Ex-governor admits ties to paramilitary drug lord

[Judi Lynn]

Ex-governor admits ties to paramilitary drug lord
Thursday, 21 October 2010 07:26 Adriaan Alsema



The former governor of the south-east Colombian Guaviare department admitted having done business with "Cuchillo," one of the country's most important drug lords and leader of paramilitary group ERPAC.

According to several Colombian media, former Governor Oscar Lopez Cadavid told the Supreme Court that "Cuchillo" was his business partner in a mining company at the time the paramilitary leader officially demobilized.

However, Lopez said he spent no more than three months in the company and never met with his paramilitary partner.

Lopez Cadavid is one of dozens of Colombian politicians implicated in deals with the now-demobilized paramilitary organization AUC, held responsible for the murder of more than 20,000 Colombians and until its official dismantling in 2006 considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.

http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/12492-ex-governor-admits-ties-to-paramilitary-drug-lord.html

http://www.cipcol.org.nyud.net:8090/images/cuchillo.jpg

"Cuchillo"

Pedro Oliveiro Guerrero, “Cuchillo�

•A member of narco and paramilitary organizations since the 1980s, he was a top lieutenant of Miguel Arroyave, head of the AUC’s Centauros Bloc, which dominated the eastern plains and even had a presence in Bogotá. “Cuchillo” (the name means “knife,” apparently the way he prefers to kill victims) participated in the plot that killed Arroyave in September 2004.
•His “Heroes of Guaviare” front participated in a demobilization ceremony in April 2006, but he soon abandoned the process and became a fugitive.
•His area of operations overlaps much of “Loco” Barrera’s. It includes Meta, Guaviare and Vichada.
•The current governor of Guaviare department, Óscar de Jesús López, is under investigation for including Cuchillo as a business partner in a mining company in 2006.

http://www.cipcol.org/?cat=76