Mass graves found in southern Colombia

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Agence France-Presse

Mass graves found in southern Colombia
From correspondents in Bogota
May 06, 2007 03:45am

INVESTIGATORS have uncovered mass graves containing the bodies of more than 100 people believed to be victims of right-wing militias in southern Colombia.

Judicial authorities and police found the graves in the southern district of Putumayo near the borders of Ecuador and Peru, Interior Minister Carlos Holguin told the Caracol radio station, saying he was "horrified'' at the find.

Public prosecutor Mario Iguaran said there were Ecuadorans among the 105 dead in the series of 65 graves.

A source in the prosecutor's office earlier told AFP that most of those found were local peasants.

He said the discovery was made possible by a law on the demobilisation of paramilitary fighters in the country, allowing for lighter sentences in return for confessions and compensation for victims, even over the worst crimes.



Read more: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21680553-1702,00.html

[ck4829]

1. K&R

[Judi Lynn]

2. Bodies of 105 militia victims found in Colombia

Bodies of 105 militia victims found in Colombia
05 May 2007 19:20:25 GMT
Source: Reuters

By Hugh Bronstein

BOGOTA, May 5 (Reuters) - Remains of 105 victims of right-wing paramilitaries were found in the southern jungles of Colombia, the biggest such discovery in the country's four-decade-old guerrilla war, officials said on Saturday.

More remains are expected to be found near the 65 graves uncovered late Friday in Putumayo province on the Ecuadorean border.

A total of 211 bodies have been recovered from the province since last year, but Friday's find by agents from Colombia's attorney general's office marked the most number of bodies found in a single area.

More than 31,000 paramilitaries have disarmed since 2003 under a deal promising reduced jail terms to those who cooperate with investigations into crimes they committed in the name of fighting Marxist rebels.

More:
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N05215481.htm

[Judi Lynn]

6. Photo accompanies this article from another source:

Bodies Of 105 Militia Victims Found In Colombia
Remains of 105 victims of right-wing paramilitaries were found in the southern jungles of Colombia.

~snip~
The paramilitaries were organized in the 1980s by rich Colombians to fight the rebels. By the late 1990s the conflict had turned into little more than a turf war over drug smuggling routes.

Colombia is the world's biggest producer of cocaine despite billions of dollars in U.S. aid, under a program called Plan Colombia, meant to fight narcotics.

But U.S. Congress has frozen $55 million in military assistance due to charges that the government of conservative President Alvaro Uribe has colluded with the paramilitaries.

Eight lawmaker from Uribe's governing coalition are in jail on charges of helping the illegal militias. The scandal has also implicated military officers and Uribe's former intelligence chief.

Uribe was in Washington this week lobbying for a free trade deal and trying to keep military assistance flowing, but faced skepticism from the Democratic-controlled Congress over his government's human rights record and progress in the fight against drugs.

"When Plan Colombia began, we were told it would cut by half the amount of cocaine in five years," Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat who chairs a key foreign aid committee, said last week.

"Six years and $5 billion later, it has not had any measurable effect on the amount of cocaine entering our country."

http://www.javno.com/en/world/clanak.php?id=41434

[formercia]

9. I think that's Cocaine

10 Kilos to the bag.

[Judi Lynn]

10. You know, I really felt puzzled by that photo. I couldn't grasp why they were all

perfectly square packages. My guess was that the victems' bodies had really, REALLY deteriorated, to virtually nothing.

Looks as if there was a mix-up at the source.

Thanks for the info.

[formercia]

11. You can see one opened-up with the Kilo bricks of Cocaine inside. n/t

I think they don't show enough of the gory pictures. If people could see with their own eyes what war is really all about, things would change quickly.

[Judi Lynn]

12. I went back to check the link. Here it is:

http://www.javno.com/en/world/clanak.php?id=41434

All the square packages are exactly the same size, for sure. Looks as if there are ten seperate units in each square. Whole lot of cocaine, isn't it?

You're right about the almost TOTAL news blackout on Colombia. I'm sure letting the US taxpayers know where their required taxes are going in Colombia is something this admin. just doesn't want to allow.

