Plot to Kill Colombian Witness Exposed (Bush's South American ally)

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Washington Post

Plot to Kill Colombian Witness Exposed
By Juan Forero
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, April 26, 2008; Page A14

BOGOTA, Colombia, April 25 -- The Colombian attorney general's office confirmed Friday that it had uncovered a plot to assassinate a key witness whose testimony has linked several Colombian congressmen, including President Álvaro Uribe's cousin, to death squads.

Authorities on Monday warned Jairo Castillo, 40, a former member of an ultra-right paramilitary group who now lives in Canada, that investigators had determined that two hit men posing as tourists would try to kill him. The attorney general's office then faxed him a warning Tuesday, and Castillo reported the threat to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

"I fear for my life," Castillo said by telephone from Canada, saying he believed that those he has testified against, members of the death squads, want him dead. "I know all about the network they use for murdering people," he said.

Police officials in Canada did not return phone calls seeking comment. Officials in the attorney general's office in Bogota confirmed that authorities learned of the plot against Castillo through an analysis of intelligence. José Gilberto Martínez of the witness protection program then alerted Castillo, who lives in Quebec province and has been granted political asylum in Canada.

The plot was uncovered the same week that the attorney general's office arrested former senator Mario Uribe, a political ally of the president. Castillo had accused the politician of having participated in meetings with paramilitary groups in which land grabs were orchestrated.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/25/AR2008042503238.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Colombian witness appeals to RCMP

Colombian witness appeals to RCMP
Told of plot to kill him in Canada

Graeme Hamilton And Natalie Alcoba, National Post
Published: Saturday, April 26, 2008

MONTREAL - Colombia's witness-protection agency has warned a former paramilitary turned state witness that two assassins posing as tourists plan to travel to his new home in Canada to kill him.

Jairo Castillo Peralta has been living at an undisclosed location in Quebec since being granted political asylum in 2002. Turned informant on members of a paramilitary group he joined in his home state of Antioquia, his testimony has already helped put several members of congress in jail. This week, Mario Uribe, a former senator who is a cousin and close ally of President Alvaro Uribe, was arrested for alleged ties to paramilitary death squads after being implicated by Mr. Castillo.
(snip)

"I am less fearful than in Colombia, but I'm still scared, because we're dealing with a dirty state that is capable of killing anyone," he said of his native country. "I had got used to the peace and quiet."

He said he is waiting to hear what kind of protection the RCMP can offer. "I feel alone, without any government support. Because in a country like Colombia, it's common that someone who testifies in favour of the government doesn't even see the light of day. Now who is going to protect me, if they're sending people to assassinate me in Canada?"

Mr. Castillo has been trying to build a new life here with his wife and six children, but his past has followed him. He has continued to work with Colombian authorities investigating connections between lawmakers, landowners and violent right-wing paramilitary organizations in Antioquia, which is also the home state of the President.

He has said he was forced to join a local paramilitary group in 1995, serving as a chauffeur and bodyguard. He earlier described Mario Uribe as "a strong collaborator of the paramilitaries" and said he was present at two meetings between the senator and paramilitary groups, during which they talked of ways to grab land from private landowners.

His revelations about Mr. Uribe and others have helped propel an inquiry in Colombia that has led to the arrest of 32 members of congress for ties to paramilitary groups. The groups, formed initially to counter leftist guerillas, are accused of killing thousands of civilians and trafficking cocaine.

Mr. Castillo said the threat will not stop him from aiding Colombian investigators.

"Until the Canadian government tells me to stop testifying, I'll keep co-operating with authorities, because it's a personal mission of mine," he said. "I'm doing it for the future of my children, of other young Colombians who deserve to live in a proper country, like Canada."

More:
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=472558

[Judi Lynn]

2. It doesn't really come home to you until you realize he is THE WITNESS who will testify against the

President of Colombia's cousin, a relative with whom _Bush's ally has been completely intertwined for decades, and with whom he created a new political party in Colombia whose members are being hauled off on charges of connections to the death squads, as well.

[Caradoc]

3. A proper country....

...I'm proud of my country (Canada) and hope that our current government will understand the importance of protecting this man in the hopes that it will help lead to Colombia becoming a 'proper' country itself. But this man's case is so very far from being an isolated case. Maybe it's time countries like Canada helped set up a legal safe haven for those whose testimony is needed to help root out violence and corruption in their own nations. Despite (prime minister) Stephen Harper being such a shameless boot-lick of the US neo-cons, Canada is still seen largely as a law-based country that puts great store in suppressing political corruption and honjoring international human rights agreements.

