Colombian president's kin said to have lead death squads

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Washington Post

Colombian president's kin said to have lead death squads
By Juan Forero
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, May 24, 2010

Colombian President Álvaro Uribe will leave office in August having largely succeeded in winning control of once-lawless swaths of countryside from Marxist rebels, an accomplishment partly made possible by more than $6 billion in U.S. aid.

But Uribe's government has also been tarnished by scandals, including accusations in congressional hearings that death squads hatched murder plots at his ranch in the 1980s and revelations that the secret police under his control spied on political opponents and helped kill leftist activists.

Now a former police major, Juan Carlos Meneses, has alleged that Uribe's younger brother, Santiago Uribe, led a fearsome paramilitary group in the 1990s in this northern town that killed petty thieves, guerrilla sympathizers and suspected subversives. In an interview with The Washington Post, Meneses said the group's hit men trained at La Carolina, where the Uribe family ran an agro-business in the early 1990s.

The revelations threaten to renew a criminal investigation against Santiago Uribe and raise new questions about the president's past in a region where private militias funded with drug-trafficking proceeds and supported by cattlemen wreaked havoc in the 1990s. The disclosures could prove uncomfortable to the United States, which has long seen Uribe as a trusted caretaker of American money in the fight against armed groups and the cocaine trade.

"This is what we have been hoping for -- that something like this could come out, and we could show what these paramilitary groups were," said Maria Eugenia Lopez, who said five of her relatives were killed by paramilitaries based in Yarumal in 1990.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/23/AR2010052303821.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Photo of Santiago Uribe Velez, death squad connected "kid brother" of President Alvaro Uribe.

http://toros.rcn.com.co.nyud.net:8090/fotos/Santiago-Uribe-AA.jpg

Santiago Uribe Velez.

http://www.mtholyoke.edu.nyud.net:8090/~eklun20s/classweb/bush-colombia-cp-161514.jpg http://www.radiomundial.com.ve.nyud.net:8090/yvke/files/img_noticia/t_uribe_bush_131.jpg

http://www.axisoflogic.com.nyud.net:8090/artman/uploads/bush-uribe.jpg

President Uribe and friend

http://www.bnamericas.com.nyud.net:8090/ten/images/alvaroUribe.gif http://pal2pal.com.nyud.net:8090/BLOGEE/images/uploads/uribe+palin.jpg

[harmonicon]

2. You mean Uribe had/has ties to right-wing death-squads?

I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Timeline of Colombia's Modern Paramilitary Movement

Timeline of Colombia's Modern Paramilitary Movement
Monday, May 24, 2010

1981: The first modern paramilitary group is formed by some of Colombia's top cocaine kingpins: Death to Kidnappers, created to execute kidnappers who had targeted the relatives of drug traffickers.

1982: In the central Magdalena River valley, landowners, politicians, military officers and drug traffickers form a group that carries out massacres and assassinations, targeting not just suspected guerrillas but also opposition politicians, prosecutors and innocent civilians.

1990: The Union Patriotica party, a political arm of FARC guerrillas, is largely wiped out after years of attacks by paramilitaries, losing hundreds of politicians, including presidential candidates, to hit men.

1994: Congress approves creation of the CONVIVIR, self-defense groups strongly supported by the governor of Antioquia, Álvaro Uribe. Investigators later determine that many of the groups morphed into paramilitary groups led by notorious death squad commanders.

1997: The Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC in Spanish, is formed. The loose coalition of paramilitary groups would grow exponentially, spreading terror across the country.

More:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/24/AR2010052400079.html

[Judi Lynn]

4. Q & A with Juan Carlos Meneses, retired major in Colombia's National Police

Q & A with Juan Carlos Meneses, retired major in Colombia's National Police
Monday, May 24, 2010

Juan Carlos Meneses, 42, a retired major in Colombia's National Police, has decided to speak out about how he collaborated with a paramilitary group in the small northern town of Yarumal. The group, he now says, was organized and led by Santiago Uribe, President Álvaro Uribe's brother.