It will change someone's entire perspective if he/she gets to hear the personal experiences and views of someone FROM Colombia permanently. No comparison to the picture we have been force fed.

[Judi Lynn]

14. I just found the story that picture was meant to accompany:

Colombia downsizes cocaine seizure
Thu, 03 May 2007 00:10:46
The Colombian authorities have revised the total of drugs seized in a haul from around 25 tons of cocaine to just over 13 tons, according to BBC.

It was found buried in 1,000 separate packages near the town of Pizarro, west of the capital, Bogota, buried in an estuary accessible only by sea.

Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos had said on Monday the haul was the "biggest in the history of Colombia".

No explanation has been given for the sharp downward revision of the weight.

The haul remains the largest drugs seizure in Colombia so far this year.

The drugs were discovered when the Colombian navy intercepted several speedboats off the Pacific coast near the border with Panama.

More:
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=8460§ionid=3510207

The original story was published a couple of days before this one. No doubt the photo was meant to appear at that time. Yikes.

[annabanana]

3. "St. Ronnie's" REAL legacy. . .

THIS was encouraged by the man that the Repugs have chosen as their "Gold Standard", the man they all want to be.

[Peace Patriot]

4. Our tax dollars at work!

Billions of US dollars to rightwing military and paramilitary forces in Colombia.

[mondo obscurius]

5. Can you say "John Negroponte" boys and girls???

Bush appointed this butcher Ambassador to Iraq。
John Negroponte： mastermind of the "Death Squad" theory of low-intensity conflict - field tested and perfected throughout Central America for two decades on behalf of Amerikan corporate interests in the region。

Al Quaida had Osama. Bushco had Negroponte。

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_Negroponte
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_D._Negroponte's_track_record_in_Central_America
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6802629/site/newsweek/
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=5457

[wellst0nev0ter]

7. Mass Graves? Oil? Time To Invade!

:sarcasm:

[dipsydoodle]

8. BBC link for you

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6629217.stm

[Judi Lynn]

13. That's a good one. Seeing the map helps a LOT. The town is right on the border with Ecuador.

I hope they will be writing more on this in the next few days, as well.

I've been looking for more on Colombia this morning, finding this info. which might explain, in part, why we aren't getting far more information on Colombia these days:

Journalists in Colombia Create New National Federation
Constanza Vieira

MEDELLÍN, Colombia, May 3 (IPS) - Journalists in Colombia, one of the most dangerous countries in the world for reporters, finally have their own national association.

The slogan of the new Colombian Federation of Journalists (FCP) is "a national union for free, responsible and safe journalism". Its official birth date is May 2 -- between International Labour Day (May 1) and World Press Freedom Day (May 3), which was celebrated in the northwestern Colombian city of Medellín this year by UNESCO.
(snip)

The new federation began to be built four years ago, and its emergence is the main labour organising event in the lives of Colombian journalists under the age of 55, according to the director of the IFJ Solidarity Centre in Colombia, Eduardo Márquez.

The FCP's members are impatiently waiting for the federation to begin to operate, with the hope that its actions will help guarantee the safety of reporters in Colombia, one of the countries in the world where simply reporting the news accurately can be suicidal.
(snip)

The most dangerous task is reporting on the growing power of drug trafficking networks, which have infiltrated the state at many levels, accentuating corruption and embezzlement of public funds, especially in the wealthiest, most strategic regions.
(snip)

Other risky questions for reporters in Colombia are human rights violations by the security forces, military details of the war that contradict official sources, or reports that annoy the guerrillas.

In 2006, 140 violations of the duty to inform were documented and verified (up from 102 in 2005), which directly affected 166 journalists (compared to 122 in 2005), according to the local Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP).

Last year, FLIP documented three murders, an attack on journalistic infrastructure, 77 deaths threats, 10 cases of reporters fleeing into exile, three kidnappings, 24 cases of inhuman or degrading treatment, and five illegal detentions of Colombian journalists.

