Colombians said to mask civilian deaths

[Judi Lynn]

Colombians said to mask civilian deaths
By Hugh Bronstein, Reuters | February 14, 2006

BOGOTA -- Security forces have killed civilians, and have covered up the killings by dressing up the bodies as Marxist guerrillas, according to testimony in an annual United Nations human rights report released yesterday.

Last year, UN investigators said, they saw an increase in allegations of extrajudicial executions that, the report said, attributed to soldiers and police.

Those officials often presented the killings as deaths of guerrillas in combat, said a report, which was issued by the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The report covers the year 2005.

''Cases were recorded in which commanders themselves had allegedly supported the act of dressing the victims in guerrilla garments to cover up facts and simulate combat," the report said.
(snip)

But politicians, academics, and human rights groups say the paramilitaries are not dismantling their criminal networks. They say the militias are using violence to influence the outcome of congressional elections in March, in an effort to gain political power and to avoid being extradited to the United States on drug charges.
(snip/...)

http://www.boston.com/news/world/latinamerica/articles/2006/02/14/colombians_said_to_mask_civilian_deaths/



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~





CSN Mourns Senator Paul Wellstone
CSN-Madison, October 25, 2002

All of us in the COLOMBIA SUPPORT NETWORK are deeply saddened by the untimely death in an airplane crash of Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone, his wife and daughter. Paul was the best friend of the Colombian people in the United States Congress and traveled twice to Colombia in the past two years to meet with grass roots organizations, peasants, indigenous peoples and labor union members. Just as he spoke out courageously against a U.S. invasion of Iraq, he worked tirelessly to change the militaristic approach of U.S. foreign policy toward Colombia. He focused his efforts on protection of human rights and promotion of the wellbeing of the poor and disadvantaged people of Colombia. His constant goal was to do what was best for the Colombian people, not multinational and U.S. commercial interests which so often pursue policies harmful to the majority of Colombians. He always had time for us and a sympathetic ear. We will miss him terribly.

We extend our condolences to Paul's family. We pledge to redouble our efforts to seek peace with justice for Colombia, inspired by the dedication and commitment of Paul Wellstone to this goal.

COLOMBIA SUPPORT NETWORK
http://www.colombiasupport.net/wellstone.html

[Bacchus39]

1. more on the FARC

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Left-wing Colombian rebels massacred a family of six in the northern province of Antioquia, including an 80-year-old woman, authorities said on Sunday.


The government sent soldiers and investigators to the village of Llanos del Encuentro after members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, opened fire on the family home, authorities told reporters.

The massacre could be related to the murder "some time ago of a warlock said to be linked to the guerrillas," Jorge Mejia, the secretary of government of Antioquia, told reporters. The FARC may have carried out the killings "to take revenge," he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060212/wl_nm/colombia_massacre_dc_1

[High Plains]

2. Ooh, I knew the FARC was scary, but warlocks?

How can Uribe and the paras defeat a supernatural foe?

And can the FARC's demon brigades be far behind?

[Bacchus39]

3. the FARC is screwing up Colombia

do you doubt that??

[Judi Lynn]

4. Nice try, but anyone who reads much knows the truth.

Any DU'er who has any questions about the paramilitaries can look up "massacres" and "chain saws" and "hammers" and lose a lot of time reading about the RIGHT WING paramilitaries and their reign of terror in Colombia.

A short history of the conflict:

One could say that it all began in 1948, with the murder in Bogotá of Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, a leading figure of the left. This crime ... sparked a civil war -- the violencia -- between the two political forces that ran the country -- the Liberals and the Conservatives. It was to last for eight years (from 1948 to 1957) and be the cause of 300,000 deaths. Eventual reconciliation between the liberals and conservatives did not translate into a development programme aimed at reducing social inequality. Consequently, several armed groups refused to give up their arms. Two among them -- the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the Army of National Liberation (ELN) -- became, with the passing of time, the last two large-scale guerrilla movements in Latin America. The control exercised by the 10,000-strong FARC is particularly strong in the south, while the ELN (6,000-strong) dominates in the north-east.

