Alleged assassin worked at US Embassy in Colombia

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Alleged assassin worked at US Embassy in Colombia
4/25/2007, 5:38 p.m. CDT
By TOBY MUSE
The Associated Press

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — A retired army colonel accused of conspiring to assassinate President Alvaro Uribe's most vocal critic worked for the U.S. Embassy two years ago.

Former Col. Julian Villate — now employed by Alabama-based coal producer Drummond Co. Inc. — was accused by Sen. Gustavo Petro Tuesday of trying to hire hit men in January to kill him.

U.S. Embassy spokesman Marshall Louis confirmed to The Associated Press on Wednesday that Villate was employed by the diplomatic post, Washington's second-largest after Baghdad, between Dec. 2004 and July 2005, when he resigned. Louis said he was not allowed to reveal what Villate did for the embassy, or why he resigned.

"Sen. Petro's accusations relate to events which occurred well after Villate's time at the embassy," Louis said.

Villate also was accused before his embassy job — when he was still in the military, in mid-2004 — of spying on leaders of Cali's public employees union in what the union described as an assassination plot. That scandal was widely publicized at the time, and remains under criminal investigation.



Read more: http://www.al.com/newsflash/regional/index.ssf?/base/international-0/1177541400232570.xml&storylist=alabamanews

[Judi Lynn]

1. More on the right-wing alleged assassin Villete who worked for the US embassy:

~snip~
Col. Julián Villate is a familiar name. He is a former U.S.-trained officer (Fort Leavenworth and the School of the Americas, where he was an instructor), who has headed a consulting / private security firm since retiring in 2004. The firm appears to specialize in helping companies embroiled in labor disputes.

Col. Villate is implicated in "Operation Dragon," an alleged assassination plot targeting a colleague of Sen. Petro's - opposition Sen. Alexánder López Maya - his companion Berenice Celeyta, a prominent Cali human-rights activist, and several other Cali-based union leaders who opposed the privatization of the local utility company.

According to the Associated Press piece, another of Col. Villate's clients is Drummond Co. Inc., the Alabama-based coal company that is currently facing a civil suit in U.S. federal court for allegedly paying paramilitaries to kill three union leaders in 2001.
(snip/...)

http://www.cipcol.org/archives/cat_human_rights.htm

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

Regarding the "Operation Dragon," mentioned in the article above:

OPERATION DRAGON
Terrorist Plan to assassinate opponents of the current administration discovered


Press Bulletin
by Congress Representative ALEXANDER LOPEZ
Bogotá, 27th August 2004


Two raids carried out by officers from the Technical Research Unit of the Attorney General’s office in Calì and Medellìn have led to the discovery that the Colombian Army supplied classified information to an international corporate consultancy expert in security investigations.

The connection was made through Lieutenant Colonel Julian Villate, military identity number 7217167. The purpose was to obtain precise details on the political positions, habits, activities and above all the vulnerability in the daily movements of opposition leaders who have death threats against them, including political, trade union and social movement leaders as well as human rights defenders.

It seems that the Fiscalìa found what amounts to a parallel intelligence network that operates not only with the collaboration of the Armyís 3rd Brigade, but also involves the Superintendent of Public Services, the management of Cali Municipal Corporation, EMCALI; the Intelligence Service of the National Police, SIPOL; the National Electrical Finance body, FEN; the Ministry of the Interior; the Administrative Security Department, DAS and the Cali Metropolitan Police.
(snip)

In the raid on apartment 301, Castle Buildings Number 8N-37 on 4th Avenue North in Calì, the investigators found a folder marked "SECRET" with 21 files inside. The manuscript had been forwarded on 24th May 2003 from Santiago de Calì by the MILITARY INTELIGENCE OF ARMY REGIONAL INTELLIGENCE No 3 to the colonel Central Director of Intelligence in Bogotá. The document was numbered internally under the reference: 093 CIME-RIME3-INT4-252.

Several mobile telephones were found as were hand written notes alluding to "Operation Dragon". Besides, the Fiscalìa found a black leather notebook that included 38 pages recording such information as the names, telephone numbers and addresses of individuals. There was a specific note on the campaign headquarters of Congressman ALEXANDER LOPEZ, which had a detailed description of the property.