The statistics are incomplete, because many do not even dare to report abuses. "I am telling you this just in case something happens to me," one reporter from Colombia's Atlantic coast region who had received threats from paramilitaries told Márquez this year.

In 38 of the cases, FLIP was unable to prove who committed the abuses. But 33 cases were attributed to the paramilitary militias, 21 to the security forces, 18 to the FARC (the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), the main rebel group, 15 to public officials, 14 to private parties and one to a politician.

Between January and March, "FLIP documented eight threats, one case of exile, three obstructions of the work of journalists, and three assaults, for a total of 15 violations of freedom of the press with 24 victims," FLIP executive director Carlos Cortés reported to the assembly of delegates who created the FCP.

More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37603

[Bacchus39]

21. plenty of info on Colombia for those who speak Spanish

easy enough to read online newspapers like El Tiempo among others .

[Flanker]

25. El Tiempo is quite rightwing

Why not point us to a real left/progressive paper in Colombia?

[Bacchus39]

27. here you go and I don't typically follow the politics of foreign newspapers

I read for news and information not for opinion pieces.

there is no vast conspiracy to keep news of Colombia from Americans as one poster insinuated. There is ample information on Colombia particularly if you can read Spanish.

here is a large list of online newspapers from Colombia. I do not know their political slant.

http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/colombia.htm

I typically focus on those from Bogota since it is the capital and largest city. El Espectador is an alternative. they have an article on the Washington Post article as well.

[formercia]

15. More info:

Mass graves uncovered in Colombia
Human remains found in a mass grave in La Hormiga
Colombian authorities have uncovered the mass graves of more than 100 people believed to have been killed during the country's long-running civil conflict.

Interior Minister Carlos Holguin said he was horrified by the discoveries near the town of La Hormiga, in the southern province of Putumayo.

[formercia]

16. This is the same thing that happened in El Salvador and Guatemala

Right-wing death squads with connections to big corporations driving peasants off their land.

[Judi Lynn]

17. It happened in Bolivia, under US puppet Hugo Banzer, too. What you said rang a bell.

Here's a thumbnail look at that murderous treachery:

COLONEL HUGO BANZER
President of Bolivia
In 1970, in Bolivia, when then-President Juan Jose Torres nationalized Gulf Oil properties and tin mines owned by US interests, and tried to establish friendly relations with Cuba and the Soviet Union, he was playing with fire. The coup to overthrow Torres, led by US-trained officer and Gulf Oil beneficiary Hugo Banzer, had direct support from Washington. When Banzer's forces had a breakdown in radio communications, US Air Force radio was placed at their disposal. Once in power, Banzer began a reign of terror. Schools were shut down as hotbeds of political subversive activity. Within two years, 2,000 people were arrested and tortured without trial. As in Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil, the native Indians were ordered off their land and deprived of tribal identity. Tens-of-thousands of white South Africans were enticed to immigrate with promises of the land stolen from the Indians, with a goal of creating a white Bolivia. When Catholic clergy tried to aid the Indians, the regime, with CIA help, launched terrorist attacks against them, and this "Banzer Plan" became a model for similar anti-Catholic actions throughout Latin America.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Such a long, sad, painful story for Latin America, isn't it? Also for the Caribbean.

People are NOT doing themselves a favor to intentionally avoid learning about these things. In the end, their ignorance will NOT save them, nor can they expect the world to become as ignorant as they are.

[formercia]

18. a little clarification is needed here.

What they refer to as 'anti-catholic actions' were attacks on those in the clergy professing liberation theology by members of reactionary ultra right-wing organizations associated with conservative elements in the Church and those connected with large land owners, corporations and aristocracy.

This is just a continuation of the 'Dirty Wars' in Latin Amenrica.

[Judi Lynn]

19. Thanks for making that point. It's necessary to underscore there is a HUGE

difference between the two forces. VAST.

It wasn't the old, oligarchy-pleasing clergy who got thrown out of airplanes, shot, raped, etc., for their efforts for the poor.

One face which should be close to everyone's memory is that of Bishop Romero, featured in a film starring Raul Julia in his last role. The man was shot as he conducted his last mass.

