Colombian farm workers attacked, at least 34 dead

[dArKeR]

AP , BOGOTA, COLOMBIA
Thursday, Jun 17, 2004,Page 7

Suspected leftist rebels gunned down at least 34 farm workers after tying them up at a ranch in a region that is among Colombia's biggest cocaine producers, authorities said.

The workers were sleeping in hammocks at the ranch near La Gabarra, 500km northeast of the capital, Bogota, when a group of armed men burst through the doors at dawn on Tuesday, tied them up with the hammocks' ropes and then shot them with automatic weapons, La Gabarra Mayor Taiz Ortega said.

At least five people were wounded and taken by boat to a hospital in the nearby town of Cucuta. It was the worst massacre in Colombia in at least a year.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/06/17/2003175422

[ugarte]

1. This is the same story posted yesterday, I think

eom

[JaySherman]

2. It's always the work of 'leftist' rebels.

This sounds more like right-wing paramiltaries to me. Of course we all know the only real 'terrorists' are commie liberals and left-wingers.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Another report nails those pesky leftists

Colombia blames leftists in massacre
Los Angeles Times
Originally published June 17, 2004
BOGOTA, Colombia - The Colombian government blamed leftist rebels yesterday for the killing of 34 coca pickers in a rampage that has aroused fears of a new wave of drug-fueled violence.
The attack, Tuesday morning in the cocaine-rich La Gabarra municipality, was the worst since hard-line President Alvaro Uribe Velez took office in August 2002. He began an aggressive military offensive against Colombia's armed outlaws and opened peace talks with right-wing paramilitary death squads.

The government blamed the massacre on rebels.

"It's the FARC, once again," said Defense Minister Jorge Alberto Uribe, citing accounts from a handful of survivors and referring to Latin America's oldest and largest rebel army, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
(snip/...)

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.hoot17jun17,0,5569638.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines

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With all the leftists, or suspected leftist union workers, union organizers, to beat, "disappear" and murder, sometimes with chain saws, for the right-wing paramilitaries, and human rights advocates to ridicule, for pResident Álvaro Uribe, it keeps right-wing people really on the go there. Busy, busy people.

You may recall Uribe is interested in securing total amnesty for his murdering bands of right-wing paramiltary trolls, lead by Carlos Castaño.




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Uribe is a self-confessed man of the right, linked to the landowning and cattle ranching elite, and to the emerging class that has been enriched by the profits of drug trafficking. He inherited enormous land holdings and horse ranches from his father Alberto Uribe Sierra, a personal friend of the Ochoa clan of well known drug barons, and himself subject to an extradition warrant to face charges of drug trafficking in the USA.

Alvaro Uribe has always enjoyed protection and promotion from the political and economic elite in his country. At 26 years old and barely out of university, he was named Mayor of Medellín, Colombia’s second city and epicentre of the golden age of Pablo Escobar and the Ochoa family. He was removed from this position after only three months by a central government embarrassed by his public ties to the drugs mafia. He was however posted to a less prominent but by no means less important role as Director of Civil Aviation, where he used his mandate for the construction of airports and airfields, and the issue of pilot’s licences to strengthen and consolidate Escobar’s drug running infrastructure.

Uribe was later elected Governor of the Department of Antioquia, where he became the fundamental defender of the paramilitary groups which he sought to institutionalise as “special private security and vigilance services – Convivir – to group the civilian population alongside the Armed Forces and contribute through armed communications networks”.

As governor, Uribe promoted military and paramilitary violence to such an extent that the well known Medellín lawyer and human rights defender Jesus Maria Valle Jaramillo protested that: “Through a misconceived conception of public order, we are exporting violence to previously peaceful departments such as Choco and along the coast. With the Convivir we are exporting violence throughout the whole country … and the Army and the Convivir share uniforms, share their camps and share the vehicles that they use …” Valle Jaramillo was murdered a few days later on 27 February 1998. When Uribe received a standing ovation at the Cattle Ranchers Association (one of the traditional funders of paramilitary groups) journalist Maria Teresa Herran wrote in the national daily El Espectador, “I didn’t know if he received this acclaim for his defence of the Convivir, or if it was because his Department was being bathed in blood”.
(snip/...)

http://www.searchlightmagazine.com/stories/072003_story04.htm