Colombia warlord says drug trade allowed to thrive

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters

Colombia warlord says drug trade allowed to thrive
Tue Aug 14, 2007 3:04PM EDT

By Hugh Bronstein

ITAGUI, Colombia (Reuters) - Colombia's cocaine trade is much bigger than the government says and will continue to grow on stronger European and Asian demand unless a coherent anti-drugs plan is adopted, a jailed warlord said.

Salvatore Mancuso, once feared throughout northern Colombia for his cocaine-financed paramilitary war against leftist rebels, says Colombia is not serious about cracking down on the drug trade that fuels the four-decade-old insurgency.

Vested interests -- from politicians and military officers who collude with drug smugglers, to contractors connected to a multibillion-dollar U.S. anti-narcotics program, to companies that sell chemicals used to process cocaine -- don't want the war to end, he said.
(snip)

He tearfully turned over his gun in a 2004 demobilization ceremony that was part of a government deal offering him benefits, including reduced jail time.

But that deal has been thrown into question by the Supreme Court, which is insisting on a harder line against paramilitary leaders who, as Mancuso admits, killed innocent people in the name of fighting the guerrillas.



Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSN1444501720070814?pageNumber=1

[Peace Patriot]

1. They "don't want the war to end." What amazing words! Not the "war on drugs."

Not the war on Iraqis. Not the war on Afghanis. Not the war on Palestinians. Not the "war on terrorism." They don't want a cure, cuz there is so much money to be made from the disease.

And the billions and billions of our taxpayer dollars that the US political establishment pours into armaments everywhere just helps keep democratic political forces from ever gaining the power to DO something about all these wars--and is used to literally kill union leaders, small farmers, political leftists and other true representatives of the people, while insuring the continuance of big drug cartels, big trafficking and all of its attendant violence and destruction, as well as continued arms proliferation and violent conflict.

U.S. policy has become the exact REVERSE of what it should be, in every sphere. Where there is true democracy, say in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, the U.S. condemns it and demonizes an elected president (Venezuela) and does everything it can to undermine the empowerment of the poor majority (Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and everywhere else in Latin America). Where monarchs and despots rule, the U.S. can't support them enough (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE). Where the rightwing government colludes with paramilitary death squads, the U.S. pours in more military aid, endorsing, and no doubt actively aiding, the crimes of the government (Colombia). Governments with the worst human rights records, such as China, so long as they're into "free trade" (global corporate predation), they're treated as "favored nations," and even when the human rights abuses are gruesome (Uzbekistan), they are richly rewarded. Cuz, you know what? WE are the torturers now. WE are the despots. WE are the aggressors.

At home, the rule of the REVERSE of good policy reigns as well. Is it good policy to accept immediate aid from around the world, and immediately mobilize the country's resources to save the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast when they are hit by a disastrous hurricane? The U.S., under the Bush Junta, does the opposite. Is it good policy to curtail the off-shoring of jobs and manufacturing and even services to other countries, and to punish, fine, and severely tax corporations that engage in these and other ruinous policies? The U.S. does the opposite. Is it good policy to count all the votes in a way that everyone can see and understand? The U.S. does the opposite. Is it good policy to shorten the divide between rich and poor, promote a strong middle class, and provide upward mobility for the poor? The U.S. does the opposite--and goes even further than doing the opposite on all of these and other policy questions. It does WORSE than the opposite. It leaves the poor blacks of New Orleans to starve and rot and die in the wake of a hurricane. It turns away offered aid. It soaks the poor to give the rich more tax breaks. It REWARDS off-shoring. It sucks whole segments of the population into the brutal "prison-industrial" complex UNNECESSARILY, with a host of extremely punitive vice laws. It gives whole segments of the youthful population no choice but military or law enforcement jobs--or crime. It lionizes and rewards fatcat CEOs and corporate predators who prey on the old and the sick. It rewards idleness and cruelty, and punishes hard work and loyal, productive workers.

So it shouldn't surprise us that the Bush Junta (and collusive Democrats) are doing the wrong thing in South America. They're doing the wrong thing in Iraq. They're doing the wrong thing here at home. They're doing the wrong thing EVERYWHERE.

It's not as if previous U.S. policies have not been wrong, many times, in the past. But I have never seen the convergence of wrongness that I see now, not in my lifetime, and there is really not an era in our history in which the U.S. has been dead wrong on every issue.
And not just wrong from a leftist (majorityist) perspective--wrong from a perspective of common sense, wrong from the perspective of U.S. national security, wrong from the perspective of U.S. foreign policy, wrong from the perspective of every national interest including business and trade, wrong from the perspective of the rich, who have to live in barricaded fortresses in the midst of an extremely unjust and discontented society--wrong from the perspective of the U.S. military which has been hijacked for a corporate resource war--wrong from every conceivable perspective.

Billions of our taxpayer dollars supporting the cocaine trade.

Upside down, backwards, "Alice in Wonderland," BushWorld wrong!

