Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalColombia: Uribe Bribed Witness to Testify for Him
Former president Alvaro Uribe | Photo: @janaYaish
Published 5 September 2019
Former paramilitary ‘Victor’ says that Uribe’s lawyers had paid him over half a million dollars, along with other payments, for a favorable testimony.
It has been revealed that Colombia’s former right-wing President Alvaro Uribe paid huge sums to a witness in exchange for a favorable testimony in court. Uribe is one of Colombia’s most notorious US-backed presidents, responsible for numerous human rights abuses during his time in office. He is currently on trial for fraud and bribery charges, as well as investigations about his links to the paramilitary death squad called ‘Bloque Metro’.
The Colombian newspaper El Tiempo confirmed the validity of claims made by former paramilitary ‘Victor’ that Uribe’s lawyers had paid him over half a million dollars, along with other payments, for a favorable testimony.
‘Victor’ is a former paramilitary with Bloque Metro, the right-wing death squad that Uribe is alleged to have helped found. It is reported that Victor was supposed to testify that one Alberto Guerrero had never been part of the group. This was needed because Guerrero is who first exposed Uribe’s role in the death squad. In an exclusive interview with teleSUR in 2013, Guerrero outlined in detail Uribe’s links to his former group.
Guerrero has stood by his claims, despite considerable intimidation, and the murder of other such witnesses. He is one of just two surviving members of Bloque Metro.
More:
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Colombia-Uribe-Bribed-Witness-to-Testify-for-Him--20190905-0013.html
How many trials have you ever heard did not allow reporters in the room?
Police Officer Involved in Marielle Case Admits to Bribing Police Station
Rio councilwoman and her driver were assassinated in March of 2018
Sep.3.2019 2:09PM
Flávio Costa
Military police officer Rodrigo Jorge Ferreira recently admitted that he delivered bribe money to police officers at the Rio de Janeiro Homicide Police Station, at the behest of Orlando Oliveira de Araújo, known as Orlando Curicica.
Ferreirinha's statement to the federal police, as the PM is known, appears in the PF inquiry that concluded that he and his lawyer obstructed the investigation into the double murder of Councilwoman Marielle Franco (PSOL-RJ) and driver Anderson Gomes on March 14, 2018.
The police testimony endorses a report published by UOL in April this year, which revealed that the Federal Police found evidence of corruption in the Capital Homicide Police Station, a Rio de Janeiro Civil Police body.
To PF, Ferreirinha also confessed that he had given false testimony incriminating Curicica and Councilman Marcelo Sicilliano (PHS-RJ) as principals of the attack that killed the councilwoman and the driver.
Sought by the report, the Rio de Janeiro Civil Police Secretary of State declined to comment because the Marielle case "remains confidential."
https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/brazil/2019/09/police-officer-involved-in-marielle-case-admits-to-bribing-police-station.shtml
The people loved this hard-working, committed woman. It's doubtful anyone was fooled when officials started trying to point fingers at fellow leftists for the filthy murder of Marielle Franco and her driver.
Driver Anderson Gomez with his wife and newborn son.
Ivanka Trump arrives in Colombia for two-day visit
Adriaan Alsema Sep 3, 2019
US President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka arrived in Colombia for an informal introduction to the political agenda of President Ivan Duque.
One of Trump’s most trusted advisers was welcomed by Vice-President Marta Lucia Ramirez on Monday, who will be hosting most of the two-day agenda of the US president’s daughter in Colombia.
The two will initially visit an event over economic empowerment of women in Bogota after which the US president’s daughter will visit the General Santander Police Academy to honor the cadets who were killed in a terrorist attack in January.
Defense Minister Guillermo Botero is expected to be present at this ceremony.
Following her introduction to the tragedies caused by Colombia’s centuries-long armed conflict, Trump will take part in the launch of the Women’s Fund, an event co-hosted by the Inter-American Development Bank, the former boss of President Ivan Duque.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/amp/ivanka-trump-arrives-in-colombia-for-two-day-visit/
LBN:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142363356
It's more than moderately worth noting that Colombia's puppet President Duque, the puppet of previous President Álvaro Uribe, who is currently being tried for horrendous criminality, was formerly an employee for the Inter-American Development Bank, the co-host of this event.