[Joanne98]

4. Welcome to DU

[Judi Lynn]

5. Here's an article which points out the gulf between conventional Canadian thought on Colombia, and

Harper's. I thought of your article I had read much earlier this morning as soon as I saw this:

January 8, 2008

Endorsing Death Squad Economics
Canada's Lightning Speed Trade Negotiations with Colombia
by Jennifer Moore

The Dominion - http://www.dominionpaper.ca

“Why is it ridiculous to ask that human rights be respected in order to do free trade with Colombia?” asked award-winning Colombian journalist Hollman Morris during an interview on national public radio in Canada a couple of weeks ago.

Morris was reflecting on Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s comments made in Bogotá this past July where he announced the launch of three-way free trade negotiations with Colombia and Peru.

During a press conference with President Alvaro Uribe, Harper said that Canada is prepared to negotiate with Colombia despite being facing the worst humanitarian disaster in the hemisphere according to the UN. Alluding to US Democrats currently blocking approval of the US-Colombia free trade agreement, he stated, “We are not going to say, 'Fix all your social, political and human-rights problems and only then will we engage in trade relations with you.'” His negotiating team has proved its determination to sign a deal and may have wrapped up fast track talks in Lima this week. The negotiations between Colombia and the US took 21 months.

“Prime Minister Harper’s statement is quite offensive,” said Morris, pointing out that “Colombia is the country in which trade unionists are the most endangered in the world in the last couple of years there has been a phenomenon of the dismantlement of trade unions. I’m wondering, is it ridiculous to protect them?”

In 2006, there were 72 reported killings of trade unionists. Over the course of the Uribe administration, four hundred union officers and rank-and-file members have been murdered and of these crimes there have been only seven convictions, says a statement released this month by the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC).

Morris added that Uribe also continues attacks on the press. He says that he has recently “delegitimized journalists a number have left the country within the last month.” Morris himself has previously been accused by Uribe of having ties to left-wing guerrillas, comments later revoked, but which still put Morris’ life in jeopardy.

Harper’s comments are a strong endorsement for Uribe at a time when his administration faces a grave crisis of legitimacy. The “para-politics scandal” has shaken even his key alliance with the US as a substantial block of US Congress holds up approval of the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement....

More:
http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/1607

[Judi Lynn]

6. This witness has some explosive material, apparently.No wonder he's terrified.From last year's Star,

a story which has been public since July, last year! My God, he'd BETTER get some deep, deep protection, IMMEDIATELY.

Pointing a finger at corruption
Former Colombian paramilitary describes high-level wrongdoing from haven in Canada

Jul 16, 2007 04:30 AM
Allan Woods
Ottawa Bureau

BOGOTA–Jairo Castillo Peralta should be a dead man, either from his former exploits as a paramilitary or his current role as a prolific snitch who has rocked Colombia's government, sending no less than eight corrupt lawmakers to prison.

Instead, the 39-year-old continues to work with investigators from the safety of his home near Quebec City to detail the shady links between politicians, wealthy landowners and the hired guns who have carried out their will over the years, often with deadly efficiency.

"I was a farmer and was forced to join the paramilitary group. I was with them, but under pressure," he said in a telephone interview translated by his wife, Clara. "It was to save my life and the lives of my family also."

It was in 1995 that the 27-year-old farmer was coerced into joining the local paramilitary group in his hometown of Antioquia, in the northern province of Cordoba. He was a chauffeur and a bodyguard and a liaison with government military forces in the area.

He claims not to have engaged in violence and never to have killed anyone, but he was witness to high-level meetings that, almost a decade later, would come back to haunt Colombia's right-wing leader, President Alvaro Uribe.

Among the lawmakers caught in the former foot soldier's net is the president's cousin, Senator Mario Uribe, who allegedly attended two 1998 meetings with the paramilitary, both attended by Castillo.

"The president's cousin asked them to kill the farm owners so that he would have land and all the power. It's that that he was looking for, power," he said.

http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/236299

[Judi Lynn]

7. Kicking!

:kick:

[Judi Lynn]

8. If there's a fluent Spanish speaker who wants to look at this article and explain it,

please don't hesitate. It's from Colombia, I believe, published on April 25, concerning the witness who would nail Mario Uribe Escobar, who has been told there are two assassins looking for him in Canada.

First, here's the text, after getting mangled by the google translation tool:

April 25, 2008 - 7:58 pm
They want to 'turn off' the fan of the parapolitics
Neither the asylum protects' Pitirri '
By: Drafting Judicial
Three former congressmen and a former governor indicted by the scandal parapolitics have a whistleblower in common: Jairo Castillo Peralta, Pitirri, a former paramilitary Sucre asylum in Canada.