However, the regions dominated by the guerrilla movements also happen to be the areas in which the growing of coca is particularly widespread, and where there is a major presence of drug traffickers with long-standing links with the Medellín and Cali cartels, responsible for channelling drug supplies to consumers in Europe and the United States. ... In these same regions, the large landowners have set up {"}self-defence{"}groups, which have gained in size in recent years. Currently estimated to number about 6,000 men, they have now been gathered within a single umbrella organisation, the United Self-Defence of Colombia (AUC), with a view to making their presence felt as a force on the political scene........ These paramilitary groupings are organised into death squads and their policy is to promote terror. They have been responsible for most of the massacres and have killed hundreds of former guerrilla fighters, more than 2,000 militants of the Communist Party and over 2,200 trade union cadres. In the countryside, they have created a reign of terror which, according to Amnesty International, has caused almost a million people to flee to the towns for refuge. (Ignacio Ramonet, "Hope in Colombia," Le Monde diplomatique, July 1998.)

http://www.gendercide.org/case_colombia.html



Carlos Castaño, paramilitary leader

He kills journalists, too:

Castaño convicted in Garzón murder*

Case: Jaime Garzón
Journalist and Humorist
Bogotá (March 11, 2004).- The political head of the United Self-Defense Units of Colombia (AUC) paramilitary organization, Carlos Castaño Gil, was sentenced to 38 years’ imprisonment and fined 790 million pesos after being found guilty of being responsible with others for the murder of journalist and humorist Jaime Garzón.

The sentence was handed down yesterday by the judge of the Seventh Criminal Court of Bogotá, Julio Roberto Ballén Silva.

“The murder of Jaime Garzón had a terrorist motive. The objective was to teach a lesson, instill fear and send a clear message to the intermediaries and family members of kidnap victims that resorting to mediation is unacceptable,” Judge Ballén Silva declared in pronouncing sentence.

The judge said that during the proceedings it had become clear that the AUC chief had declared Garzón a military target and ordered him to be killed.
(snip/...)

http://www.impunidad.com/cases/jaimegarzonE22marzo.html

[Bacchus39]

5. the paramilitaries were established to counter the FARC

you continue to paint one side and one side only of the story.

FARC massacres 34 farm workers

SUSPECTED left-wing rebels gunned down at least 34 farm workers after tying them up at a ranch in one of Colombia’s biggest cocaine-producing regions.The workers were sleeping at the ranch near La Gabarra, 310 miles north- east of the capital, Bogota, when armed men burst through the doors at dawn, tied them up, and shot them, La Gabarra mayor Taiz Ortega said.

At least five people were wounded and were taken by boat to a hospital in the nearby town of Cucuta. It was the worst massacre in Colombia in at least a year.

http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2004/06/17/story294526714.asp

[Judi Lynn]

6. I would point you to the original article in which it indicates they were

caught dressing Colombian citizens they killed as FARCs to make it look as if they had engaged their prey in battle, instead of helpless villagers.

Any DU'er will find the truth by doing simple searches. I sincerely recommend it. It's the only way to learn. Read books, ask questions, search the internet.



Not my idea of a national hero.

[Bacchus39]

7. you can try traveling in person and learning Spanish too

I highly recommend it.

[Judi Lynn]

8. For those of us who can't take time to go to Colombia in person,

I'd recommend reading what's available in our own native language on the subject, asking questions, looking for more information.

[Bacchus39]

9. there is more about Colombia than the paramilitaries

certainly you realize that?

[Judi Lynn]

11. That's why I would encourage DU'ers to take time to find out

what has been going on in Colombia, including talking to people FROM Colombia, if they can find them, and asking them questions. They, depending upon whether or not you can determine they are humongous liars, as right-wingers tend to be, might very well give you a lot of food for thought, and a very clear picture we in the States really don't know too much about what some of our pResidents have done in our names.