From his last sermon:

Archbishop Oscar Romero
The Last Sermon (1980)
~snip~
I know many are shocked by this preaching and want to accuse us of forsaking the gospel for politics. But I reject this accusation. I am trying to bring to life the message of the Second Vatican Council and the meetings at Medellin and Puebla. The documents from these meetings should not just be studied theoretically. They should be brought to life and translated into the real struggle to preach the gospel as it should be for our people. Each week I go about the country listening to the cries of the people, their pain from so much crime, and the ignominy of so much violence. Each week I ask the Lord to give me the right words to console, to denounce, to call for repentance. And even though I may be a voice crying in the desert, I know that the church is making the effort to fulfill its mission....

Every country lives its own "exodus"; today El Salvador is living its own exodus. Today we are passing to our liberation through a desert strewn with bodies and where anguish and pain are devastating us. Many suffer the temptation of those who walked with Moses and wanted to turn back and did not work together. It is the same old story. God, however, wants to save the people by making a new history....

History will not fail; God sustains it. That is why I say that insofar as historical projects attempt to reflect the eternal plan of God, to that extent they reflect the kingdom of God. This attempt is the work of the church. Because of this, the church, the people of God in history, is not attached to any one social system, to any political organization, to any party. The church does not identify herself with any of those forces because she is the eternal pilgrim of history and is indicating at every historical moment what reflects the kingdom of God and what does not reflect the kingdom of God. She is the servant of the Kingdom of God.
(snip)

Fuentes said that Amnesty had established that in El Salvador human rights are violated to a worse degree than the repression in Chile after the coupe d'etat. The Salvadorean government also said that the six hundred dead were the result of armed confrontations between army troops and guerrillas. Fuentes said that during his stay u l El Salvador, he could see that the victims had been tortured before their deaths and mutilated afterward.

The spokesman of Amnesty International said that the victims' bodies characteristically appeared with the thumbs tied behind their backs. Corrosive liquids had been applied to the corpses to prevent identification of the victims by their relatives and to prevent international condemnation, the spokesman added. Nevertheless, the bodies were exhumed and the dead have been identified. Fuentes said that the repression carried out by the Salvadorean army was aimed at breaking the popular organizations through the assassination of their leaders in both town and country.

According to the spokesman of Amnesty International, at least three thousand five hundred peasants have fled from their homes to the capital to escape persecution. "We have complete lists in London and Sweden of young children and women who have been assassinated for being organized," Fuentes stated....

I would like to make a special appeal to the men of the army, and specifically to the ranks of the National Guard, the police and the military. Brothers, you come from our own people. You are killing your own brother peasants when any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God which says, "Thou shalt not kill." No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. It is high time you recovered your consciences and obeyed your consciences rather than a sinful order. The church, the defender of the rights of God, of the law of God, of human dignity, of the person, cannot remain silent before such an abomination. We want the government to face the fact that reforms are valueless if they are to be carried out at the cost of so much blood. In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cries rise to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you in the name of God: stop the repression.
(snip/...)

http://www.haverford.edu/relg/faculty/amcguire/romero.html

[formercia]

22. It continues in Mexico, Bolivia and Colombia today.

when will it end?

[Judi Lynn]

20. Colombia: AUC's "Macaco" behind Putumayo mass grave

Colombia: AUC's "Macaco" behind Putumayo mass grave
Submitted by Bill Weinberg on Mon, 05/07/2007 - 02:30.