'We'll have to unmask them all': former warlord about Colombia's private sector
Adriaan Alsema Sep 3, 2019
One of the leaders of now-defunct paramilitary group AUC will “unmask” businesses and military commanders allegedly responsible for war crimes before Colombia’s war crimes tribunal.
Ivan Roberto Duque used to be “Ernesto Baez,” the political chief of the AUC’s Bloque Central Bolivar (BCB). Now he is one of the most active former paramilitary commanders in the peace process with the FARC.
‘Duque betraying FARC like Uribe betrayed AUC’
At a forum at the University of Caldas in Manizales, the former AUC chief accused the government of President Ivan Duque of betraying the FARC exactly like the president’s political patron, former President Alvaro Uribe.
The former paramilitary chief isn’t done with those pretended being legitimate businessmen, politicians or military officials while he was serving prison. “We’ll have to unmask them all with the help of the Special Justice (sic) for Peace,” (JEP), Duque told the students.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/amp/well-have-to-unmask-them-all-former-warlord-about-colombias-private-sector/
The State of Colombia vs Alvaro Uribe Day 1: 'Victor'
Adriaan Alsema Sep 3, 2019
Colombia’s Supreme Court will hear “Victor,” a former policeman and a mid-level paramilitary commander, on the first day of the trial against former President Alvaro Uribe.
Victor is one of the witnesses who was allegedly bribed to discredit claims by the former commander of the Cacique Pipinta paramilitary group, “Alberto Guerrero.”
Guerrero is one of the surviving former members of the Bloque Metro paramilitary group who claims their death squad was founded by the Uribe family and their neighbors in the 1990s.
According to the former president, the former Cacique Pipinta commander is lying.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/amp/the-state-of-colombia-vs-alvaro-uribe-witness-1-victor/
People who have followed Colombian events are aware this trial is horrendously important.
Colombia's public news program goes off the air
This article was shared on Facebook by an excellent former DU'er:
Adriaan Alsema Sep 2, 2019
Colombia’s renowned public television news program, Noticias Uno, will be taken off the air, the program’s producer said Sunday.
Noticias Uno, Colombia’s equivalent to PBS NewsHour or BBC News, is arguably the only television news program with editorial independence and is run by some of the country’s most respected journalists.
According to one of the program’s senior reporters, “it will end in a month with the possibility to continue until December. The date hasn’t been defined yet.”
The news program has played a key role in revealing many of the country’s largest corruption and human rights scandals over the past decades.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/amp/colombias-public-news-program-to-be-taken-off-the-air/?fbclid=IwAR31Ayq1X3Zv745BlxcuQDZnDfLlSoofJSmu49KGush79rz8IkSDszVnTUo
Video of black teen whipped for stealing chocolate sparks outrage in Brazil
Footage of gagged child prompts comparisons to treatment of black people during three centuries of slavery
Dom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro
Tue 3 Sep 2019 18.59 EDT
Naked and whimpering, his trousers around his ankles, the black teenage boy jerks and howls with pain as he is whipped with electric cable.
“Are you going to come back?” asks one of his tormentors. The youth shakes his head, unable to speak because he has been gagged.
Even by Brazilian standards of racism and cruelty, the whipping of the boy after he was caught stealing four bars of chocolate from a São Paulo supermarket has caused deep shock.
Cellphone footage of the boy’s ordeal has been widely shared, and many – including the detective investigating the case – have drawn comparisons with the country’s treatment of black people during three centuries of slavery.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/03/brazil-teenager-whipped-stealing-chocolate
Bolsonaro ambassador threatens to choke Macron and insults wife Brigitte amid Amazon fires row: 'He
Bolsonaro ambassador threatens to choke Macron and insults wife Brigitte amid Amazon fires row: 'He sleeps with a dragon'
Renzo Gracie launches homophobic and misogynistic attack against France's president and first lady
Tom Embury-Dennis @tomemburyd
15 hours ago
Brazil's tourism ambassador has threatened to choke Emmanuel Macron and called his wife Brigitte “ugly” amid a continuing war of words between the French president and the Brazilian government over the fires in the Amazon rainforest.
In a video posted on social media, Renzo Gracie accused Mr Macron, who has criticised Brazil’s response to the devastating blazes, of “talking rubbish” about his country.