[justinaforjustice]

2. Great Summary of Abysmal Reality, Peace Patriot

The sheer breadth of the Bush-Chaney destruction is breathtaking. When Bush was appointed by the Supreme Court I was in a fury, but rationalized that since we had survived the presidency of Bush I we could probably survive a Bush II. How naive I was then. I once thought that lying this country into the War on Iraq was the worst possible act, little did I know how thoroughly Bush-Chaney would corrupt our government and destroy our democracy.

[Judi Lynn]

3. The latest evidence that ties Colombia’s President to the paramilitaries (deathsquads)

‘Uncomfortable Coincidences’
The latest evidence that ties Colombia’s President to the paramilitaries
by Paul Haste
July 23, 2007

The presidential candidate and the ‘Comandante’

Colombia’s compliant editorialists refer to the revelations as ‘incómodas coincidencias’ - ‘uncomfortable coincidences.’ President Álvaro Uribe claims the accusations are ‘insinuaciones malévolas’ - ‘malevolent insinuations’ - and has, as usual, attacked the messenger, criticising American newspapers, Colombian opposition politicians and even México in an attempt to divert attention from the latest evidence that ties him to the paramilitaries.

The first is a video that shows Álvaro Uribe at a private meeting on 31st October 2001 to organise support for his 2002 presidential campaign. According to the Colombian political magazine Semana, five of the 13 people present were associated with the paramilitaries in the far right AUC militia, and one of them, Frenio Sánchez Carreño, was a notorious narco boss whose militia name was ‘Comandante Esteban.’

Comandante Esteban had been complicit in at least 80 assassinations and also the forced displacement of more than 3000 peasant workers, according to Colombia’s DAS intelligence service, whose agents were actively searching for him at this time. He had threatened local journalists as far back as December 2000, and just twelve days before meeting with Álvaro Uribe, he had signed an AUC ‘communiqué’ that declared union and worker organisers to be ‘military targets.’

The meeting pledged to support Uribe’s presidential campaign, and also other rightist candidates in the 2002 Senate and Congress elections, in the hope that legislation promoted by these politicians would ‘legitimise’ the paramilitaries. These militias succeeded in electing their candidates in 2002 - AUC national boss Salvatore Mancuso has since admitted that intimidation and bought votes, or threats and assassinations, allowed many rightist candidates to be ‘elected’ unopposed - and soon received a payback from the politicians in the form of virtual impunity for their crimes.

More:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=9&ItemID=13357

[donkeyotay]

4. Expanding this enormous success to Mexico

"Vested interests -- from politicians and military officers who collude with drug smugglers, to contractors connected to a multibillion-dollar U.S. anti-narcotics program, to companies that sell chemicals used to process cocaine -- don't want the war to end, he said."

Billions and billions. War on drugs. War on terror. And yet, there's more terror, more drugs, and more people taking drugs. What a success. Spend more money doing more of what hasn't worked, well... not for us anyway.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Israeli advisors fight in Colombia?

Report: Israelis fighting guerillas in Colombia

Colombian paper quotes local defense minister as confirming ex Israeli officers helping government in battle against guerillas, drug lords, while guerrilla group FARC claims Israeli commandos also fighting them in jungles

Beatrice Overlander

Colombia's defense minister confirmed recently that ex Israeli military men were helping his government fight guerilla organizations, Colombia weekly Semana recently reported.

Meanwhile, Colombian guerilla group FARC stated that Israeli commandos, along with American and British forces, were operating in the jungles against drug lords and guerilla fighters

While denying this report, Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos did admit that a group of Israeli advisors was working alongside local defense officials in the last year.

According to Semana, "A group of former Israeli military officials is counseling the military's top brass on intelligence issues." The paper added that the Israelis were hired by the Colombian Defense Ministry in order to improve the army's intelligence gathering capabilities and the command and control structure within the military.

More:
http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3435949,00.html

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



Yair Klein

Thursday, June 1st, 2000
Who Is Israel's Yair Klein and What Was He Doing in Colombia and Sierra Leone?

Last weekend, Colombian intelligence agents arrested two Israelis and a Colombian suspected of being part of an arms-smuggling network attempting to deliver more than 50,000 guns to guerrillas.
Colombian officials are investigating whether the detained Israelis are linked to Yair Klein, an Israeli mercenary accused by Colombian authorities of training right-wing paramilitaries and drug-traffickers in the late 1980s and 1990s.
(snip)

In 1998, Klein was officially indicted in Colombia on charges of training paramilitary units in terror tactics in the late 1980s. He was allegedly one of four Israelis hired by the late drug trafficker Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha, one of the Medellin cartel's most violent bosses.

The evidence against him includes a training video that he used to instruct death squads in Colombia. The main leaders in the infamous Carlos Castano's paramilitary groups were trained by Yair Klein.

Massacres, assassinations of politicians and other terror tactics now used by paramilitaries in Colombia were part of the instruction that Yair Klein gave in his training camps.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/07/0232255