400 more Colombia state agents charged with extrajudicial killings within last year

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Colombia Reports

400 more Colombia state agents charged with extrajudicial killings within last year
Oct 2, 2014 posted by Joel Gillin

More than 400 more state agents have been accused of killing civilians within the last year, bringing the total to 4,774.

These numbers are from a Prosecutor General’s report dated to February of this year, which the Prosecutor General’s Office pointed to as the most updated statistics in an email.

Colombia’s so-called “false positives” scandal is centered around the extrajudicial killings of thousands of civilians by members of the armed forces who dressed their victims as guerrillas in order to present them as combat kills.

~snip~

False Positives: A brief history

While governmental and non-governmental organizations had been denouncing “false positivies” for years – the earliest cases date back to 1986 – the Colombian government of former-President Alvaro Uribe (2002-2008) denied the armed forces were killing civilians.

Read more: http://colombiareports.co/400-more-state-agents-implicated-in-false-positives-scandal-within-year/

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(Since 2000, Colombia has been by far the largest recipient of U.S. foreign and military aid in the Western Hemisphere.)

[Judi Lynn]

1. Colombia worst place to be a journalist after Mexico

Colombia worst place to be a journalist after Mexico
Oct 2, 2014 posted by Joel Gillin

Colombia is the deadliest country for journalists in Latin America after Mexico, according to an infographic released Tuesday by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
While Mexico tops the list of the most dangerous country with 80 journalists killed since 2000, Colombia comes in second with 56 killed in the last 14 years.

RSF describes the numbers as “disturbing because none of these countries is officially at war, despite the continued presence of paramilitaries in Colombia.”

Narrowing in on four keys points since 2000, RSF notes that at the beginning of former President Alvaro Uribe term “both paramilitaries and the government target[ed] the media.” It goes on to say that journalists preactice self-censorship for their own personal safety.

The report also mentions the DAS wiretapping scandal which broke in 2009 that revealed spying operations against journalists, among other targets, orchestrated by the Colombian government.

More:
http://colombiareports.co/colombia-worst-place-journalist-mexico/

[reddread]

5. Plan Colombia

[Comrade Grumpy]

2. The DU double standard.

Left-leaning Maduro in Venezuela looks cross-eyed at a political opponent, and this place goes crazy.

Right-leaning US ally Uribe murders thousands of innocents, and nothing.

Why is it that people who are so concerned with democracy in Venezuela couldn't give a shit about it in Colombia? I'd suggest their anti-leftism is stronger than being consistently in favor of human rights.

[Threedifferentones]

3. I would like to believe it is just controversy, ie the perverse fun people find in argument.

We all agree that the fascists are horrible, there is nothing to fight about in this thread. I do think more of us need to be vocal about how deeply our business and political leaders tend to be tied to dictators like Uribe, but isn't like he had any DU supporters.

The Venezuelan government on the other hand has long divided the sentiments of left leaning communities, so the threads go on and on and its like the flame wars over certain topics are a fucking routine...

[reddread]

4. a right left dichotomy clearly visible

damn those lying eyes.
lets just listen to soothing reassurance that its perfectly normal liberal squabbling and indifference.
yeaaaaahh.
conservatives disrupting, not too poorly, it would seem.
but it could not be clearer than the point you make here.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Yukking it up about a toilet paper shortage and blaming Chavez is more news worthy than massacres,

the Colombian Army murdering innocent Colombian men, dressing them as rebels, and claiming they were FARCs killed in battle, mass graves of Colombian citizens, their paramilitaries using crematoria around Colombia to dispose of excess bodies, their paras dismembering civilians suspected of being sympathizers, with chainsaws, in full public view in their villages to paralyze the people with terror, all that pales beside their stinking low-life crap they try to heap upon the Venezuelans' elected leftist leaders, people who do NOT massacre opposition members, of course.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Government knew FARC leader would not attend 1999 peace talks ceremony: Official

Government knew FARC leader would not attend 1999 peace talks ceremony: Official
Oct 8, 2014 posted by Craig Corbett



The Colombian government knew beforehand that FARC leader “Manuel Marulanda” would not appear at the opening ceremony of failed peace talks that began in 1999, but has kept this quiet deliberately, the country’s former peace commissioner said Wednesday.

One of the most poignant moments was seen at the opening ceremony of the peace talks on January 7 1999, when former president Andres Pastrana addressed the crowd with an empty seat at his side, which should have been filled by the FARC leader Manuel Marulanda.

According to former Peace Commissioner Victor Ricaro, he and the former president were made aware by FARC leader that he would not be attending the peace talks more than a week in advance, due to planned assassination of Ricardo and Marulanda by paramilitary forces.

Until now, common belief has been that the FARC leader had snubbed the talks with no prior notice to the former president.

“He (Marulanda) said that that intention was to kill me and if it was not possible to kill Marulanda on the day of the ceremony. Either death would have seen the end of the peace talks. … with that information Marulanda called me and told me that he would not attend and that he would send representatives to negotiate, as the risk of the murders would be too damaging to the process,” said the then-Peace Commissioner.

More:
http://colombiareports.co/government-knew-farc-leader-attend-1999-peace-talks-ceremony-official/