Colombia's president on defensive as warlord implicates military, businesses

[Judi Lynn]

Source: International Herald Tribune/Associated Press

Colombia's president on defensive as warlord implicates military, businesses
The Associated Press
Published: May 16, 2007


BOGOTA, Colombia: President Alvaro Uribe defended his battered administration against a flurry of new blows: a wiretapping scandal, the jailing of more congressional allies and a paramilitary warlord's claims that his vice president and defense minister conspired with the illegal far-right militias.

The warlord, Salvatore Mancuso, meanwhile, fingered two of the nation's top conglomerates as backers of the murderous paramilitary project that made killing fields out of rural Colombia.
(snip)

Since Uribe's 2002 election, Colombia's armed forces have forced leftist rebels to retreat into Colombia's thick jungles and Andean highlands, spurred by more than half a billion dollars in mostly military U.S. aid each year.
(snip)

Meanwhile, leading Democrats are asking tough questions in Washington, where Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass., expects Congress to review foreign aid to Colombia in June.

"What I'm hoping is that there will be less military aid and more aid for social and economic development," McGovern said. "To be blunt, I wouldn't trust this military to tell me the correct time given what's been revealed in the past few months."



Read more: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/05/17/america/LA-GEN-Colombia-Scandal.php

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Learned in a search earlier tonight that Salvatore Mancuso was the "right-hand collaborator" of the powerful paramilitary leader, Carlos Castaño, who was found murdered at the end of 2006, killed on orders of his own paramilitary brother.

Mancuso is mentioned in the following article, on page #6 of 10 pages. There's a great deal here on Carlos Castaño.You may find it worth the time reading:

Into the Abyss: The Paramilitary Political Objective
http://www.crimesofwar.org/colombia-mag/abyss01.html

[Selatius]

1. I hope Uribe is toppled as the fascist he is.

He only stayed in power for so long because he got support from the fascist paramilitaries and from billions in US military aid.

[Judi Lynn]

2. The Godfather of Colombia: Uribe and the Para Scandal

May 17, 2007

The Godfather of Colombia
Uribe and the Para Scandal
By W. JOHN GREEN

~snip~
....Colombia remains one of the most dangerous places on the planet for human rights activists, community leaders, and labor organizers. Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch condemned the killing of Yolanda Izquierdo in the city of Montería, Department of Córdoba. Izquierdo, the leader of 'The People's Housing Organization,' was murdered on January 31, 2007, after receiving repeated death threats. Izquierdo had represented hundreds of survivors of paramilitary attacks led by Salvatore Mancuso. Human rights' bodies claim that the killing was meant to silence anyone having the temerity of speaking out against war crimes committed by the paramilitaries, as well as to the assassination of rights activist Freddy Abel Espitia in Córdoba on January 29. Both organizations insist that these killings raise, yet again, serious doubts about the authenticity entire demobilization route.

In fact, Colombia's specialists argue that Uribe's stratagem has utterly failed to dismantle the paramilitary units. The best evidence for this claim can be found in the numbers of union leaders and activists assassinated in Colombia over the last six years, more than 800 by the government's own count. Tellingly, the number of murders that have been solved can literally be counted on one hand. As reported by Sergio De Leon of the Associated Press, the number of murdered union members rose last year, despite a purported drop in the over all homicide rate, from 43 in 2005, to 58 in 2006.

The Unfolding Scandal

In late 2006, the deep-rooted relationship between Uribe and the paramilitary movement finally broke in the international news. What was meant to be a crowning moment in the 'demobilization' process- the testimony of Salvatore Mancuso (as required under the 'Justice and Peace' Law)-turned into a tellingly embarrassing ordeal for the Uribe administration as reams of evidence emerged that revealed close ties between paramilitary units and tainted legislators intimately associated with the president. Throughout December, investigators from the Supreme Court offered ample proof that 'Uribista' lawmakers helped paramilitary cadres to take over huge swaths of northern Colombia, and at the same time violently eliminate their 'leftist' enemies. Several congressmen were jailed, while investigations continued against other legislators, the most important being Senator Alvaro Araújo (whose sister, Maria Consuelo Araújo had served as Uribe's foreign minister). While Senator Araújo admitted to meeting with Rodrigo Tovar, a paramilitary leader and known drug dealer, Senator Miguel de la Espriella explained how he and other elected officials met with paramilitary groups in 2001.

On December 19, 2006 Salvatore Mancuso, the nation's highest profile paramilitary commander (since the murder of Carlos Castaño), sat before government officials in a closed proceeding to begin the demobilization process by outlining his crimes, ranging from ordering individual assassinations to the mass killing of entire communities. Over the course of several weeks, he admitted to ordering the murder of more than 300 people, though human rights advocates believe the actual number is much higher. These killings, he pointed to, were made possible by intelligence passed on by members of the military. He also alleged that his militia, and others, ordering citizens into voting for President Uribe in the 2002 election.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/green05172007.html