Uribe denies involvement in 1997 massacre
Uribe denies involvement in 1997 massacre
Posted by Rose Lander on Oct 7, 2015
Former President Alvaro Uribe on Wednesday denied accusations that he was complicit in a 1997 paramilitary massacre. Instead, claimed the current senator, he is victim of a conspiracy.
Based on recent testimony given by “Don Berna,” an extradited paramilitary leader, that Uribe was implicated in the paramilitary killing of 14 in the town of El Aro, Prosecutor General Eduardo Montealegre asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to open a criminal investigation into the former head of state. Montealegre followed up on a February court order issued in Medellin that urged to investigate Uribe’s alleged complicity.
In a press statement, Uribe systematically tackled the testimonies and alleged evidence stacked against him, pointing out inconsistencies, biases and unreliable testimonies. According to Uribe, Don Berna is “one of the most sinister criminals in the country” and thus an unreliable witness.
Francisco Villalba, a former member of paramilitary organization the AUC, testified against Uribe in 1998 and 2008 saying that he had been in a meeting with the then governor in which Uribe congratulated the group. Uribe insisted on alleged inconsistencies of Villalba’s testimony saying that he couldn’t possibly have been in one of the meetings where the ex-paramilitary had placed him. Villalba was assassinated in 2009, but his testimony has been kept on record and can be used in court.
Uribe denied accusations that he was implicated in Villalba’s death, saying that the Police had declared the former paramilitary’s murder was “a problem of debts between criminals.”
Another witness, human rights worker Jesus Maria Valle, was killed one year after the massacre. To distance himself from that assassination Uribe explained that the paramilitaries had admitted responsibility for Valle’s death.
More:
http://colombiareports.com/uribe-denies-involvement-in-1997-massacre/#prettyPhoto
= new reply since forum marked as read
Article in Colombia's newspaper, El Tiempo, re: former para's court testimony:
Murder Training: Colombian Death Squad Used Live Hostages
April 29, 2007 By El Tiempo
El Tiempo, Bogota -- "Proof of courage": that is how the how the paramilitaries would term the training they imparted to their recruits so that they learnt how to carve up people while they were still alive.
Initially, the authorities rejected this version of the farmers who reported the practice... but when the combatants themselves started to admit to it in their testimonies before the prosecutors, the myth became a harsh crime against humanity.
Francisco Enrique Villalba Hernández (alias Cristian Barreto), one of the perpetrators of the massacre at El Aro in Ituango, Antioquia, received this type of training in the same place where he learnt to handle arms and manufacture home-made bombs. Today, a prisoner at La Picota in Bogota, Villalba has described in details during lengthy testimonies how he applied the learning.
"Towards the middle of 1994, I was ordered to a course... in El Tomate, Antioquia, where the training camp was located," he says in his testimony. There, his working day started at 5 in the morning and the instructions were received directly from the top commanders such as 'Double Zero' (Carlos Garcia, since assassinated by another paramilitary group).
Villalba claims that in order to learn how to dismember people they would use farmers they gathered together in the course of taking neighbouring settlements. As he describes it, "they were aged people whom we brought in trucks, alive and bound up". The victims arrived at the ranch in covered trucks. They were lowered from the vehicle with their hands tied and taken to a room. There they were locked up for days in the hope that the training would start.
More:
http://www.zcommunications.org/murder-training-colombian-death-squad-used-live-hostages-by-el-tiempo
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Material from a testimony by this man, Francisco Villaba, former death squad member. He was murdered not too long ago, after he had testified in court regarding his participation in AUC (right-wing paramillitary) activities:
Details of testimony that involves Uribe in a massacre
Posted on June 20, 2008 by csn
http://colombiasupport.net/2008/06/details-of-testimony-that-involves-uribe-in-a-massacre
(Very, very graphic. Horrendous.)
Posted by Judi Lynn | Wed Jul 18, 2012, 06:41 PM (1 replies)
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Source: Colombia Reports
Paramilitaries said 1997 massacre was 'well coordinated' with army: US cable .
Wednesday, 18 July 2012 09:31 Adriaan Alsema
Members of paramilitary organization AUC told the U.S. embassy that the 1997 Mapiripan massacre in central Colombia was "well coordinated in advance" with (elements of) the army, according to a released diplomatic cable.
The State Department document was declassified and published Tuesday by the National Security Archive, a non-profit organization dedicated to declassifying U.S. government documents.
According to the embassy's anonymous sources, the army provided "travel, logistics, intelligence and security" to the paramilitary who killed dozens of civilians in the five days after their July 15 incursion of the town.
~snip~
The identification of the victims has been complicated as the paramilitaries cut up the majority of their remains and threw them in a nearby river.
Read more: http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/25133-paramilitaries-said-1997-massacre-was-well-coordinated-with-army-us-cable.html
Posted by Judi Lynn | Wed Jul 18, 2012, 06:08 PM (6 replies)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=journals&uid=109586&year=2012&month=7
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Villalba knew he would face his own assassination for his testimony, but he chose to cleanse his conscience as one of his final acts and didn't back down. More courageous than [font size=3]anything[/font] you're likely to EVER see from a right-winger.