(UK Foreign Office Minister) Howells does U-turn on Colombia

[struggle4progress]

March 28, 2008
by René Lavanchy

FOREIGN Office Minister Kim Howells has backed down from accusing the pressure group Justice for Colombia of links to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) army, after trade unions called for him to be sacked.

Mr Howells, who was denounced recently for appearing in photos with Colombian soldiers accused of killing trade unionists, had told the Western Mail newspaper: “This has all been created by the organisation Justice for Colombia, which supports FARC, a band of gangsters and drug smugglers.”

But after unions rounded on him and demanded an apology or resignation, he wrote a letter to JFC president and TUC general secretary Brendan Barber, saying: “I do not believe Justice for Colombia or British trade unions support the FARC” and promising to inform the Colombian government.

The letter emerged at a meeting last week of Labour’s National Executive Committee, where Gordon Brown spoke to members about Mr Howells’ comments and said he now regretted them ...

http://www.tribunemagazine.co.uk/2008/03/28/howells-does-u-turn-on-colombia/

[Judi Lynn]

1. Here's one of the photos of this sack of ####:

Kim Howells with troops of the High Mountain Battalion of the Colombian
Army, including General Mario Montoya (behind him and left of Howells)
Anger at minister's photo with Colombian army unit linked to trade unionist killings· Picture of official visit posted on FO website
· Calls to end UK aid over human rights abuses
Seumas Milne The Guardian, Monday February 11 2008

It might have been any one of hundreds of stiffly posed official photos taken on ministerial visits to military establishments around the world and then duly posted and ignored on government websites - if it had not been for the attention of human rights campaigners.

Surrounding the smiling face of the Foreign Office minister Kim Howells in a picture taken in the Colombian region of Sumapaz are a general linked to paramilitary death squads and soldiers of a notorious unit of the Colombian army accused, including by Amnesty International, of torturing and killing trade unionists.

The photograph, taken in a military base and posted on the Foreign Office website, was yesterday greeted with outrage by Labour parliamentarians and trade union leaders. Howells is pictured with the High Mountain Brigades, a unit held responsible for the killing of trade union activists, peasants and anti-narcotics police during the past three years.

Behind him stand the Colombian defence minister, Juan Santos, and General Mario Montoya, head of the Colombian army, reports of whose collaboration with paramilitary death squads and drug traffickers and links with disappearances and killings - including leaked CIA reports - were cited last year by US congressional leaders as part of the reason for the suspension of tens of millions of dollars of US military aid to the south American regime. The Colombian government denies the accusations.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/11/colombia.humanrights

Grotesque maggots. It's good the dipstick was compelled to apologize for his horrendous lack of intellingence and decency.

Some asshole, walking between Colombia's Uribe, and his "Defense" Minister, Juan Santos: