next door in Colombia, committing REAL atrocities.

Is denying a license to a corporate TV station which actively supported a bloody military coup attempt, and acting with strength and determination in the cause of social justice, and being repeatedly endorsed by the great majority of Venezuelans in highly monitored, fair and aboveboard elections, and advocating and implementing widespread public participation in government, and using the nation's oil revenues to help the vast poor population, and organizing regional ventures like the Bank of the South in the interest of Latin American self-determination, "authoritarian"?

Yet they condemn Venezuela's government, and say nothing about Colombia's.

Where are they--to condemn the scumbags in Colombia, who are supported by $4 billion of our future tax dollars, and who are good buds with Bush and Co., and who slaughter their own people?

Why don't they condemn RCTV's exact same intentions for Venezuela? Bloodshed. Mayhem. Fear. The silence of the grave.

If they are so concerned about "democracy" and "freedom of speech" and all that crap that Bushites talk: how about freedom of speech for the 12 victims of the Rochela massacre?

Silence.

Where are they? These devotees of "free speech"?

Nowhere to be seen.

We can measure their sincerity in attacking the Chavez government by their silence on the massacres in Colombia.

[Bacchus39]

2. so the current government is responsible for the 1989 massacre?

get a clue. or would it then be acceptable to criticize Chavez for Venezuela's past actions too?

[Flanker]

4. They were rightwing governments nevertheless

That is something comical I have noticed recently somehow dictatorship can only come from individuals and not from parties or ideologies, if you are leftwing in Colombia the odds of you getting waxed is far far higher than being a rightwinger.

[Peace Patriot]

5. There are far more recent slaughters and mass graves being uncovered in Colobmia

with the deaths of thousands of union organizers, peasant farmers and leftists, tied directly to the current Uribe government in Colombia, including the chief of the military, the former chief of intelligence (until recently Uribe's closest confidante), and many Uribe politicians and office holders, including relatives of his.

And some of the same fascists who worked for Reagan during the assassinations and wholesale slaughters in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and other places now work for the Bush Junta, including his Undersecretary of State for Latin America, John "death squad" Negroponte. Although the bulk of their mass murdering has shifted to the Middle East, they are directly tied to the Uribe government, which they have been massively funding with billions of our taxpayer dollars, most of it for guns, bullets and other instruments of oppression.

Dream on, if you think these fascist killers are somehow a thing of the past. The sort of lawlessness and bloodshed that has been occurring RECENTLY in Colombia is what RCTV wanted to see in Venezuela. They actively supported a violent military coup, that suspended the Constitution, the National Assembly (Congress), and the court system, and kidnapped the president. What do you think they would have done next--if their coup had succeeded--permitted free speech to the people of Venezuela? Really, you are a dreamer in Wonderland if you think that. Their next step would have been MORE bloody repression, in addition to the people they killed in the streets during the coup. Venezuelan democracy would have been a thing of the past!

[gorbal]

6. The current government has been in bed with the paramilitaries for years

Some quotes from a "Democracy Now" transcript-

Alvaro Uribe Velez, who has not been capable of explaining clearly why it is that hundreds of his high-level officials in the government, such as the head of the political intelligence body, who he appointed and who for four years passed on intelligence information, state secrets on opposition leaders, on trade unionists, to one of the worst criminals in the history of the country, the paramilitary chief “Jorge 40” -- why it is that hundreds of these public officials and their top political leaders in the regions are now facing criminal charges. Many of them have been arrested for ties to drug trafficking, genocide and paramilitarism in Colombia. That support that President Bush is giving to a president who doesn't provide explanation sends a bad message at this time, given the current political situation in Colombia.

No doubt these ties go back more than two decades in Colombia's recent history. And perhaps this experiment was borne in the Department of Antioquia, where President Uribe was also governor from 1995 to 1997.

Basically, paramilitarism is a very savage version of drug trafficking. It is a network of drug traffickers who enjoy political power and ties with sections of the state that serve their fundamental purpose of exporting more cocaine to the United States. Colombia exports more than 90% of the cocaine that is consumed here in the United States.

And that malevolent alliance between drug traffickers and political power -- the Colombian state -- has, over these two decades, resulted in widespread crimes against humanity, genocide against specific populations, particularly trade unionists, political parties, social movements, that have been exterminated across Colombian territory. Today in Colombia, there are more than 4,000 mass graves that have been discovered, most recently thirty-three corpses, and among those corpses, well, they included babies, elderly persons. There's been genocide across Colombia, turning us into a mortal statistic in the corner of the Americas where the largest number of crimes against humanity have been committed in the Americas over the last two

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/09/1443229

To be fair from other reports it seems like the current government is doing all they can to disband the paramilitaries and investigate corruption. (Of course, that could easily be a farce played out for our coorperate owned media to consume greedily.)

[w4rma]

3. The loudest anti-Chavez folks defend acts like that because they were perpetrated by a right-wing

government.

On the flip side, Chavez has never ever ever come anywhere close to allowing his government to act in the way that these right-wing corporatist-backed governments always do.

[eridani]

7. Uribe has not, and never will, close any opposition media in Columbia

That's because there are no opposition media in Columbia. That, of course, doesn't bother any of our resident DLC cheerleaders for the global race to the bottom.

[Judi Lynn]

8. You're right. I've read Colombia has had an unbelievable number of journalists mudered,

and many sent fleeing to other countries in fear for their lives, and that the rest of their collegues do their own self-censoring now.

If the cheerleaders took some time off and started doing their homework it would raise the level of discourse wildly "up in here." As it is, there's almost no common meeting ground, as they are simply speaking from a position based in misinformation and foolish right-wing talking points.

Too bad no one can successfully suggest to them that they slow down and try to think it all through. That would be too much trouble, apparently.

As with _Bush, it's too late to suddenly "see the light." They have over-committed to the wrong, delusional side.

[eridani]

9. I wonder if they actually think that THEY might win the race to the bottom

--and if so, where they think they will be if they "win".

[Judi Lynn]

10. It's going to be bad if the paramilitaries find this reporter before they learn he works for a right

wing publication in Miami! HE'S ON THEIR SIDE!

Colombia militias threat to journalist - U.N.
08 Jun 2007 23:34:03 GMT
Source: Reuters

More By Patrick Markey

BOGOTA, June 8 (Reuters) - Colombia must do more to protect a reporter working for the Spanish-language sister paper of the Miami Herald after he received threats from paramilitaries, a U.N. panel said on Friday.

The U.N. High Commission for Human Rights said Gonzalo Guillen of El Nuevo Herald had been intimidated by paramilitaries.

It provided no details, but Human Rights Watch said in a letter to the government that Guillen, a Colombian citizen, had been tipped off that militia gunmen were looking to murder him in Bogota.
(snip)

Violence from Colombia's four-decade conflict has dropped under President Alvaro Uribe, who has led a U.S.-funded campaign to push back left-wing rebels and disarm paramilitary gangs who once fought them. But rights groups say militia commanders have kept their criminal networks intact.

More than 100 journalists have been killed in Colombia since the 1980s and more have fled the country because of threats by illegal armed groups and drug traffickers who ship cocaine mainly to the United States and Europe.
(snip/)

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N08412292.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The violence is down because the paramilitaries and the military control so much of the country, and so many people have fled into Ecuador, etc. in an enormous flood, a humanitarian crisis, as described by the U.N.