Colombian judge frees key player in 'para' scandal

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Colombian judge frees key player in 'para' scandal
24 Mar 2007 00:24:41 GMT

By Patrick Markey

BOGOTA, March 23 (Reuters) - A Colombian judge on Friday freed
President Alvaro Uribe's former intelligence chief weeks after he
was jailed on suspicion of colluding with illegal paramilitaries
in a growing political scandal.

Jorge Noguera, former head of Colombia's Administrative Security
Department or DAS agency, was detained in February on charges
he cooperated with paramilitaries who are accused of massacres
and atrocities in Colombia's long-running conflict.

Noguera is a key player in a scandal linking some allies of Uribe
to the paramilitaries who were started in the 1980s by rich
landowners looking for protection from Marxist rebels fighting
Latin America's oldest insurgency.

-snip-

A spokesman for the council of judges where Perdomo is a
member said the decision was based on legal and technical errors.
He added that Noguera could be re-arrested.

-snip-


Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N23268264.htm

---

Source: BBC News

Last Updated: Saturday, 24 March 2007, 04:55 GMT

Colombia's ex-spy chief released

Colombia's former intelligence chief has been released from prison
following an appeals court ruling, which said he had been wrongly
jailed last month.

The court found that the prosecutor who had ordered Jorge
Noguera's arrest lacked the authority to do so.

Mr Noguera had been charged with collaborating with right-wing
paramilitary groups, but denies this.

-snip-

He was arrested after being questioned about supplying the names
of unionists and rights workers to right-wing militias. A number of
people on the alleged hit-list were murdered.

-snip-

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6490673.stm

[Judi Lynn]

1. AP: Colombian judge orders Uribe's former spy chief freed

Colombian judge orders Uribe's former spy chief freed
The Associated PressPublished: March 23, 2007

BOGOTA, Colombia: A Colombian judge on Friday ordered the release of President Alvaro Uribe's former spy chief, the conservative leader's closest ally to be jailed in a damaging scandal linking his supporters to right-wing paramilitary groups.
(snip)

His arrest has been a major embarrassment to the U.S.-backed Uribe government, which is struggling to defend itself against accusations that it turned a blind eye to paramilitary infiltration of government institutions.

So far, eight pro-government congressman and a governor have been arrested for financing, conspiring and plotting murder with far-right warlords.

Several more current and former officials are also under investigation as part of the so-called "para politics" scandal, as well as members of Colombia's opposition — most of them from northern rural provinces that have traditionally been paramilitary strongholds.But none of those implicated had as great of access to Uribe's inner circle as Noguera.
(snip)

Among the strongest evidence linking Noguera to the paramilitaries is testimony by a former subordinate: Rafael Garcia, who is currently serving an 18-year sentence for working with drug traffickers while he was employed in the DAS.Other key evidence came from a laptop confiscated from the right-hand man of a leading paramilitary warlord.
(snip/)

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/23/america/LA-GEN-Colombia-Paramilitary-Scandal.php

The article, as many other articles, mentions Noguera was the Presidential election campaign manager for Uribe last year.

Hope they can find a clean judge who will allow him to be re-arrested. As anyone can see corruption is all over the place in Uribe's right-wing government.

[Judi Lynn]

2. From your Reuters Alertnet link (very slow loading!) more on Noguera:

Noguera was charged with using his position in the country's top intelligence department to aid the paramilitaries.

Eight pro-Uribe lawmakers and a regional governor have been also jailed on charges they helped finance, organize or support former paramilitary commanders who have now disarmed under a peace deal with the Uribe government.
(snip)

Human rights groups have long accused the militia warlords of working with politicians and army officers to murder, kidnap and steal land in the name of fighting rebels. But revelations about their ties to the political elite are surfacing as investigators probe their crimes.
(snip)

Not mentioned in either article, something which surfaced last week: Noguera has revealed he personally knows of a Colombian paramilitary plot to kill Hugo Chavez. Very strange bit of information in a time when US citizens have been watching Colombian news for evidence _Bush might be expecting to use third country aggression against the Venezuelan President as a way of accomplishing grave damage without exposing himself to scrutiny.

