Paramilitaries controlled 10% Colombia's land: WikiLeaks

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Colombia Reports

Paramilitaries controlled 10% Colombia's land: WikiLeaks
Monday, 04 April 2011 14:00
Edward Fox

Paramilitaries and drug traffickers may have controlled 10% of Colombia's land, according to a 2007 diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks Sunday, via El Espectador.

The figure came from a series of studies which showed that the criminal groups had the potential to exert larger-than-expected control over areas by forcing people from their land.

~snip~
The cable relays how the U.S. believed the Act faced serious problems relating to the establishment of the property rights of indigenous, peasant and Afro-Colombian communities. Furthermore, it had considerable doubts over the legitimacy of Incoder as a handling agency for the process due to its former director being enveloped in corruption allegations linking him to paramilitaries.

~snip~
However, one of the biggest obstacles to redistribution efforts remains the fear and intimidation utilized by armed groups in order to keep stolen land. Leaders representing the displaced claimants are frequently targeted by these groups, with seven already having been assassinated this year.

Read more: http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/15354-paramilitaries-controlled-10-of-colombias-land-wikileaks.html

[bertman]

1. More of the repercussions of our U.S. backing of dictatorial/fascist regimes in

Central and South America. I just read an article about the horror show that is Guatemala's mob style 'government'.

Thanks for posting this, Judi Lynn.

REC.

[Judi Lynn]

2. The Dark Side of Plan Colombia: How the U.S. is Subsidizing Death and Drug Trafficking on Stolen Lan

The Dark Side of Plan Colombia: How the U.S. is Subsidizing Death and Drug Trafficking on Stolen Lands
By Teo Ballvé, The Nation
Posted on June 2, 2009, Printed on June 3, 2009

~snip~
Macaco, whose real name is Carlos Mario Jiménez, was one of the bloodiest paramilitary commanders in Colombia's long-running civil war and has confessed to the murder of 4,000 civilians. He and his cohorts are also largely responsible for forcing 4.3 million Colombians into internal refugee status, the largest internally displaced population in the world after Sudan's. In May 2008, Macaco was extradited to the United States on drug trafficking and "narco-terrorism" charges. He is awaiting trial in a jail cell in Washington, DC.

Macaco turned himself in to authorities in late 2005 as part of a government amnesty program that requires paramilitary commanders to surrender their ill-gotten assets -- including lands obtained through violent displacement. Macaco offered up Coproagrosur as part of the deal.

But the attorney general's notice made no mention that Coproagrosur had received a grant in 2004 from the US Agency for International Development (USAID). That grant -- paid for through Plan Colombia, the multibillion-dollar US aid package aimed at fighting the drug trade -- appears to have put drug-war dollars into the hands of a notorious paramilitary narco-trafficker, in possible violation of federal law. Colombia's paramilitaries are on the State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations. USAID's due diligence process "did not fail," according to an official response from the US embassy there, because Macaco was not officially listed among Coproagrosur's owners.

~snip~
In addition to the $161,000 granted to Coproagrosur, USAID also awarded $650,000 to Gradesa, a palm company with two accused paramilitary-linked narco-traffickers on its board of directors. A third palm company, Urapalma, also accused of links with paramilitaries, nearly won approval for a grant before its application stalled because of missing paperwork. Critics say such grants defeat the antidrug mission of Plan Colombia.

More:
http://www.alternet.org/world/140408/the_dark_side_of_plan_colombia%3A_how_the_u.s._is_subsidizing_death_and_drug_trafficking_on_stolen_lands

[Judi Lynn]

3. Massacres and paramilitary land seizures behind the biofuel revolution·

Massacres and paramilitary land seizures behind the biofuel revolution·
Colombian farmers driven out as armed groups profit
· Lucrative 'green' crop less risky to grow than coca
Oliver Balch in Mutat and Rory Carroll in Cartagena
The Guardian, Tuesday 5 June 2007 00.07 BST

Armed groups in Colombia are driving peasants off their land to make way for plantations of palm oil, a biofuel that is being promoted as an environmentally friendly source of energy.

Surging demand for "green" fuel has prompted rightwing paramilitaries to seize swaths of territory, according to activists and farmers. Thousands of families are believed to have fled a campaign of killing and intimidation, swelling Colombia's population of 3 million displaced people and adding to one of the world's worst refugee crises after Darfur and Congo.

Several companies were collaborating by falsifying deeds to claim ownership of the land, said Andres Castro, the general secretary of Fedepalma, the national federation of palm oil producers.

"As a consequence of the development of palm by secretive business practices and the use of threats, people have been displaced and have claimed land for themselves," he said. His claim was backed up by witnesses and groups such as Christian Aid and the National Indigenous Organisation of Colombia.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jun/05/colombia.energy