446 unclaimed bodies probed

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Agence France Presse

Sep 8, 2010
446 unclaimed bodies probed

BOGOTA - THE UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called on Tuesday on Colombia to 'move quickly' to identify 446 bodies unearthed in a cemetery in central La Macarena town, saying some could be victims of summary executions by the military.

The OHCHR said in a report it 'found no evidence' of a common grave in the township, in Meta department, but that acting on tips from non-governmental groups it discovered there were 446 'unidentified, individually exhumed' bodies in the town cemetery.

It said the deceased 'were reported as combat deaths by law enforcement, from 2002' onwards.

The OHCHR said it found 'omissions in the care and handling' of the bodies that were in violation of international human rights regulations.

It also 'took note of information... about possible cases of extrajudicial executions (by the military) whose victims would be buried in La Macarena cemetery.' Human rights groups have denounced over a thousand of so-called 'false positives' - extrajudiciary killings of civilians committed by Colombian soldiers who masked the victims as guerrillas in order to get rewards promised by the government.

Read more: http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/World/Story/STIStory_576111.html

[EFerrari]

1. K&R

[Demit]

2. That is really an unfortunate headline.

[bitchkitty]

3. It made me blink. n/t

[jberryhill]

7. Mmmmph...

Sounds like the morning after at a large singles bar.

[slackmaster]

4. Somewhere at Straits Times headquarters, an editor needs to be summarily FIRED

:argh:

[Odin2005]

5. That is a really baddly-worded headline.

[nolabear]

6. Now there's a job I wouldn't want to have. Rec'd for bad headline.

[gratuitous]

8. Our great and good friends, the Colombians

But let's focus on Chavez.

[Peace Patriot]

9. I understood the headline at first glance, and the headline wording is hardly the only thing to say

about this story.

For instance, how come, if you Google "New York Slimes" (oops, I mean "New York Times") and "La Macarena," you only come up with articles about tourism?

Yet, the New York Slimes has plenty of newsspace to print so-called reporter Simon Romero's electioneering for Venezuela's rightwing opposition in the upcoming National Assembly elections: "Venezuela, More Violent Than Iraq."

Odd.

The Colombian military's mass grave has been under investigation since at least January, after children in the La Macarena area got sick from the drinking water, because it was being polluted by the decaying bodies of the Colombian military's mass grave. Here is the first web site where I happened upon this story, which has links to news stories as well as to the Pentagon/USAID-designed "pacification" plan for La Macarena, which is called an "Integrated Action framework":

Army mass grave in La Macarena
http://www.cipcol.org/?p=1303

Additional stories:

The UK military connection
http://www.tribunemagazine.co.uk/2010/02/04/silence-on-british-army-link-to-colombian-mass-grave/

U.S. and Colombia Cover Up Atrocities Through Mass Graves, by Dan Kovalik 4/1/10
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-kovalik/us-colombia-cover-up-atro_b_521402.html

Colombia: Mass Grave Discovered In La Macarena
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1005/S00001.htm

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

There are several very important questions that need to be answered about this grave site, including the question raised in this non-U.S. media conglomerate story (the OP)--who these 446 victims are.

The initial estimate was up to 2,000 bodies. A British investigator described it as a "horrifying sea of bodies." So, if the UN human rights commission "found 'omissions in the care and handling' of the bodies," the question is, were the other estimated 1,500 bodies identified satisfactorily? Who were they? How did they die? What happened to their bodies? Was the initial estimate wrong? Has the Colombian military/government 'disappeared' some of the bodies?

Local people say the bodies in this grave are local 'disappeared' community activists and members. Are these deaths, whether 446 or 2000, the result of the U.S. "Integrated Action" plan for La Macarena? And, if so, "integrated" in what way? Was it more than the U.S. providing the bullets, the guns, the helicopters, the soldiers' salaries, uniforms, helmets and meal tickets, the fuel, the high tech surveillance and all the paraphernalia for a military operation against Colombian citizens? Or were U.S. military 'advisors' or U.S. military 'contractors' directly involved? Was Blackwater involved (which was just "fined" by the State Department for "unauthorized" "trainings" of Colombians for use in Iraq and Afghanistan, under contract to the State Department)?