I support the memory of what I believe DEMOCRATIC Senator Paul Wellstone was doing about what he had learned about Colombia, before he was killed. Anyone who tells me he was full of baloney might need a running start to escape my contempt.

Published on Tuesday, December 26, 2000 in the New York Times
Bush Should Start Over in Colombia
by Paul Wellstone

WASHINGTON — Earlier this month I traveled to Colombia to learn more about this war-torn country, whose military is getting nearly $2 million per day from the United States as part of an aid package that passed last June after narrow approval in the Senate.
I paid a visit to Barrancabermeja, an oil-refining port city on Colombia's Magdalena River. "Barranca," a city of 210,000, is one of the most dangerous places in one of the world's most dangerous countries. This year so far, violence in Barranca has killed at least 410 people. According to local human rights groups, most of those killed were the victims of right-wing paramilitary death squads.

These human rights groups operate in the midst of a 40-year-old civil war now in one of its most violent phases. Every year, the violence in Colombia kills nearly 4,000 people, most of them poor, powerless noncombatants. About 300,000 — more than half of them children — are forced from their homes each year. Another 3,000 people are kidnapped. Ransoms, extortion and the drug trade finance armed groups on the right and left.

In the name of the drug war, the American aid package approved this year allocates approximately 75 percent of its resources to Colombia's security forces. But Colombia's military is a deeply troubled institution, even though it has recently taken important steps to improve its overall human rights record.

The State Department recently reported that "civilian management of the armed forces is limited" in Colombia, and that in 1999 "the authorities rarely brought officers of the security forces and the police charged with human rights offenses to justice, and impunity remains a problem." Many members of the security forces continue to collaborate with the right- wing paramilitaries, who commit about three-quarters of the politically motivated murders in Colombia.
(snip/...)

http://www.commondreams.org/views/122600-104.htm

http://www.clas.berkeley.edu:7001/Events/conferences/Colombia/pictures_paulwellstone.html

http://www.clas.berkeley.edu:7001/Events/conferences/Colombia/images/paul_wellstone_announce.jpg http://www.clas.berkeley.edu:7001/Events/conferences/Colombia/images/paulwellstonebanner.jpg

Yessir, Senator Wellstone DID go to Colombia, and I definitely trust his word on the subject.

[Bacchus39]

16. yeah, Colombia has improved since 1999 and 2000

ever since Uribe was elected. Violence and kidnapping have gone down and the economy has improved. Right wing paramilitary groups are disbanding and at least one of the rebel groups is prepared to talk. the FARC however will not. So although things are looking up in Colombia there is a long way to go. but conditions certainly have improved recently.

predecessors to Uribe were disastrous particularly during the 80s and 90s when the drug traffickers essentially controlled the country or when the rebels were actually given control of huge areas of Colombia.



You can find alot of Colombians in South Florida. I think NYC has quite a few too. Most Colombians I have spoken with are supportive of Uribe.

[Judi Lynn]

18. It would depend upon whether you associate yourself with right-wing,

pro-US Colombians, or Colombians representing the rest of the population.

[Bacchus39]

19. what are you talking about??

I would surmise that the majority of Colombians are pro-US. That is one of the reasons that Colombia is so inviting to visit. Would you prefer that Colombia be anti-US??

I didn't realize that being pro-US made you right wing.

[Judi Lynn]

20. Make that "pro-US meddling." Only a right-wing idiot would support it. n/t

[Bacchus39]

21. what do you mean by meddling??

do you mean the failed drug US drug policy in Colombia or the much appreciated aid??

depends on what you mean by meddling I guess.