The allegations could revive an investigation that prosecutors had shelved against Santiago Uribe in the 1990s. Meneses's public allegations about the inner workings of Yarumal's 12 Apostles paramilitary gang are the most extensive ever offered by an officer of Colombia's security services, which have long been linked to the illegal militias that spread terror until a government-run demobilization ended in 2006. Fearing he would be killed for knowing too much, Meneses fled the country and went public with his story, first to a group of respected Argentine human rights activists. He spoke to The Washington Post's Juan Forero on May 12.

Q: Why did paramilitary groups form in Yarumal?

A: "The guerrilla scourge was what was happening at that time, because the guerrillas had taken over the zone, carrying out kidnappings, extorting the ranchers and farmers."

Q: You've said Santiago Uribe led those paramilitaries. What did he do?

A: "Santiago's role was to lead a group of cattlemen. He organized them to put together a group to protect themselves against guerrilla actions. So his role is to call them and say, 'We're going to start up a self-defense group.' "

Q: Had you ever seen this kind of group before your arrival in Yarumal in early 1994?

A: "You already saw a certain resistance of cattlemen, among those people who had money. Still, I was a bit surprised to see what was happening because I had not seen it anywhere else where I had been as a sublieutenant and lieutenant -- to see people of a certain importance and reputation, hacienda owners and cattlemen, uniting like this."

Q: What was the role of Álvaro Uribe, a rising politician and senator with an eye on national office, as all this was going on in Yarumal?

A: "What I knew about Álvaro is what Santiago told me. In that time, he said to me, 'Don't worry, lieutenant. My brother, Álvaro, knows all about this."

Q: When authorities began to investigate you and another police commander for paramilitary crimes, did the Uribe family intercede on your behalf?

A: "We went to an office Santiago had on the 13th or 14th floor of the Coffee Building, which is near Berrio Park in Medellin. He received us, and my captain and I tell him, 'Look, they're investigating the 12 Apostles -- we need you to help.' And he said, 'Don't you worry because Álvaro has very good friends in the attorney general's office, he has very good friends in politics in Bogota, and we're going to try to see that the case is shelved.' "

More:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/24/AR2010052400080.html

[Octafish]

5. 'Don't worry, my brother knows all about this...'

Thank you for the important news, Judi Lynn. These brothers have murdered thousands. They are big friends of America's own elite.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Colombian President Uribe: Accusations against my brother are 'outrageous'

Wednesday, May 26, 2010 | 02:31 ET
An investigation is under way
Colombian President Uribe: Accusations against my brother are 'outrageous'

Colombian President Álvaro Uribe classified as "outrageous" the accusations made against his brother Santiago Uribe, who is said to be allegedly linked to paramilitaries. An investigation is currently under way to find out if said claims were generated by drug traffickers.

The leader remembered that his brother was exonerated by the judiciary after an investigation for alleged links with the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), the largest Colombian paramilitary group that progressively demobilized between 2003 and 2006.

"This outrageous accusation was resolved a long time ago by the judiciary (...) the truth is that one is surprised to see how drug terrorists that hate this government have the capacity to penetrate society without being censored," the leader said.

In the same sense, Defence Minister Gabriel Silva assured that Venezuela is carrying out "operations to discredit" the Colombian Head of State, in reference to the claim against Santiago Uribe.

"I think Venezuela has actively carried out discrediting intelligence operations against President Uribe that include ex DAS officials (Colombian secret service) and many others," Silva told a local radio station.

In this way, Silva referred to a claim made in Buenos Aires city by the retired police major Juan Carlos Meneses, who before human rights advocates, led by Nobel Peace Prize Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, said that Santiago Uribe led an illegal armed group.

More:
http://www.buenosairesherald.com/BreakingNews/View/34493