The Fiscalìa raided this residence because it was explicitly mentioned in a secret report received by Congressmen that affirmed, amongst other things, the existence of a plan to assassinate the Congress Representative that would be carried out that same week and that a large sum of money had been paid to those due to execute the operation.
(snip)

The documents found in the raid corroborate that in effect there are parallel organisations contracted by the government to eliminate the political and social opposition in Colombia.
(snip/...)

http://www.lasc.ie/news/dragon.html

[Judi Lynn]

2. Colombian senator implicates U.S. firm

Colombian senator implicates U.S. firm
Employee part of assassination plot, he says

By Frank Bajak
The Associated Press
Posted April 26 2007

~snip~
Ramirez said Drummond hired Villate to break up the union at its Colombia operations, and that Villate also was involved in a 2004 plot to break up the public employees' union in the western city of Cali, where Uribe's government has sought to privatize the municipal utility.

Meanwhile, a separate plot to assassinate former domestic intelligence agency official Rafael Garcia, a key witness in both Drummond cases, was foiled this week by prison authorities, his lawyer said.

Garcia says he was present when Augusto Jimenez, the president of Drummond's Colombia operations, delivered a suitcase with $200,000 in U.S. dollars to a representative of regional paramilitary warlord Rodrigo Tovar Pupo, as payment for the murder of the top two union leaders at Drummond's La Loma mine.

Garcia also is a key witness in the case against his former boss, Jorge Noguera, who was chief of the domestic intelligence agency. Noguera was hand-picked for the job by Uribe after running his campaign in the state of Magdalena, where Drummond's Cienaga port is located.

Colombia is the world's most dangerous country for union organizing -- more than 800 trade unionists have been murdered in the country over the last six years, and almost all remain unsolved.
(snip/)

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/caribbean/sfl-acolomplot26apr26,0,6365396.story?coll=sfla-news-caribbean

[Judi Lynn]

3. Operation Dragon: SOA Instructor Involved in Assassination Plot

?Operation Dragon:? SOA Instructor Involved in Assassination Plot

by SOA Watch

From SOA Watch Newsletter, Fall 2005

?Operation Dragon? targets Colombian Congressman Alexander Lopez Maya, former President of the Sintraemcali labor union, Luis Hernandez, President of Sintraemcali, and Berenice Celeyta Alay?n, 1998 Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Human Rights Award Laureate

Whenever information surfaces about attacks against human rights activists in Latin America, the chances that the SOA is connected to the crime are high. Three Colombians have been targeted by an assassination plot known as ?Operation Dragon? for their work in support of the Sintraemcali labor union?s campaign against corruption and privatization of the Cali Municipal Corporation (Emcali), Colombia?s third largest public utility company. On August 23, 2004, Colombian Congressman Alexander Lopez Maya of Bogot? received a notice from an unnamed military official informing him that assassins had been paid to murder him, Luis Hernandez, President of the Sintraemcali labor union, and Ms. Berenice Celeyta Alay?n that week. Upon informing the Colombian Attorney General?s Office of the notice, its director authorized a raid conducted in the cities of Cali and Medill?n on August 25. The information confiscated from the home of an SOA graduate and former instructor revealed that this plot was part of a surveillance plan organized under the direction of Colombian military intelligence and involved private inter-national security organizations with ties to paramilitary groups.1

For several years, Sintraemcali has engaged in a highly contentious campaign against corruption and privatization of Emcali. On December 24, 2001, the national government announced its plan to privatize the company in an effort to stem what it claimed was inefficient distribution of its water, sewage, electrical and communications services. This effort received support from several regional and local politicians, as well as powerful business owners and national politicians, including Colombian President ?lvaro Uribe. However, the union claimed that the company was viable and its sale would only benefit well-connected owners at the expense of the workers and local population. Because of the union?s opposition, its leaders and members were accused of subversion and consistently harassed, threatened and even killed by police and military forces, as well as private security groups with alleged links to paramilitary groups. In addition, Representative Lopez received a hand written death threat letter on October 27, 2004, delivered to his Congressional office in Bogot?. In December, Ms. Celeyta returned her cell phone, issued by the Protection Program of the Ministry of the Interior, because of late-night phone calls in which she received threats and heard sounds of automatic weaponry being fired.

The August 25 raid in Cali took place at the residence of Lieutenant Colonel Julian Villate Leal, a highly decorated member of the Third Brigade of the Colombian Army, who received US military training and taught at the School of the Americas (SOA).2 There, police uncovered evidence that revealed the army had supplied classified information to the Consultar?a Integral Latinoamericana (CIL), a private international consulting firm specializing in the liquidation of assets of publicly-owned companies, and its associate, Seracis, a private security company. This information detailed the political positions, habits, activities and the daily movements of Ms. Celeyta, Representative Lopez Maya, Mr. Hernandez and over 175 union leaders, human rights workers and members of the political opposition. According to evidence gathered, the purpose of this plan was to ?impede or neutralize the irregular actions of Sintraemcali? and ?research the personal security vulnerability? of those opposing privatization.