[Judi Lynn]

23. Here's ONE example of meddling from Washington:

View from the North
excerpted from the book
Colombia and the United States
War, Unrest and Destabilization
by Mario A. Murillo
Seven Stories Press, 2004, paper

~snip~

Gaviria's so-called apertura economica, or economic opening-a step taken in order to fall into the good graces of the United States, the major banks up north, and other international investors-practically marked the end for Colombia's agricultural sector. As a result, by 2001, 80.5 percent of people in the countryside were living below the poverty level, up from 65 percent in 1993. More than 33 percent of the rural population was living in extreme poverty. The devastating impact of Gaviria's policies was felt everywhere, but perhaps it was felt most clearly in the coffee sector, once seen as the pride of Colombia's exports. The apertuIa was followed by the gutting of a worldwide agreement that had held coffee prices stable, benefiting Colombia's small family coffee farms. Since then global production has outstripped demand and sent prices tumbling, especially for the high-quality beans produced in Colombia. Almost immediately these developments led to a flood of cheap coffee entering Colombia from Vietnam, Brazil, and other countries. This, combined with lessening worldwide demand for Colombia's high-grade beans, sent many local farmers into bankruptcy and pushed unemployment above 20 percent in the coffee-growing region, making it easier for guerrillas and paramilitary forces to gain ground and recruit the rising number of unemployed youth. It also caused many farmers to abandon coffee altogether, choosing instead to plant coca.

If the collapse of the coffee trade could be attributed to other factors beyond the control of Colombian and U.S. policymakers, the responsibility for other negative developments in the agricultural sector lies right at the doorsteps of both Bogota and Washington. To many people, the economic opening represented the fundamental contradiction in U.S. counterdrug policy. On the one hand peasant farmers were being overwhelmed by the sudden influx of cheaper imported agricultural products, while on the other hand they were losing state subsidies and credits for their own crops. Credits were primarily made available to larger farming associations and organizations, yet at astronomically high interest rates. Smaller, independent peasant farmers had no way to compete, especially in the poorest rural areas lacking infrastructure or any other type of mechanism to get their "legitimate" products to market. This had always been a problem, but it was exacerbated by the neoliberal reforms pushed from Washington.

Survival instincts gave many small and mid-size farmers only one alternative: cultivate coca.
(snip)

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/South_America/View_North_CUS.html

[RagingInMiami]

22. I've been traveling back and forth to Colombia since I was a baby

I have a lot of family there. Both the FARC and the paramilitaries murder civilians. Both the FARC and the paramilitaries are heavily involved in the cocaine trade. There is no right, only two wrongs.

[iverglas]

13. duh

the paramilitaries were established to counter the FARC

... and FARC was established to counter ...?

I haven't been to Colombia, but one of my closest friends was a lawyer involved in anti-money laundering cases there. She isn't there any longer, but she's still living at least, which she might not have been had she remained. Her father, as an elderly, very bourgeois lawyer, was a FARC sympathizer.

No good comes of right-wing oppression. One of the no good things that comes of it is left-wing insistence on allegiance from the people whose interests it is seeking to advance, and enforcement action taken against any who deviate. Those people are indeed sometimes caught in the middle; the left can't offer them what they really need, as long as it has no power, and the right just takes what they've got, of course; and neither side can protect them from the other, as long as the conflict persists.

It isn't really very useful, however, simply to condemn the left. It really didn't start the mess. The abuses committed by the right, in Colombia as elsewhere, really are so egregious and plentiful as to provide sufficient matter for complaint, and really are what needs denouncing and ending.

[Judi Lynn]

14. Food for thought, iverglas. Thank you. n/t

[iverglas]

15. forgot to mention

... that while I haven't been to Colombia, I have another close friend who just got back after spending several years there working for trade union / human rights organizations. She tends to direct her denuniciations at the right wing, too ...

[Bacchus39]

17. yes, its good to hear about both sides

but there are those that insist on telling only one side of the story. Also, it is a disservice to Colombians to portray only negative news and that the only activities that happen in Colombia are war, violence, drug trafficking etcetera.

The leftist guerrillas will not gain political power through violent means.

[Redstone]

10. This is news? BOTH sides down there are murderous thugs.

And have been for a long damn time.

Redstone

[Judi Lynn]

12. Kick!

:kick: :kick: :kick: