Álvaro Uribe, Lord of the Shadows... and of Los Pinos

[Joanne98]

Colombia’s Virginia Vallejo is a peculiar woman. Born in 1949, blessed with remarkable beauty, she has been a television host, model, actress and reporter. In July of 2006, a DEA airplane took her from her native country to testify in the United States in the trial of the Rodríguez Orejuela brothers. She was also a key witness in the murder of a presidential candidate, and in the Palace of Justice massacre.

Distinguished more for her love life than for her professional qualifications, Virginia was a true diva. Courted by men of power and money, in 1982 she fell deeply in love with another singular celebrity: drug trafficker Pablo Escobar, head of the Medellín cartel. For more than five years, she was his lover.

In the heat of their intimacy, the television host became deeply familiar with her beloved capo’s life and works – and also those of many of his friends, including important politicians. She thus found out about the strong bonds between drugs and the current president of Colombia, Álvaro Uribe.

After Pablo Escobar’s death, Vallejo kept quiet for 20 years. Finally, in 2007, she published Amando a Pablo (“Loving Pablo”), a scandalous book – not because of the romantic adventures she relates, but because it presents a dramatic X-ray of the links between drugs and politics in Colombia.

Exiled in Miami, she declared last year to the newspaper El País that “the narco-state Escobar dreamed of in Colombia is more real than ever.” According to her, “drug traffickers prospered in Colombia not because they were geniuses, but because presidents were sold very cheaply.”

Virginia Vallejo claims that Pablo Escobar idolized Álvaro Uribe. When the man who is now president was director of Civil Aviation, he granted dozens of licenses for runways and hundreds of permits for planes and helicopters, on which the drug trade’s infrastructure was built. “Pablo used to say,” she told the Spanish newspaper, “that if it weren’t for that blessed little boy, we would have to swim to Miami to get drugs to the gringos.”

http://www.narconews.com/Issue51/article3036.html

[Joanne98]

1. House Cleaning in Colombia

By Charlie Hardy,
Posted on Mon Mar 24th, 2008 at 04:01:33 PM EST

Today I swept and mopped the floor. I used scouring powder to clean the bathroom sink, toilet and shower. I did what is called in Spanish “limpieza” or “cleaning.”

But when I heard the word “limpieza” yesterday I shuddered. The person saying the word was coming from Colombia and was speaking about what he felt was necessary to bring peace to the country.

He said that it wouldn’t have mattered to him if Ingrid Betancourt had been among those who died in Colombia’s recent attack on a FARC-EP encampment in Ecuador. There were now twenty less people who could cause problems in Colombia. It would not have mattered if all the FARC’s hostages were there. If they had died, their deaths would have been worth getting rid of the guerillas.

He said that a “limpieza” of Colombia was what the country needed.

Continued>>
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2008/3/24/16133/1443


It was not the first time I had heard the word “limpieza” from a Colombian. On another occasion I was told that the paramilitaries, whom the Colombian government has supported through the years, were good. “Oh,” the person said, “they have their programs of ‘limpieza’ but those are necessary.”

[Peace Patriot]

2. We need a housecleaning all right--of Uribe, Bush and their ilk!

Of course I mean a peaceful one. Democracy in action. Ladies, get out your brooms! Men, get your hoses! Phee--ew, what a terrible smell!

[Judi Lynn]

3. This is a book which MUST be read. Not only does it refute Uribe, it refutes the scum who befriends

him, as it lays bare what this monster has realy been doing.

If anyone doubts a mere "mistress" has the ability to tell the truth about Uribe, please remember that the U.S. Defense Department had a report on him long, LONG ago, in 1991, with very BAD implications:

U.S. INTELLIGENCE LISTED COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT URIBE AMONG
"IMPORTANT COLOMBIAN NARCO-TRAFFICKERS" IN 1991

Then-Senator "Dedicated to Collaboration with the Medellín Cartel at High Government Levels"


Confidential DIA Report Had Uribe Alongside Pablo Escobar, Narco-Assassins

Uribe "Worked for the Medellín Cartel" and was a "Close Personal Friend of Pablo Escobar"

Washington, D.C., 1 August 2004 - Then-Senator and now President Álvaro Uribe Vélez of Colombia was a "close personal friend of Pablo Escobar" who was "dedicated to collaboration with the Medellín cartel at high government levels," according to a 1991 intelligence report from U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) officials in Colombia. The document was posted today on the website of the National Security Archive, a non-governmental research group based at George Washington University.

Uribe's inclusion on the list raises new questions about allegations that surfaced during Colombia's 2002 presidential campaign. Candidate Uribe bristled and abruptly terminated an interview in March 2002 when asked by Newsweek reporter Joseph Contreras about his alleged ties to Escobar and his associations with others involved in the drug trade. Uribe accused Contreras of trying to smear his reputation, saying that, "as a politician, I have been honorable and accountable."

The newly-declassified report, dated 23 September 1991, is a numbered list of "the more important Colombian narco-traffickers contracted by the Colombian narcotic cartels for security, transportation, distribution, collection and enforcement of narcotics operations." The document was released by DIA in May 2004 in response to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by the Archive in August 2000.

The source of the report was removed by DIA censors, but the detailed, investigative nature of the report -- the list corresponds with a numbered set of photographs that were apparently provided with the original -- suggests it was probably obtained from Colombian or U.S. counternarcotics personnel. The document notes that some of the information in the report was verified "via interfaces with other agencies."

President Uribe -- now a key U.S. partner in the drug war -- "was linked to a business involved in narcotics activities in the United States" and "has worked for the Medellín cartel," the narcotics trafficking organization led by Escobar until he was killed by Colombian government forces in 1993. The report adds that Uribe participated in Escobar's parliamentary campaign and that as senator he had "attacked all forms of the extradition treaty" with the U.S.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB131/index.htm

[Judi Lynn]

4. New item from today: Human rights groups accuse Colombian government of endangering activists

Human rights groups accuse Colombian government of endangering activists

The Associated Press
Wednesday, March 26, 2008

BOGOTA, Colombia: Human rights groups accused the administration of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe on Wednesday of endangering the lives of activists by suggesting they are linked to leftist rebels.

Directors of Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International USA, Refugees International, Human Rights First and 18 other groups demanded in a public letter that Uribe do more to protect human rights advocates and trade union members following a wave of killings earlier this month.

At least four people involved in a recent national march to protest paramilitary death squad violence were killed by the far-right groups, and dozens more threatened with death, the letter said.

It also accused close Uribe adviser Jose Obdulio Gaviria of jeopardizing the lives of people who took part in the march by suggesting it was organized by the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.

"Baseless comments such as these are profoundly damaging to Colombian democracy and human rights, and place those against whom they are made in direct danger of violence," the letter said. It urged Uribe to "publicly disavow statements by Gaviria and others that linked the protest organizers to guerrillas."

More:
http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=11448033