Colombia investigates the killing of five indigent residents of Bogota

[Judi Lynn]

Colombia investigates the killing of five indigent residents of Bogota
1 day ago

BOGOTA, Colombia — Bogota's mayor says he's concerned that five indigent people found shot to death in the Colombian capital may have been the targets of social cleansing.

The victims, ranging in age from 18 to 35, were found before dawn in the Ciudad Bolivar slum of the capital.

Bogota Mayor Samuel Moreno says the victims evidently earned money by collecting cans for recycling and were known as drug users.

He calls the killings unsettling and says it would be terrible if it's a case of social cleansing.

Bogota police are offering a reward of $8,000 US for information leading to the capture of those responsible.

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5ihuzIrQtbvBOx53eD0hNWzl4KqzA

Unbelievable, isn't it?

[Judi Lynn]

1. Colombia has the largest number of displaced people in this hemisphere.

It's size, and number is second in the world, only superceded by the humanitarian crisis in the Sudan.

We know who's doing it and why. There's more than enough already written on the subject. Colombia has a reputation concerning vast numbers of displaced persons being driven out of their homes in order for the state to claim their land, driven away by paramilitaries (death squads, torturers, mass murderers connected to the Colombian military).

Massacres and Paramilitary Land Seizures in Colombia

by Oliver Balch and Rory Carroll

Global Research, June 5, 2007
Guardian

Armed groups in Colombia are driving peasants off their land to make way for plantations of palm oil, a biofuel that is being promoted as an environmentally friendly source of energy.

Surging demand for "green" fuel has prompted rightwing paramilitaries to seize swaths of territory, according to activists and farmers. Thousands of families are believed to have fled a campaign of killing and intimidation, swelling Colombia's population of 3 million displaced people and adding to one of the world's worst refugee crises after Darfur and Congo.

Several companies were collaborating by falsifying deeds to claim ownership of the land, said Andres Castro, the general secretary of Fedepalma, the national federation of palm oil producers.

"As a consequence of the development of palm by secretive business practices and the use of threats, people have been displaced and have claimed land for themselves," he said. His claim was backed up by witnesses and groups such as Christian Aid and the National Indigenous Organisation of Colombia.

The revelations tarnish what has been considered an economic and environmental success story. The fruit of the palm oil tree produces a vegetable oil also used in cooking, employs 80,000 people, and is increasingly being turned into biofuel.

"Four years ago Colombia had 172,000 hectares of palm oil," President Alvaro Uribe told the Guardian. "This year we expect to finish with nearly 400,000."

"Four years ago Colombia didn't produce a litre of biofuel. Today, because of our administration, Colombia produces 1.2m litres per day." Investment in new installations would continue to boost production, he added.

However the lawlessness created by four decades of insurgency in the countryside has enabled rightwing paramilitaries, and also possibly leftwing rebels, to join the boom. Unlike coca, the armed groups' main income source, palm oil is a legal crop and therefore safe from state-backed eradication efforts.

Farmers who have been forced off their land at gunpoint say that in many cases their banana groves and cattle grazing fields were turned into palm oil plantations. Luis Hernandez (not his real name) fled his 170-hectare plot outside the town of Mutata in Antioquia province nine years ago after his father-in-law and several neighbours were gunned down. When he and other survivors were able to return recently, they found the land was in the hands of a local palm producer.

"The company tells me that it has legal papers for the land, but I don't know how that can be, as I have land titles dating back 20 years," said Mr Hernandez. He suspects palm companies collaborated with the paramilitaries. "I don't know if there was an official agreement between them, but a relationship of some sort definitely exists."

More:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=5880

[Judi Lynn]

2. Here's a case of displacement which is still too close in time, implicating Colombia's President:

El Aro massacre
Location municipality of Ituango, Antioquia
Colombia
Date October 22, 1997

El Aro massacre (Spanish: Masacre del Aro) was a massacre in Colombia occurred on October 22, 1997 in the municipality of Ituango, Department of Antioquia. 15 leftist supporters of the FARC were massacred by paramilitary groups with support of members of the Colombian army. Perpetrators also violated women, burned down 43 houses, stole cattle and forcedly displaced 900 people.<1><2>

The Third Section of the Council of State determined that the Colombian government was responsible for the massacre and ordered to pay damages to the victims' families.<3>

On November 23, 2008, Colombian President, Alvaro Uribe announced that there was a witness to the massacre that was involving him as one of the masterminds along General Ospina, General Rosso and paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso. The witness, a former member of the paramilitary group later identified as Francisco Enrique Villalba Hernández<4> said that "Uribe had thank them for the massacre because they had help freed 6 hostages, including one of his cousins and that Uribe's brother had lend 20 paramilitary members for the crime" and that they had met in the town of La Cuacana to plan the massacre.<5><6>

Uribe answered that these declaration showed inconsistencies because involved an official in the supposed meeting that had died months prior to the events. Uribe mentioned that "since 1988 public officials knows where I've been, where I have slept and with whom I have met". Uribe was Governor of Antioquia between 1995 and 1997 during which a program of legal paramilitary groups known as CONVIVIR were formed to combat the guerrillas.<7><8>

Uribe was also questioned by congressman Gustavo Petro about the use of a Department of Antioquia government owned helicopter that was allegedly used to transport the paramilitaries to the region of El Aro to perpetrate the massacre. Uribe denied these claims saying that all the helicopters had a recorded flight history. He was also questioned a beeper message intercepted to one of the paramilitaries involved in the massacre that said "Te recuerdo llamar al Gobernador. Preséntame y que yo lo visito en la tarde" (I remind you to call the governor. Introduce me and I will visit him in the afternoon). Uribe defended himself from these claims saying that the criminals could have used the term "governor" as a slang to refer to anything.<9>

Imprisoned paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso affirmed that these people had died in combat and were not civilians, but guerrillas. Mancuso was sentenced to serve 40 years in prison for the massacre.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Aro_massacre

(The date "23, 2008" should be "APRIL 23, 2008" according to records. It's an error.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Uribe investigated over 1997 massacre
April 23rd, 2008 ·

Colombian President Álvaro Uribe denied Wednesday charges he helped plan a 1997 massacre by right-wing paramilitaries, while confirming that his role was being examined in an official investigation.

Uribe said the charges were lodged by a former member of the paramilitary, whom he described as a disgruntled convict with an axe to grind.

“He said I was at a meeting with him … along with various generals in La Caucana, taking part in planning the massacre at Aro,” in which 15 people were killed, Uribe told Colombian broadcaster Radio Caracol.

But Uribe said he had proof of his innocence of the charges, and lashed out at justice officials for following up the accusations against “honorable people.”

The Supreme Court investigation into links between politicians and the right wing paramilitary group United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia has been going on since 2006, since documents were discovered on the computer of a leader of the group which indicated the existence of alliances with legislators, governors and other officials.

The investigation has linked 62 current and former politicians to the paramilitaries; 31 have been jailed so far.

More:
http://colombiareports.com/2008/04/23/uribe-investigated-over-1997-massacre/

[Judi Lynn]

3. More on El Aro Massacre, testimony by former paramilitary (death squad) member:

Posted by Justice for Colombia | Date 27 April 2008

Mounting Evidence of President’s Involvement in Massacre

~snip~
'El Aro', Alvaro Uribe's Massacre?

• On 22nd October 1997, according to testimony from Mr Villalba, Governor Alvaro Uribe, accompanied by his brother Santiago, attended a meeting at a ranch in the La Caucana area of Antioquia department. Also present at the meeting were several senior military officers from the 4th Brigade of the Colombian Army (including General Carlos Ospina, the commander of the Brigade) and a group of paramilitary death squad commanders. These commanders included Carlos Castano, the then national leader of the paramilitaries, and his deputy Salvatore Mancuso. Also present was a man named Jose Ardila, a senior leader of the private vigilante groups known as CONVIVIR that legally operated in Antioquia at that time after Governor Uribe had promoted their formation.