All those mentioned face legal trouble. The parliamentary Erik Morris: convicted, the former senator Alvaro Garcia Romero: called to trial and the former governor of Sucre Salvador Arana: fugitive. The last involved in its accusing finger was precisely the cousin of the president and director of the Democratic Colombia party, Mario Uribe Escobar, whom the Prosecution warrant was issued last Tuesday.

Ironically the same day, while the country awakened with the news so far assurance Uribe Escobar and his failed attempt to obtain political asylum in Costa Rica to escape the hand of justice, a disturbing communication he came to Canada to Jairo Castillo Peralta . So very briefly the head of the Office for Protection of Public Prosecutions, Jose Gilberto Martinez Guzman, warned that "intelligence was aware that there are two people who travel to that country as tourists in order to be offensive against his life. "

What's curious document, dated April 22, 2008 with the label of "reserved-urgent", which is asking for Pitirri "to inform the authorities there raised the situation in order to take the If the measures are extreme and their safety. " The star witness of the parapolitics as any Christian living in Quebec, has no kind of protection-beyond the remote-with Colombia, and worked in several offices for their livelihood along with his family. Hence, his concern with the communication of the Office.

"I thank the Attorney everything he has done for me, but do not be such an entity responsible for processing before the Canadian authorities this sensitive information?", He told the audience Pitirri. According to him, accusing the agency has asked that this information is handled with the utmost secrecy, "but I know that silence is my greatest enemy." He argued that his life was in danger, now more than ever, the results of investigations into the parapolitics that have been derived from his accusations, but-assured-"I'm homeless by the Colombian State.

He also confessed to this weekly that is very likely enable her to complete assassinated, which feared for their lives and that many would probably saying: "Yes see, that's wrong with 'toad'", but "is the only way to discover the tank to rats and not leave the future of our children live the life we have been living us. " Pitirri noted that his statements to the Supreme Court and the Prosecutor have been truthful "because I want the country knows the web of paramilitarism."

It has revealed the truths that this former member of the paramilitary groups on the extent of the marriage of the political class and the paramilitaries not only forced him into exile in 2001, but today even his stay in Canada is sufficient to guarantee not to be silenced. Many are his enemies. And he knows it. For now, the prosecution seeks to establish who gave the order to assassinate the witness of the stellar parapolitics. The Criminal Division of the Supreme Court was also informed of this delicate situation. Alarms are already garments. We can not have the fan parapolitics goes off well.

Drafting Judicial | The spectator

And here's the link to the original article in El Spectador, in Colombia:

http://www.elespectador.com/impreso/cuadernilloa/judicial/articuloimpreso-ni-el-asilo-protege-pitirri

Thank you, I think. A lot will depend upon whether or not you're a winger doing the "translation," of course!

[Judi Lynn]

9. AP:Exiled witness in Colombia paramilitary scandal warned of assassination plot

Exiled witness in Colombia paramilitary scandal warned of assassination plot
VIVIAN SEQUERA, Associated Press Writer

April 26, 2008 3:54 PM

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - An exiled Colombian paramilitary who is a key witness in the prosecution of politicians - including President Alvaro Uribe's second cousin - said Saturday that he has been warned of a planned attempt on his life.

Jairo Castillo said he received a call and faxed letter from Colombia's witness protection program on Monday cautioning that two gunmen posing as tourists had been dispatched to kill him.

The letter, a copy of which was published online Saturday by Colombia's leading newspaper, El Tiempo, says ''intelligence'' uncovered the plot and advised Castillo to boost his security.

An official in the chief prosecutor's office confirmed the authenticity of the April 22 letter. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to disclose the information.

The threats probably come from jailed former congressmen and/or paramilitary leaders still at large, Castillo told The Associated Press in a phone interview from Canada.

He has claimed that politicians benefited personally and at the ballot box from ties with paramilitary warlords.

More:
http://www.newspress.com/Top/Article/article.jsp?Section=WORLD&ID=565286798151255582

[Judi Lynn]

10. Colombia: Paramilitary claims tie to Uribe

Colombia: Paramilitary claims tie to Uribe
Published: April 27, 2008 at 6:08 PM

BOGOTA, April 27 (UPI) -- An incarcerated paramilitary soldier accused Colombia's president and his brother of helping plan a 1997 massacre, El Nuevo Herald reported Sunday.

The right-wing paramilitaries attacked the village because its inhabitants were suspected of harboring leftist guerrillas, sworn testimony given to the nation's prosecutor general and obtained by El Nuevo Herald revealed.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has denied the allegation, saying it was just another failed attempt to tie him to the paramilitaries.

It is not the first time, however, that Uribe and his brother have been linked to the guerrilla fighters.

More:
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2008/04/27/colombia_paramilitary_claims_tie_to_uribe/4809/