“The only fire going on is the fire inside Brazilian hearts and our president’s heart, you clown. Come over here you’ll be caught by the neck, that chicken neck. You don’t fool me,” said Mr Gracie, a 52-year-old mixed martial arts fighter appointed to public office last month by Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil's far-right president.
In a subsequent interview with Brazilian news outlet UOL, Mr Gracie complained tourism appeared to be declining in the country due to the “false fires”, claiming without evidence that the burning of the rainforest was at normal levels.
More:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/amazon-fires-bolsonaro-macron-brigitte-renzo-gracie-brazil-ambassador-a9088356.html
Statesman Gracie behind Bolsonaro.
Loggers are lighting fires inside the territory of uncontacted Amazon tribes
By Zoë Schlanger & Daniel Wolfe August 30, 2019
Contacted Awá people—and their uncontacted neighbors, not pictured—grapple with illegal fires in their territory.
Deep in the eastern Amazon rainforest, loggers armed with guns are lighting fires inside the territory of an uncontacted tribe with roughly 100 members left.
This has happened during every dry season in recent years, fragmenting the tribe’s reserved land piece by piece, according to Survival International, an organization dedicated to protecting forest people. Loggers enter the Awá’s territory and light fires to burn the underbrush, so they can more easily access and fell the large, old-growth hardwood trees.
Awá territory seen from Sentinel-2 in Aug. 16. Fires were reported within the territory on Aug. 27
Quartz | qz.com
Data: NASA VIIRS/FIRMS, World Database on Protected Areas
Across the Amazon, fires set mostly by cattle ranchers, miners, and loggers are burning swaths of rainforest where indigenous people live. The Amazon is home to some 306,000 indigenous people, who have legal rights to 422 reserves, or nearly a quarter of the land area of the Amazon basin. In many cases, tribes already struggle to defend their land from invasion by illegal loggers and miners. But in light of the current Brazilian government’s open disdain for the reserve system, indigenous people are even more vulnerable.
Perhaps most vulnerable are the estimated 100 uncontacted groups living in the Brazilian Amazon, of which the Awá are one.
The news that the loggers have arrived this year was relayed on Wednesday (Aug. 28) to Survival International by way of members of the nearby Guajajara tribe, which has formed firefighting patrols to keep watch for the illegal loggers who threaten the Awá’s remaining scraps of intact rainforest.
More:
https://qz.com/1698802/uncontacted-awa-tribe-threatened-by-amazon-fires-set-by-loggers/?fbclid=IwAR0W0dWYzQ2x7fQwm0-v_AeEwnE7zChLokN2qwM1TnII6QGsJ1xPozgiaMs
Article also posted in Editorials and other articles:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016238533
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I absolutely HAVE to emphasize this paragraph from the article above. I hope everyone of good faith somehow will have a chance to see it, and remember it, and who said it:
Guatemala arrests ex-1st lady, presidential runner-up Torres
BY SONIA PÉREZ D. ASSOCIATED PRESS
SEPTEMBER 02, 2019 11:51 AM, UPDATED 1 HOUR 45 MINUTES AGO
GUATEMALA CITY
Former Guatemalan first lady and presidential runner-up Sandra Torres was arrested Monday on charges of campaign finance violations, the latest high-profile political figure to face allegations of malfeasance even as a U.N. anti-graft commission is set to shut down.
Investigators searched Torres' Guatemala City home in the morning and transported her to court, handcuffed, with her face obscured by a scarf, a hood and dark glasses. She told journalists she was the victim of a political vendetta.
Prosecutors said she is accused of unregistered electoral financing and illicit association related to the 2015 election and the National Unity of Hope party, of which she was both candidate and general secretary. According to investigators the party did not properly register some $3.6 million in financing for her campaign.
The investigation found that several businesses financed the party through the payment of commissions, diversion of funds and bribes to various public and private institutions.
More:
https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/nation-world/article234634797.html
(Very hard for anyone who is NOT a fascist to get ahead in politics in Guatemala. Sandra Torres was originally married to former Guatemalan President Álvaro Colom who was attacked relentlessly during his presidency. The decision Sandra Torres would run for the Presidency was made years ago, and well known while she was married to her husband, and the plan to divorce was made for political reasons.)