Why did Bushwhack ambassador William Brownfield need SIGNED "total diplomatic immunity" for all U.S. soldiers and all U.S. military 'contractors' in Colombia--arranged in SECRET negotiations, last year?

Pentagon and Colombian promoters of the U.S./Colombian military agreement--signed last year after secret negotiations--claimed that the agreement merely ratified existing arrangements. If so, why did they need to get these "existing arrangements" SIGNED by the outgoing president, and why were the negotiations kept SECRET from the Colombian legislature, the Colombian courts, the Colombian people, all the other leaders of Latin America (who didn't even get a heads up when it was finally announced), and--not unimportantly--kept secret from the American people (--an agreement that, overall, committed the U.S. military to a massive increase in the U.S. military presence in Colombia, including U.S. military use of at least SEVEN more U.S. military bases in Colombia, and U.S. military use of all civilian infrastructure--airports, harbors, etc.--in Colombia, including such perks as paying no road tolls)?

I smell a coverup in the State Department's contention that Blackwater's illegal "trainings" in Colombia were "unauthorized." I smell a coverup in this secretly negotiated and signed "total diplomatic immunity" for all U.S. military personnel including 'contractors" in Colombia. And I smell the stench of a coverup in these many dead bodies in La Macarena.

My suspicion: The Bushwhacks encouraged the "false positives" policy (rewards to Colombian soldiers for upping their "body counts"), encouraged the general atmosphere of lawlessness, "extrajudicial" murder and mayhem in Colombia, and authorized "turkey shoots" of Colombian civilians as "practice" for their assassins in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The "Integrated Action framework" laid out in a document linked at the CIPCOL site is very similar to the "pacification" programs that we are currently getting hints of in reports from Afghanistan--that is, the targeting of local community leaders for assassination, the installation of puppet leaders friendly to the U.S.-installed national government, and leaving behind a residual police/military force to remind local people of the price for opposing the U.S.-friendly government and moving on to the next "pacification" area, while the USAID flies U.S. operatives into the "pacified" area, in helicopters, to set up and secure the local puppet government.

In Colombia, in areas where the FARC guerrillas were operating (in Colombia's 40+ year civil war with leftist guerrillas), all opposers of the Uribe government were considered to be "terrorists"--including trade unionists, teachers, community activists of various kinds, human rights workers, political leftists, peasant farmers and others. Uribe said so in public statements. All who opposed him were "terrorists." Amnesty International attributed about half of the murders of trade unionists in Colombia to the Colombian military itself (and most of the others to their rightwing paramilitary death squads). So it is not outside the realm of possibility--and, indeed, it seems to be more and more likely--that the U.S./Bushwhacks were using Colombia as a "practice" area, to try out various ways to subdue the populations of Iraq and Afghanistan and to "train" operatives for the more horrendous aspects of their conquests.

Could this be why the mass grave in La Macarena has not been reported on by the New York Slimes and all their brethren in the corporate/war profiteer-run news media in the U.S.? "We need to look forward not backward" when it comes to Bush Junta war crimes?

It's bad enough that our money has been used to arm these killers in Colombia, and to impose state terror on the entire peasant population, five MILLION of whom have been driven from their lands by the Colombian military. But what ELSE has the U.S. government been doing in our name in Colombia?

Uribe, by the way, has been honored by the Obama administration with a prestigious appointment to an international legal committee (investigating Israel's firing on aid boats), and by Georgetown University, where he will be "lecturing" students on international relations. And will he tell them that everyone who opposes fascist government is a "terrorist"? And will they write that down in their notes, for future reference when they get their internships at the State Department?

:puke:

-------------------

Note on the term "mass grave": The bodies were individually buried with grave markers with dates (2002 through 2009) but no names. They weren't all thrown into one pit. That was clear from the earliest reports. So, for the UN commission to say that they "found no evidence" of a "common grave" is redundant. I have not seen any evidence of a claim that there was, and I don't know why they make this point. Is it a P.R. sop to the Colombian government? I'm going to continue using the term "mass grave," because that's what it is, if there are at least 446 unidentified bodies in it.

