Saw killer gets 44-year term

[Judi Lynn]

Saw killer gets 44-year term
Agence France-Presse October 12, 2010


BOGOTA -- A former Colombian army officer was sentenced Monday to 44 years in prison for his role in the deaths of more than 245 civilians, many of whom were cut to pieces with power saw, officials said.

Retired major Alirio Antonio Urena received the sentence for killings systematically carried out against the local population of the town of Trujillo in western Colombia between 1986 and 1994.

At the time, Urena was a commander in Colombia's Valle de Cauca state of an army brigade with ties to right-wing paramilitaries.

http://www.theprovince.com/news/killer+gets+year+term/3656665/story.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Army beast goes into the cage

Army beast goes into the cage

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

A former Colombian army major has been jailed for 44 years for his role in the deaths of more than 245 civilians. Many were cut to pieces with a power saw.
Alirio Antonio Urena was involved in the systematic killing of people around the Valle de Cauca state town of Trujillo between 1986 and 1994.

He was then commander of a brigade with ties to right-wing paramilitaries, who actually carried out most of the killings.

The victims were accused of collaborating with left-wing rebels against the army, though the paramilitaries are also tied closely to drug traffickers.

The dead included a popular priest and political organizer. He was decapitated and castrated.

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?we_cat=6&art_id=103760&sid=29904806&con_type=1&d_str=20101013&fc=2

[Judi Lynn]

2. Same story, German translation:

Ex-military in Colombia sentenced to 44 years in prison
(AFP) - 18 hours

Bogotá - for participation in the murder of more than 245 civilians have been sentenced a former Major in Colombia to 44 years in prison. Alirio Antonio Urena was sentenced for his role in the systematic murder of civilians in the western city of Trujillo in the years 1986 to 1994, the Government informed.

Urena then commanded an army brigade in the state of Cauca with close ties to right-wing paramilitaries who were responsible, according to the prosecutor for the mass murder in Trujillo. About the victims had been saying that they had collaborated with leftist rebels.

The paramilitaries mutilated the corpses of the victims often beyond recognition, in many cases they were cut with chainsaws. The victims included the popular and politically active priests Tiberio Fernández. His body was castrated and beheaded in the Cauca River found. The verdict against Urena was the first in the fall of the systematic killings in Trujillo. First, Urena and his co-defendants were acquitted in 1991 but the process was reopened.

In another method, seven Colombian soldiers who were also sentenced to imprisonment. A court in Villavicencio, about 100 kilometers south of Bogota was she guilty in July 2007, a man kidnapped and murdered have they falsely represented as fighters of the leftist FARC rebels. This phenomenon is in Colombia as "falso positivo known. The Colombian Army is accused of repeatedly kill innocent bystanders, then they pose as rebels in order to book the acts as a success in the battle against insurgents can. The exact punishment for the seven men sentenced to be published in November.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jG0IWPlT5J47PlfZE7KngFczKumA?docId=CNG.d7922d882c696956a9fe7939c45c1dc9.441

[naaman fletcher]

3. Glad to see.

That Uribe-Santos continue to bring murderers to justice.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Good one! n/t

[naaman fletcher]

5. thanks

its clear to see from your informative posts that the killers are being identified and brought so justice.

[Peace Patriot]

6. If anyone wonders why there are armed leftist guerrillas in Colombia, THIS is why.

...this, and other crimes like it, with the vast majority of the murders of innocent people in Colombia committed by the Colombian military itself (about half) and its closely tied rightwing paramilitaries (the other half). 92% of the murders of trade unionists and 75% of all extrajudicial murders are committed by these connected forces. In addition, the Colombian military has driven 5 MILLION peasant farmers from their lands, using tactics of terror and murder--the second worst human displacement crisis on earth--with tens of thousands of them fleeing into neighboring Ecuador and Venezuela.

I don't condone killing by either side in Colombia's 70-year civil war. What I do believe, however, is that the FARC guerrillas have cause to be considered a legitimate armed force in the face of such horrendous official crime which has not ceased. Some 40 trade unionists have been murdered so far this year alone. The above stats are from 2005. These official and semi-official murders are on-going. How can anyone choose sides in this conflict, as the U.S. has done, larding the Colombian military with $7 BILLION in military aid for KILLING COLOMBIANS--innocent and armed alike--and furthermore having the U.S. military IN the country, at numerous bases, advising, colluding, "training" and providing high tech assistance.

This is not right. The U.S. should be joining with other countries in Latin America to END this civil war, not aggravating it with U.S. military aid and war profiteering--and this furthermore provides the temptation for militarists here to USE this civil war to put war assets in place for ADDITIONAL aggression, should the Bushwhacks get back in power or should Bushwhack operatives in the Pentagon or elsewhere in the U.S. government contrive a war and try to inflict it on President Obama whether he wants it or not. That is the danger of the U.S. USING a civil war like this to expand the Pentagon's presence in Latin America (and other places).

The corrupt, failed, murderous U.S. "war on drugs" is the other excuse for U.S. military bases and U.S. military operations in Colombia, Honduras, El Salvador, Panama, the Dutch islands right off the coast of Venezuela, Costa Rica and other places, including the reconstitution of the U.S. 4th Fleet in the Caribbean. This is trouble, believe me. U.S. militarization of the Central America/Caribbean region is bad news. The MILITARY is being SUBSTITUTED for what should be POLICE forces in dealing with illicit traffic and criminal gangs. Criminals have been turned into "terrorists," with--I might add--virtually no impact on the drug traffic. So have the FARC guerrillas. Now they are "terrorists"--even though they are Colombians engaged in armed resistance to an extremely blood-soaked fascist establishment that has one of the worst human rights records on earth.

What is this U.S. militarization FOR?

COLOMBIA provides us with the "what for." It is for KILLING opponents of fascist government, including thousands of peaceful opponents, and EMPLOYING terror--not fighting it--to subdue opposition to poverty, to U.S. "free trade for the rich," to corporate rule. And HONDURAS is the latest example of this "what for." Hundreds of peaceful opponents of the U.S. supported fascist government of Honduras have been murdered in this second U.S. client state, with U.S. tax dollars supporting the military, a U.S. military base and other facilities in Honduras, and close Pentagon relations with that military. It's almost as if the U.S. wants to instigate armed resistance in Honduras, to justify killing more leftists. How much can people take? How many beheaded peaceful activists, and teachers shot in the head in front of their students, can people take, in Honduras, before they despair of peaceful change?

[Judi Lynn]

7. Such a small country, but so many teachers murdered in such a short time after the coup.

Simply mind-boggling. It was done in such a way it was clear they meant to use these killings as terrorism, to paralyze other Honduran citizens through the astounding brutality of the assassinations.

I'll never forget the images of that last assassination, by the two "Ninja"-dressed monsters who shot down at the teacher from the roof of another building, dropping him where he stood, or the teacher shot down in the street among other citizens, or the son of a teacher activist who was the first one to be murdered in broad daylight in a crowd. How odd it was they were able to single that young man out, and how odd the right-wing press carefully photo-shopped away the blood which was pouring from his head as his friends attempted to carry his body away from where the soldiers dropped him with sniper fire at the airport on that Sunday while they waited for Zelaya to try to land.

Teachers were even beaten, then tortured in prison after being rounded up and arrested, even middle aged female teachers with decades of teaching behind them.

The message is terrorism. They mean to send messages to the population through the viciousness, the coldness, the horror of their murders, as they have always intended to maintain control. The U.S. intends for them to maintain control, and collaborate with our military, and our State Department, to make the resources of their entire country available for whatever reason, at whatever time.

They mean to control their air bases, just as Rumsfeld informed the world, as forward operating locations, as "lily pads" from which they intend to be able to move in any direction, at any time against any country whose leader they intend to take out next, exactly as they have for countless generations. They intend to continue to control the Americas regardless of what the people themselves want and need desperately. How well we can remember Kissinger's dirty remark about the "irresponsibility" of Chileans in electing their first socialist President....

Damned sad.

Latin Americans are going to continue building their solidarity, regardless. They have learned from all the hardship. They are not going to be the perpetual victims, no matter how many Strangelove/Rumsfelds we've got in the bullpin. Brazil itself is around the size of the U.S. That's a whole lot of land, a whole lot of people, they will NOT be intimidated and exploited forever.

It's not going to last. Even the "Good Book" to which all the U.S. American politicians allude as the wellspring of their "faith" speaks about the advent of the time when good will overcome evil, the meek will inherit the earth, not the powerful, or the brutal scum and their lackies. It's all inevitable, bound to change. They can't keep the entire world prisoner to the greed and simple bad character of a twisted few.