Colombian prosecutor general Mario Iguarán confirmed that several foreigners, at least three from Ecuador, are among the 105 presumed paramilitary victims whose bodies were exhumed from a mass grave near La Hormiga, Putumayo department, May 5. Another 106 bodies were exhumed from 65 common graves in the area over the past ten months. Ecuadoran families had been inquiring about loved ones who had disappeared across the border. Most of the victims, who investigators believe were killed between 1999 and 2001, had been dismembered before burial. With these finds, the number of bodies of presumed paramilitary victims exhumed nationwide since the beginning of 2006 to 900. Iguaran’s office estimates 10,000 Colombians lie in unmarked graves across the country, now in its fifth decade of civil war. "It has surprised us, despite the fact that we are in the middle of a conflict," said Iguarán, adding that his office has reports of 3,000 common graves from victims' families and other sources. The investigation is being carried out by the Judicial and Investigative Police Directorate (DIJIIN). Radio Caracol cited an internal report it said identified those responsible for the Putumayo graves as Carlos Mario Jiménez, alias "Macaco," leader of the Central Bolívar Bloc of the United Colombian Self-Defense Forces (AUC), and his second-in-command Arnolfo Santamaría Galindo, alias "Pipa." (El Espectador, Bogota; AP, May 6)
(snip/)

http://www.ww4report.com/node/3778

[Judi Lynn]

23. Washington Post is Way Out of Line on Colombia’s “Supposed” Human Rights Crisis

May 7, 2007

Washington Post is Way Out of Line on Colombia’s “Supposed” Human Rights Crisis

by Garry Leech

According to a May 6 editorial by the Washington Post, Colombia does not have a serious human rights problem. In the editorial, titled “Assault on an Ally,” the Post ridiculed the recent claim by Human Rights Watch that “today Colombia presents the worst human rights and humanitarian crisis in the Western Hemisphere,” suggesting instead that Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti deserve that label. The editorial later ludicrously and irresponsibly referred to the human rights situation in Colombia as a “supposed human rights ‘crisis’,” insinuating that it is merely a fabrication of House Democrats and the left. But how can the killing of more labor leaders in Colombia than in the rest of the world not constitute a human rights crisis? How can the massacre of five Awá indigenous leaders last year not constitute a human rights crisis? And how can having the second largest internally displaced population in the world, behind only the Sudan, not constitute a human rights crisis?

While the editorial correctly pointed out that murders and kidnapping have declined under Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe, it conveniently neglected to mention other human rights categories that don’t reflect positively on the Colombian leader. In 2006 Colombia again led the world with 72 union leaders killed, an increase over the previous year. Most of the unionists were murdered by right-wing paramilitaries supposedly demobilized under President Uribe’s peace initiative. In reality, the “demobilization” process has more closely resembled a “restructuring” as mid-level paramilitary leaders have simply established new militias. According to the Colombian NGO Indepaz, more than 43 new paramilitary groups have been formed in 22 of Colombia’s 32 provinces over the past couple of years.

While labor leaders are being slaughtered for challenging the “free trade” regime lauded in the Post’s editorial, indigenous peoples are being massacred simply for living in regions in which leftist guerrillas are active. In August 2006, five indigenous Awá leaders were massacred in the town of Ataquer in southern Colombia. They and 1,700 other Awá had already been forcibly displaced from their lands by the Colombian army as part of President Uribe’s security strategy. And evidence suggests that it was Colombian soldiers who perpetrated the massacre of the five indigenous leaders.

Meanwhile, the size of Colombia’s internally displaced population, now totaling more than three million, has increased dramatically in recent years. In 2005, more than 300,000 Colombians were forced off their lands and for many, as was the case with the indigenous Awá, it was the US-backed Colombian army that made them refugees. While tens of thousands of Colombians have been displaced as a result of counter-insurgency operations, thousands more have been forced from their homes in order to make resource-rich lands available for exploitation by multinational corporations under the mantra of “free trade.”

More:
http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia256.htm



Two paramilitaries in La Dorada, Putumayo.
Photo: Garry Leech



Paramilitaries are responsible for more
than 70 percent of the human rights
abuses in Colombia.
Photo: Garry Leech

[Bacchus39]

24. I'd say they got it right

why push away the last ally in South America? Colombia will be friendly to the US under a Democratic administration. Will their neighbors?

[Flanker]

26. Colombia is the biggest violator of Human Rights in the region

And top 5 in the world (per capita). Maybe if the Uribe administration honestly tackled the problem then maybe, but as it stands all actions are leading to covering the para's asses.

[Bacchus39]

28. yes, I know

and imagine if the paras didn't demobilize, it would be even worse.