In SOA grad Lt. Colonel Villate?s possession were names, phone numbers and addresses of those under surveillance, as well as highly sensitive information concerning detailed protection measures granted to those under surveillance by the Protection Program of the Colombian Ministry of the Interior. Lt. Colonel Villate?s notes also reveal the existence of an intelligence network through direct correspondence involving a nexus of private companies, private security groups and public security forces, including: the management of Emcali, the Superintendent of Public Services, the Third Brigade of the Colombian Army, the Intelligence Service of the National Police (SIPOL), the National Electrical Finance body (FEN), the Colombian Ministry of the Interior, the Administrative Security Department (DAS), and the Cali Metropolitan Police Department. 3
(snip/...)

http://www.soaw.org/article.php?id=1279

[Judi Lynn]

4. US Military presence in Colombia background: "U.S. Moves Closer to Colombia's War"

Published on Friday, February 7, 2003 by the Washington Post
U.S. Moves Closer to Colombia's War
Involvement of Special Forces Could Trigger New Wave of Guerrilla Violence

by Scott Wilson

SARAVENA, Colombia -- The arrival of U.S. Special Forces trainers in this battered town last month signaled the beginning of a change that gives the United States more direct military involvement in Colombia's long civil war and could lead the country's two leftist guerrilla armies to broaden attacks against U.S. targets.

Late last month, the smaller of the two Marxist-oriented guerrilla movements, the National Liberation Army, kidnapped two journalists, a Briton and an American, in this oil-rich region of eastern Colombia, saying the province had become a "war zone declared by the North American government and the Colombian state."

Although meant as an explanation for the abduction of the journalists, who were released Saturday after 11 days in rebel hands, the warning stirred deep anxiety among Colombian civilians that the presence of U.S. troops would prompt a sharp response from the guerrillas.

Over the course of this year, Arauca province is scheduled to become the center of gravity for a $470 million-a-year U.S. effort to help President Alvaro Uribe cripple the enduring leftist insurgency by strengthening Colombia's military. The training program will emphasize counterinsurgency rather than the anti-drug techniques that had been the focus of U.S. aid to date.

In expanding the training beyond counter-drugs, the United States has abandoned an ambiguity that was once carefully cultivated by U.S. officials, promising to make the United States a higher-profile player in Colombia's 39-year-old war.

This month, U.S. officials will begin shifting military resources previously used in anti-drug operations in southern Colombia to this province, which lies on the Venezuelan border and is 220 miles east of Bogota, the capital. Helicopters will be used directly against the two guerrilla armies, which the State Department considers terrorist organizations. Under the program, the Colombian military is scheduled to buy additional helicopters and other military equipment.

MOre:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0207-07.htm

[Judi Lynn]

5. US Increases Colombian Involvement

June 30, 2004
US Increases Colombian Involvement

by Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA - Shrouded in silence in Colombia, the Plan Patriot has begun to emerge as the most ambitious military offensive to date against the leftist guerrillas, in which the U.S. military is providing tactical and logistical support.

Taking part in the operation, which according to press reports involves 17,000 soldiers deployed in southern Colombia, are mobile forces and special jungle commandos trained by U.S. advisers and backed up by modern technology from the United States.

The offensive is being carried out in a vast territory under the control of the main rebel group, the 18,000-strong Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which rose up in arms four decades ago.

According to a memorandum sent to the U.S. Congress by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), the government of President George W. Bush "is offering substantial new levels of military aid in support of a massive Colombian military offensive against the FARC insurgents."

WOLA describes the Patriot Plan as "the most ambitious counter-insurgency offensive ever undertaken by the Colombian government."
(snip/...)

http://www.antiwar.com/ips/vieira.php?articleid=2915

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

[happydreams]

6. K&R. Thanks for keeping on top of this Judi

:hi:

[donkeyotay]

7. They always said the wot would be fought in many places in many ways.

They can't get us out of Iraq, let alone Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Nigeria, Columbia, Venzuela...

I keep thinking of Kurt Vonnegut's words to the effect, "don't let anyone tell you any different; we were put here to fart around." God I wish Kurt Vonnegut was president. Bush and his junta are the worst rat bastards possible. They want to destroy our inalienable right to fart around and sign us all up in the ss instead.