[Peace Patriot]

3. You point out an interesting subplot in all this (or maybe the main plot?): Bush.

These northern rightwing paramilitary strongholds are on the border with Venezuela. They may have had some kind of "squeeze" action in mind. Assassinate Chavez, from paramilitary bases in Colombia, and create chaos and rage in Venezuela, and, at the same time, stir up trouble on the Paraguay/Bolivia border (already some evidence of it--paramilitaries, drug traffickers), using Bush/US bases in Paraguay (the rumored 300,00 acre compound; the US air base), and possibly go after Evo Morales as well. There is also that US air base in Ecuador (that the new leftist president Rafael Correa wants removed)--supposedly used for spotter planes in the US "war on drugs."

I'm wondering now about the timing of the plot. Was Bush counting on having a Chavez-less South America to visit?

Boy, did he get a comeuppance! Not only was the plot (or parts of it) exposed, and not only is Chavez alive and well, and not only did Bush fail in his "divide and conquer" tactics with Mercosur (trying to bribe Uruguay out of this nascent South American "common market" structure, with global corporate piracy deals ("free trade"), and trying to pit Brazil/Uruguay against the Andean democracies (Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela; also Argentina)--not only did he fail, rather spectacularly, in all these endeavors, but he had to endure public lectures from Latin American leaders, everywhere he went--even from the rightwing/corporatist president of Mexico--on the sovereignty of Latin American countries.

Something's up with this. This thing is Colombia is even bigger than it looks.

The wonderful part--from what all I can see--is that the revolution in South America is not dependent on one man, Chavez. I think that democracy in Venezuela would survive his murder, and that the already huge leftist democracy movement all over Latin America would get even bigger if he were harmed. I noticed that even Paraguay has now seen the benefits of Boliviarianism. They just joined the Bank of the South (the fund started by Venezuela to bail its neighbors out of onerous World Bank/IMF debt). That government must be just a bit worried about the big leftist movement in Paraguay, headed by their beloved bishop. And it's notable that Bush did NOT visit Paraguay. (Has Paraguay become Bush-unfriendly?).

We can also now see Lulu's and Vasquez's strategy a little better, in permitting a Bush visit (despite the fact that most South Americans despise him, and protested his visit everywhere he went). I'm pretty sure, first of all, that they put a CONDITION on Bush's visit--no Chavez-bashing. (I think Hugo gave that one away, by telling the anti-Bush rally in Bueno Aires that Bush was afraid to speak his name.) This appears to have been a consensus among Latin American leaders, left and right. Secondly, these third world countries are in no position, as yet. to fully declare their independence from Corporate Predator America, which is an octopus, with its greedy fingers in many resources, in infrastructure, in finance. So the trick was to see what Bush was offering, determine if it was in the interest of their people, and make cagey deals, if possible. I don't know if any were made (oh, the ethanol thing--Brazil--note: Lulu, though a leftist, is not terribly good on environmental issues). But Bush did not accomplish much--no major "deliverables" to his Corporate Masters--and was unable to crack Mersosur open (and destroy it). Uruguay just announced it is choosing Mercosur over Bush trade deals.

In sum: Not only is Chavez alive and well, democracy in South America is alive and well. And the great notions of the Venezuelans and their Bolivarian revolution--Latin American self-determination and regional cooperation, and social justice--are spreading like wildfire, because they ARE, in fact, beneficial to all. The Venezuelans' attitude--and Hugo Chavez's pugnacious expression of it--is empowering even right/center governments to stand up for themselves, and is perhaps emboldening courageous people--such as the prosecutors in Colombia--to bring the dinosaurs along toward better government. And I think it is certainly empowering and encouraging the leftist democracy movements in Paraguay, Peru and Mexico. (Calderon "won" his stolen election by a hair--.05%. He has much to worry about on the left.)

Will Noguera go free? I don't know. I imagine that the prosecutors and human rights groups have a hard row in Colombia. The US/Bush has poured billions of dollars into that county (our tax dollars) in military aid, and one of the beneficiaries of that lard is the rightwing paramilitaries--in training, in arms, in other military hardware, and in access to illicit drugs, and methods of trafficking in them. They are a dangerous force. But it appears to me that the OAS (now dominated by good leftist governments), and the obvious benefits of Latin American self-determination, are at work, trying to curtail this kind of crime (big crime, fostered by our very own criminals in the White House).

1. Transparent elections (!).
2. Grass roots organization.
3. Think big.

Those are the lessons for us pobrecitos in the North, who long for democracy as well.

Viva la revolución!