Her husband's Wikipedia:
Wikipedia:
Álvaro Colom
Álvaro Colom Caballeros (Spanish: [ˈalβaɾo koˈlon]; born June 15, 1951) is a Guatemalan politician who was the President of Guatemala from 2008 to 2012, as well as leader of the social-democratic National Unity of Hope (UNE).
Early years
Colom was born in Guatemala City, the son of Antonio Colom Argueta and Yolanda Caballeros Ferraté, being the fourth of five siblings. His uncle, Manuel Colom, was a mayor of Guatemala City who was killed by the military in 1979 just after the creation of his political party was approved.[1] He is also the father of Antonio Colom Szarata, the bass player of a Guatemalan pop rock band, Viento en Contra.[2] He and his third wife, Sandra Torres, divorced in 2011 in order for his wife to be able to run in the 2011 presidential election.
After gaining a degree as an industrial engineer at the University of San Carlos (USAC) he became a businessman involved in a variety of businesses, and a government civil servant, including being the founding General Director of the Fondo Nacional para la Paz and Vice Minister of the Economy before turning to politics. One of his businesses was a "maquila" with associate Luis Mendizabal [3]
Representing the UNE (Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza) in the 2003 presidential elections, he lost to Óscar Berger on December 28, 2003–the closest a left-wing presidential candidate had come to winning the presidency since democracy was restored in 1985.
President (2008–2012)
Main article: 2007 Guatemalan general election
He was one of the two candidates to reach the second stage of the 2007 presidential election on September 9, 2007 along with Partido Patriota candidate Otto Pérez Molina. At 10:00 p.m. local time on election night, Colom was declared the newly elected president by over five percentage points, 52.7% to 47.3%, with over 96% of polling places counted,[4] becoming Guatemala's first left-wing president in 53 years.[5] During the presidential campaign, Colom promised to tackle poverty in an effort to reduce the rate of crime in the country.[6]
As President, Colom expanded social programs[7] and access to health, education, and social security. These contributed to a rise in the living standards of the Guatemalan poor.[8][9]
In 2010 he appointed Helen Mack Chang, a noted human rights activist, to investigate police corruption and make recommendations for changes. She noted that their low pay and poor working conditions made them open to influence and needed to be addressed.[10]
Although he is opposed to the death penalty, Colom stated that he would not pardon those sentenced to death out of respect for the country's laws, although the option to do so was granted in 2008.[11] The last execution in Guatemala, however, took place in 2000 and was since abolished for civilian crimes in 2017.
More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81lvaro_Colom
~ ~ ~
Guardian: Guatemala's first lady Sandra Torres to divorce 'for her country'
President's wife now aims to stand for election to succeed President Álvaro Colom
Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent
@rorycarroll72
Thu 19 May 2011 16.23 EDT
Guatemala's first lady, Sandra Torres, has won constitutional court backing to divorce her husband, President Álvaro Colom, allowing her to stand for election to succeed him and, in her words, "marry the people".
The court quashed all legal challenges to a divorce, which lets Torres sidestep a ban on close relatives of the president running for office.
A group of lawyers had tried to block the divorce, claiming it was a political subterfuge that violated the constitution, but the court rejected the petition, saying the marriage's dissolution was a private act.
The decision cleared the way for electoral authorities to approve the candidacy and to enable Torres, 51, to step up her campaign to become the country's first female head of state.
The couple married eight years ago in a civil ceremony and proved a formidable political duo, with Torres advising Colom on key issues and running the government's anti-poverty programme. Some described the first lady as the real power in the presidential palace.
Colom, 59, the country's first centre-left leader in decades, was elected in 2008 and constitutionally barred from a second consecutive term. Torres announced her candidacy for the ruling party in March and tearfully said she was leaving a loving marriage for the sake of the nation.
"I am divorcing my husband but I am getting married to the people. I am not going to be the first or the last woman who decides to get a divorce, but I am the only woman to get a divorce for her country," she told a news conference. She was already a divorcee and was Colom's third wife.
The frontrunner in September's election, Otto Pérez Molina, a former army general, called the divorce electoral fraud. Guatemala's Catholic bishops criticised the move, saying in a public letter that the institution of marriage was not negotiable and that "notable people in society" had even greater responsibility to protect the bond.
