Army Killings Rear Head in Presidential Campaign

[Judi Lynn]

Source: IPS News

Army Killings Rear Head in Presidential Campaign
By Constanza Vieira

BOGOTA, May 27, 2010 (IPS) - Colombian presidential candidate Antanas Mockus said he "shares the horror" over the so-called "false positives" -- young civilians killed by the army and passed off as guerrilla casualties in the military's counterinsurgency campaign.

The phenomenon is "an extreme manifestation of the short-cut culture, the anything goes culture," the former Bogotá mayor, who has a real shot at winning the presidency in Sunday's elections or -- more likely -- in a June runoff, told foreign journalists Wednesday.

Members of more than 30 army battalions recruited young men with false job offers and took them to faraway locations, where they were shot and dressed up as left-wing rebels (or less frequently as far-right paramilitaries) and passed off as combat casualties.

This "body count" system used incentives like weekend passes, cash bonuses, promotions and trips abroad to reward soldiers and officers for "results" in the country's nearly five-decade civil war.

The phenomenon really took off after right-wing President Álvaro Uribe first took office in 2002, and reached a peak when Mockus's main rival, Juan Manuel Santos, was defence minister from July 2006 to May 2009.

Read more: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=51613

[troubledamerican]

1. Imagine the wall-to-wall uproar in U.S. media if this happened in Venezuela or Bolivia.

Not just on FOX News but on NPR.

Luring civilians, murdering them, then dressing them up as "Left Wing Rebels".

And it's not even TOP OF THE RECOMMENDS ON DU like this ought to be. Colombia is supposedly the U.S.'s BIGGEST ALLY in Latin America.

[rpannier]

2. Rec

Thanks for the story

I want to thank you.
You find many interesting stories from sources I've not heard of

It's much appreciated

[countmyvote4real]

3. Isn't that the way of the world?

I don't mean to sound blase. I'm not. This disgusts me.

And it's really not that different here in the good old USA. It's the same indifference to lives for policy. It's marketed/labelled differently here as it is targeted everywhere to whatever will play the people.

And I don't have any tin foil. I'm just that cynical.

Eleven people died and an entire ecosystem (the fucking Gulf of Mexico, for now) is being destroyed so BP can save some money. Just fuck everybody and everything as collateral damage. Oh, and it's limited because BP and Oil lobbyists paid our elected legislators to make it so. Plus, BP without any current government restraints, refuses to use a less toxic dispersant to willfully poison the fucking food chain.

I'm trying to think of a serial killer that has callously slaughtered more than BP with their operation in the GOM. The initial count of eleven lives lost from the oil rig explosion might pale to 9/11 or Hiroshima, but that is just the tip of iceberg. Now we can all eventually absorb this toxic carcinogen and mutate and die accordingly.

I can slightly understand the greedy, but I cannot accept the stupid, narrow minded, short thinking of these greedy, criminal corporations.

We have got to kick the oil habit.

[Judi Lynn]

4. His Brand is Crisis:Carville, Colombia and BP

May 31, 2010

His Brand is Crisis
Carville, Colombia and BP
By NIKOLAS KOZLOFF

Some people are just nostalgic and seemingly can’t get enough of the go-go Clinton years. Ever since 1992, the year his paymaster vanquished George H.W. Bush, high level marketer James Carville has backed political candidates in Latin America identifying with Bill Clinton’s militaristic and free market approach to the region.

A political guru, frequent CNN pundit and a personality who was featured in the well known documentary The War Room, Carville moves in powerful circles in the U.S. What’s less commonly known, however, is that Carville is also a virtual kingmaker in Latin America --- indeed, his professional contacts have ranged from Mexico’s Ernesto Zedillo to Brazil’s Fernando Enrique Cardoso to many others.

His latest stint is the troubled Andean nation of Colombia, which is fast approaching its presidential election. There, according to Colombian magazine Semana, Carville has offered his consulting services to Juan Manuel Santos, a former Minister of Defense and member of the governing Social Party of National Unity or Party of the U. Santos, who is trailing in recent polls against Green Party candidate Antanas Mockus, hopes that a bit of Carville’s previous luster will rub off on him.

He needs all the help he can get: as I pointed out in a recent article, Santos has been sullied by judicial investigations into allegations by human rights groups that the armed forces killed hundreds of civilians who were passed off as rebels downed in combat operations. The scandal took place under Santos' watch while the latter served as Minister of Defense. Though the future presidential candidate was quick to demote top officials, an investigation is still ongoing.

In a sense, it’s not too surprising that Carville would back Santos, a militarist who has favored the U.S. free trade agenda. As president, Carville’s paymaster Bill Clinton supported the Colombian elite to the hilt by supporting Plan Colombia and a $1.3 billion aid package to the Andean nation which waived human rights conditions. Later, once out of office Bill backed the U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement and met with President Álvaro Uribe personally in Bogotá. Wife Hillary, who Carville advised during the presidential campaign of 2008, did not support the free trade deal. However, her strategist Mark Penn was employed by the Colombian government to push for the initiative .

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/kozloff05312010.html