[Judi Lynn]

5. Here are the two air bases the U.S. uses in Paraguay and Uruguay:

Estigarribia Airbase, Paraguay

• The Estigarribia airbase was constructed in the 1980s for US technicians hired by the Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner, and is capable of housing large troops units
  
• The base has an enormous radar system, huge hangars and an air traffic control tower. The airstrip itself is larger than the one at the international airport in Asuncion, the Paraguayan capital. It's oversized for the Paraguayan air force, which only has a handful of small aircrafts
  

http://www.helis.com/database/go/py_mariscal_estigarribia.php



Eloy Alfaro Air Base in Manta, Ecuador

The US is spending $62 million to expand and improve the Manta runway and build hangars, dormitories and a dining hall. The number of US servicemen assigned to Manta has risen to 125 and that figure will reach 400 after construction work is completed in October 2001. At that point, AWACS surveillance planes and tankers to refuel them will replace smaller Navy aircraft, allowing the US to monitor air and marine activity far into the Caribbean.
(snip)

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/manta.htm

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

_Bush was able to force Paraguay to give U.S. troops immunity from prosecution in the International Criminal Court, in 2005.

Uruguay, from what I can tell, still is refusing to be pressured into this bizarre arrangement:

U.S. Threatens Bolivia to Secure Criminal Court Immunity
LUIS BREDOW & JIM SHULTZ / Pacific News Service / Berkeley Daily Planet 4mar2005


COCHABAMBA, Bolivia—The U.S. government is demanding that the Bolivian Congress approve an agreement that would grant immunity to U.S. troops and officials accused of human rights violations, exempting them from prosecution by the International Criminal Court. That effort, which includes a threat to withhold financial aid and access to free trade, seems to be backfiring.

Bolivia is one of 139 nations that have signed the Treaty of Rome, which set up the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 1998. A respected Bolivian judge, Renee Blattmann, also sits as a member of the court. The treaty's goal, according to its Preamble, "is to establish an independent permanent International Criminal Court with jurisdiction over the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole."

It was in the ICC that the former Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic, was tried for crimes against humanity. The United States, alongside China, Iraq, Libya and others, is one of just seven nations to vote against the treaty. Many believe that the war in Iraq and cases of U.S. torture have made the United States vulnerable to criminal charges of international human rights violations.

The Bush administration has been pressing its opposition to the ICC. In 2002, the U.S. Congress approved the American

Servicemembers Protection Act, which prohibits the United States from providing military aid to any nation that does not agree to grant U.S. soldiers and officials immunity from the ICC.

Since then, the Bush administration has been pressuring poor countries worldwide to ratify bilateral immunity pacts with the United States, often under the threat of withholding aid. Government officials say that the United States has already secured more than 90 such agreements. At least 50 governments, however, have refused to cede to the U.S. demands. The new president of Uruguay recently announced that his government would refuse the U.S. request, declaring that his country honors its international agreements.
(snip/...)

http://www.mindfully.org/WTO/2005/Bolivia-ICC-US4mar05.htm

[Judi Lynn]

6. There's a Bush bully quote in this article some DU'ers will find interesting:

But the United States has just upped the ante, by adding the threat of withholding economic aid, a sanction included in an amendment approved by the U.S. Congress late last year. Human Rights Watch reports that U.S. diplomats have informally threatened economic sanctions for some time. The group says that an assistant secretary of state informed foreign ministers of Caribbean states that they would lose the benefits for hurricane relief if their governments did not sign immunity accords.

"U.S. ambassadors have been acting like schoolyard bullies," wrote Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice pro-gram at Human Rights Watch, in a letter to then-U.S. Secretary of State Collin Powell. Some within the Bolivian government have pressed hard for the country to cede to the United States' request. The Bolivian minister of government, responding to charges that such a resolution was an affront to the nation's dignity, was quoted as saying, "You can't eat dignity." Last year the Bolivian Senate approved an immunity pact, creating a political uproar. The lower house has steadfastly refused.
(snip)

[Judi Lynn]

4. Colombia-concerned DU'ers, you will want to see the news from tonight

Say_What has posted an article revealing the Department of Defense's report from 1991 has been made public in which they actually wrote Alvaro Uribe, Colombia's current right-wing _Bush-loving right-wing President was connected to drug lord Pablo Escobar at the time.

(Why didn't we learn of this THEN, when it came out? Could that have anything to do with the fact _{George H. W. Bush} was the President then?

Here is Say_What's post, which was moved to G.D.:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=503314&mesg_id=503314

[Bacchus39]

7. that is old news

Uribe was mayor of Medellin where Escobar was from as well.