A court granted the divorce in April but opponents appealed to the constitutional court. Perez Molina, 60, a former intelligence chief who has been accused of human rights abuses, said voters would punish his rival for what he termed a cynical breach of the constitution. He is standing on a law and order ticket to tackle rising crime.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/may/19/guatemala-sandra-torres-divorce
~ ~ ~
Speaking of "cynical breaches of the constitution," please see the Wikipedia of the former president of Guatemala who said that:
Otto Pérez Molina
. . .
Otto Fernando Pérez Molina (born 1 December 1950)[1] is a Guatemalan politician and retired military officer, who was President of Guatemala from 2012 to 2015. Standing as the Patriotic Party (Partido Patriota) candidate, he lost the 2007 presidential election but prevailed in the 2011 presidential election.[2] During the 1990s, before entering politics, he served as Director of Military Intelligence, Presidential Chief of Staff under President Ramiro de León Carpio, and as chief representative of the military for the Guatemalan Peace Accords.[3] On being elected President, he called for the legalization of drugs.[4]
On 2 September 2015, beset by corruption allegations and having been stripped of his immunity by Congress the day earlier, Pérez presented his resignation.[5][6] He was arrested on 3 September 2015.[7] Perez has remained in custody since his 2015 arrest.[8]
. . .
Accusations of human rights abuses
Civil war atrocities
In 2011 reports were made, based on United States' National Security Archives, that Pérez was involved in the scorched earth campaigns of the 1980s under the military dictator Efraín Ríos Montt.[30] Pérez commanded a counterinsurgency team in the Ixil Community in 1982-3 and is accused of ordering the mass murder of civilians, destruction of villages and resettlement of the remaining population in army-controlled areas.[31][32] Investigative journalist Allan Nairn interviewed Pérez Molina in Ixil in 1982, and reported that Pérez Molina had been involved in the torture and murder of four suspected guerrillas.[33][34]
In July 2011, the indigenous organization Waqib Kej presented a letter to the United Nations accusing Pérez of involvement in genocide and torture committed in Quiché during the civil war.[35][36][37] Among other evidence, they cited a 1982 documentary in which a military officer whom they claim is Pérez is seen near four dead bodies. In the following scene, a subordinate says that those four were captured alive and taken "to the Major" (allegedly Pérez) and that "they wouldn't talk, not when we asked nicely and not when we were mean [ni por las buenas ni por las malas]."[38]
Although it is clear that Pérez Molina actively participated in a particularly dirty counterinsurgency campaign, he has denied any involvement in atrocities. Declassified US documents present him as one of the more progressive Guatemalan military officers, who had a hand in the downfall of General Ríos Montt.[31][39]
Allegations of involvement in the killing of Efraín Bámaca
In 1992, the guerrilla leader Efraín Bámaca Velásquez disappeared. His wife, American lawyer Jennifer Harbury, has presented evidence that Pérez, who was Director of Military Intelligence at the time, probably issued the orders to detain and torture the commandante.[40][41][42]
In 2011, he became the subject of a new investigation into the disappearance of Bámaca.[43]
Allegations of involvement in the murder of Catholic bishop Gerardi
In his book The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop?, American journalist Francisco Goldman argues that Pérez Molina may have been present, along with two other high officials, a few blocks from the April 1998 murder of Juan José Gerardi Conedera, a Roman Catholic bishop.[44] Prosecutors in the subsequent trial said that Pérez and the other two men were there to supervise the assassination.[45] Gerardi was murdered two days after the release of a human rights report he helped prepare for the United Nations' Historical Clarification Commission.[46]
Personal life
Pérez is married to Rosa María Leal.
On 21 February 2000, shortly before Pérez planned to launch his new political party, his daughter Lissette was attacked by a gunman.[47] The same day, a woman named Patricia Castellanos Fuentes de Aguilar was shot and killed after meeting with Pérez's wife, Rosa María Leal.[47] On 11 November 2000, Pérez's son, Otto Pérez Leal, was attacked while driving; Pérez Leal's wife and infant daughter were also in the vehicle.[47] Human rights groups[which?] said that the attacks were politically motivated.[47][48]
More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_P%C3%A9rez_Molina
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