At the meeting the men planned an operation to attack the village of El Aro in the north of Antioquia department. Residents of the village were allegedly sympathetic to a local leftwing guerrilla unit and, most importantly for those present, and especially for the Uribe brothers, the guerrillas were thought to be holding eight wealthy ranchers nearby that they had kidnapped for ransom. Agreements were also reached that the Army would remove their checkpoints and roadblocks from the region on the day of the attack.

At the meeting Santiago Uribe, who was at the time (according to Villalba and several other sources) managing his own paramilitary death squad, committed 20 of his own men to participate in the El Aro operation. Governor Alvaro Uribe told those assembled to "do whatever you have to do".

• Human Rights Watch has documented what happened three days later:

"While soldiers maintained a perimeter around El Aro, an estimated 25 paramilitaries entered the village, rounded up the residents and executed four people in the village plaza...Storeowner Aurelio Areiza and his family were told to slaughter a steer and prepare food from their shelves to feed the paramilitaries on October 25.... The next day, Areiza was taken to a nearby house, tied to a tree, tortured and killed. Witnesses say the paramilitaries gouged out his eyes and cut off his tongue and testicles...Over the five days they remained in El Aro, the paramilitaries executed at least eleven people, including three children, burned forty-seven of the sixty-eight houses, including a pharmacy, a church, and the telephone exchange, looted stores, destroyed the pipes that fed the homes potable water, and forced most of the residents to flee. When they left on October 30, the paramilitaries took with them over 1,000 head of cattle along with goods looted from homes and stores. Afterwards, thirty other people were reported to be forcibly disappeared."

More:
http://www.justiceforcolombia.org/?link=newsPage&story=296

[Zorro]

4. If you "know who's doing it and why"

Then why don't you report it and collect the reward?

[Judi Lynn]

5. Colombia: riot police attack indigenous land occupation

Colombia: riot police attack indigenous land occupation
Submitted by Bill Weinberg on Tue, 06/17/2008 - 20:25.
The National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC) reports nine were injured June 13 when a unit of the National Police Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (ESMAD) attacked more than 300 indigenous protesters participating in a land occupation at Hacienda la Emperatriz, near the indigenous reserve of Huellas Caloto, Cauca department. The ONIC statement said the nine protesters were receiving medical attention at a clinic in Toez village, but the attack had not broken the occupation, and urgently called for intervention from human rights monitors.

The occupation is part of a campaign dubbed "Liberar la Madre Tierra" (Liberate Mother Earth), to recover lands from big farms and ranches which have illegally encroached on traditional indigenous communities. ONIC said "we reject this systematic advance of submission and slavery of our people and aggression on our territory." (ONIC statement via DHColombia, June 14)

Aida Quilcue of the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC) told the online journal Actualidad Étnica that the Madre Tierra campaign is legal under Colombia's Rural Development Law, which calls for the restoration of usurped traditional lands. She said Nasa indigenous protesters would remain in possession of the hacienda.

National Police Col. William Montezuma told Noticiero CMI news service that the protesters used improvised explosives, wounding five ESMAD men and damaging crops on the hacienda. (Actualidad Étnica, June 14)

A CRIC statement denied this charge, as well as recent Defense Ministry testimony before the Colombian senate that the indigenous protesters were in league with the FARC guerillas. It accused the ESMAD of violating constitutional guarantees of indigenous autonomy by invading Nasa and Guambiano reserves in Cauca without the consent of local authorities, and harassing residents.

The CRIC statement said that on June 14, a group of local youth began a cross-country march through Cauca's indigenous reserves to publicize the issue of land recovery. The march began at the Nasa community of Tierradentro and is to end at Pueblo Nuevo, in Sat Tama Kiwe reserve, Caldono municipality. (CRIC statement, June 16 via Indymedia Colombia)

http://ww4report.com/node/5650

[Bacchus39]

6. murder in Bogota, Colombia unbelievable??? not at all

or in any other large city in latin america.