Colombia: Uribe's Presidential Legacy Haunted by Scandals

[Judi Lynn]

Colombia: Uribe's Presidential Legacy Haunted by Scandals
By JOHN OTIS / BOGOTÁ John Otis / BogotÁ – 20 mins ago

When he stepped down in August after eight years as Colombia's President, Alvaro Uribe gave up the keys to the national palace, the private jet and the other perks of high office. But Uribe also surrendered his Teflon coating.

Uribe is hailed as a modern-day savior by many Colombians for orchestrating a military offensive that severely weakened Marxist rebels, making the country much safer and opening the door to an economic revival. Screwups - and there were many - were forgiven and forgotten. Had he not been banned by the Constitution from running in this year's presidential election, Uribe would likely have breezed to a third term. He bowed out with an 80% job approval rating. (Read "Colombia Prepares for Life After Uribe.")

But sans presidential sash and the aura it conveyed, Uribe has been scampering to defend himself and former aides amid accusations of skullduggery reminiscent of Watergate. Allegations include illegal payoffs, wiretapping and campaign-finance shenanigans. Several members of Uribe's inner circle could end up behind bars if convicted on charges based on the allegations. The former President further stained his image last month when he helped convince the Panamanian government to grant political asylum to his former intelligence chief, MarÍa del Pilar Hurtado, who was to be a key witness in the most serious scandal of the Uribe years.

During Uribe's second term, Hurtado briefly headed Colombia's version of the FBI, known as the DAS. In 2009, DAS agents were caught eavesdropping on opposition politicians, journalists, human-rights activists and, incredibly, Supreme Court justices. Uribe's greasing the skids for Hurtado's getaway prompted howls of protest. Jaime Arrubla, the president of Colombia's Supreme Court and one of the people spied upon, rightly noted that political asylum is supposed to protect "people facing political persecution, not the persecutors themselves."

More:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20101210/wl_time/08599203576500

[Judi Lynn]

1. Disappearances in Colombia on a Scale Never Imagined

Disappearances in Colombia on a Scale Never Imagined
Lisa Haugaard Executive director, Latin America Working Group
Posted: December 9, 2010 11:36 AM

"Disappearances." When you mention the word in the Latin American context, most people think of Argentina, where 30,000 people were disappeared during the dirty war, or Chile, where 3,000 people were killed or disappeared. But the magnitude of the tragedy in Colombia may be even greater.

More than 51,000 people are registered by the Colombian government as disappeared or missing. Those who were forcibly disappeared -- what we might think of as political disappearances -- range in official statistics from over one quarter of that total to more than 32,000, as detailed in the report, Breaking the Silence: In Search of Colombia's Disappeared, just released for Human Rights Day by the Latin America Working Group Education Fund (LAWGEF) and the U.S. Office on Colombia (USOC). But the real total is likely to be much higher, as new and old cases are entered into a consolidated government database. And many cases are never registered at all.

~snip~
Who disappeared them? All armed actors, including the Colombian armed forces, right-wing paramilitaries and left-wing guerrillas, are responsible for forced disappearances, but the paramilitary role in this crime is especially pronounced. Paramilitaries often destroyed the bodies of their victims, burning them or cutting them with chain saws, sometimes alive, burying the bodies in unmarked graves on ranches, riverbanks or cemeteries, or throwing them into rivers.

The highest number of forced disappearances in Colombia occurred from 2000 to 2003, the first four years of U.S.-funded Plan Colombia, according to Colombian government statistics. Many of those were committed by paramilitaries, but the U.S.-trained and -funded military aided and abetted these abuses. Another gruesome kind of forced disappearance escalated from 2005 through 2008. All over Colombia, army soldiers detained people, then killed them and dressed them in guerrilla uniforms and claimed them as killed in combat. Cases involving more than 3,000 people disappeared and killed allegedly by soldiers are now winding their way slowly through Colombia's civilian justice system. Those U.S. policymakers, military leaders and analysts who paint a pretty picture of Colombia's security progress in the past decade might want to search their souls about this somber cost. And remember it the next time the U.S. government considers escalating aid and training to another abusive military force.

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-haugaard/disappearances-in-colombi_b_794054.html

[Demeter]

2. Uribe's Legacy DEFINED by Scandals and CRIMES

and he's not the first, nor the last. Nor is this condition confined to 3rd world, developing countries...