[Judi Lynn]

12. The people who brought the mass grave to the attention of international groups

have themselves been murdered.

I think that's a pretty good indication this is an explosive topic and there are people in Colombia who are going to do everything they can to keep the truth from being revealed.

Thank you for this post, will return to finish reading it this evening.

The truth is so important.

[rocktivity]

10. Must have been quite an orgy.

Speaking of which, remember this oldie but goodie?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2978517

x(
rocktivity

[Judi Lynn]

11. Controversial Georgetown gig for Colombia's Alvaro Uribe

Controversial Georgetown gig for Colombia's Alvaro Uribe
September 8, 2010 | 12:19 pm

The arrival of former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe at Georgetown University is sparking campus debate on the two-term leader's legacy in security and human rights. Uribe starts work this semester as a "Distinguished Scholar in the Practice of Global Leadership" at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service, where he will conduct seminars and other programs, the university said.

"We are thrilled that has identified Georgetown as a place where he will share his knowledge and interface with Washington, and I know that our students at the School of Foreign Service will benefit greatly from his presence," said the Georgetown school's dean, Carol Lancaster, in a university statement.

But not everyone in the Georgetown community is reacting with such enthusiasm. In comments on the personal site of university professor Anthony Clark Arend, one commenter identified as Charity Ryerson, a Georgetown law student, wrote:

I am a student at the law center and have worked extensively with the Colombian human rights community. While he was Governor of Antioquia, Alvaro Uribe was instrumental in the creation of the Convivirs, private self defense organizations that later morphed into the Colombian United Self Defense Forces, a paramilitary organization that has killed tens of thousands of Colombian civilians with the support of the Colombian state. As recently as 2006, the paramilitaries and the Colombian military ate together at the same military bases and carried out joint operations.

He routinely publicly denounced human rights defenders in his country, falsely claiming that they had ties to the guerrilla organizations in order to undermine their work. His party continues to work with illegal armed groups in the country, a situation which he, at a minimum, tolerated. He spied on opposition leaders and human rights defenders. His own DAS (similar to the FBI) passed hit lists to the paramilitaries containing names of trade unionists and human rights defenders, many of which were later killed.

More:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laplaza/2010/09/uribe-colombia-georgetown.html

[Judi Lynn]

13. Arrest made in murders of union activists at Colombian mine owned by Alabama coal company

Arrest made in murders of union activists at Colombian mine owned by Alabama coal company
September 8, 2010 3:28 PM

The brother of the former Inspector General of Colombia has been arrested in connection with the murder of two union activists working for Drummond, a multinational coal company based in Birmingham, Ala.

Jaime Blanco Maya allegedly ordered the killing of labor rights activists Valmore Locarno Rodriguez and Victor Hugo Orcasita Amaya in Colombia in 2001, according to Colombia Reports. The arrest was ordered by a human rights prosecutor in Bogota who is investigating the killings.

Blanco Maya was working as a Drummond contractor at the time the unionists were killed, the Latin American Herald Tribune reports. The crimes occurred during a 2001 incident in which a bus carrying several dozen workers from Drummond's La Loma mine was stopped by 15 gunmen -- some wearing Colombian military uniforms -- who forced off the two leaders of the Sintramienergetica union local.

Locarno, the local's president, was shot on the spot. The tortured body of Orcasita, the local's vice president, was found a few days later. Gustavo Soler, the man who succeeded Locarno as president, was also murdered not long after taking office.

It was later found that the killings were carried out by members of the AUC federation of right-wing militias, which disbanded in 2006 as part of a peace process with the Colombian government.

Drummond has prevailed in three lawsuits over alleged human rights abuses at its operations in Colombia. The most recent suit was filed last June and alleged that Drummond paid millions of dollars to a Colombian paramilitary group responsible for the deaths of 67 people in an effort to disrupt union activities at the company's South American mine and railway operations.

More:
http://www.southernstudies.org/2010/09/arrest-made-in-murders-of-union-activists-at-colombian-mine-owned-by-alabama-coal-company.html