Reply #20: Who knows how the majority would vote, if the death squads (euphemistically called paramilitaries) [View All]

[Judi Lynn]

STAYED OUT of the voting places! There are more than enough reports on their heavy presence there to convince anyone, once he sees the evidence:

COLOMBIA: "Mark Him on the Ballot - The One Wearing Glasses"
By Constanza Vieira

~snip~
The odd thing was that in both the 2002 and 2006 elections, despite the fact that the villagers had already decided to vote for Uribe, the far-right paramilitaries, who had committed a number of murders since 1998, when they appeared in the region that was previously dominated by the leftwing guerrillas, pressured the local residents to vote for Uribe anyway.

The paramilitaries did not kill people to pressure the rest to vote for Uribe, as they did in other communities, but merely used "threats," said L.

"If you don't vote for Uribe, you know what the consequences will be," the villagers were told ominously.

And on election day, they breathed down voters’ necks: "This is the candidate you’re going to vote for. You’re going to put your mark by this one. The one wearing glasses," they would say, pointing to Uribe’s photo on the ballot, L. recalled.

"One (of the paramilitaries) was on the precinct board, another one was standing next to the table, and another was a little way off, all of them watching to see if you voted for Uribe," she added, referring to the less than subtle way that the death squads commanded by drug traffickers and allies of the army ensured that L.’s village voted en masse for the current president in both elections.

"We form part of a municipality where there is corruption, from the mayor to town councillors, the police, the army and the justice officials -- in a word, everyone. They are just one single corrupt mass. So what are you supposed to do?" said L., who added that the paramilitaries "control everything."

More:
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42290

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So, if the right-wing decides against bribing the senators again this time to secure Uribe's re-election, and puts it up to the vote of the people, there will still be the death squads hovering over the voting booths! In the past, they have been reported actually going right into the booths themselves WITH the voters to help them vote!