Gutsy former guerrilla puts Colombia's president in hot seat over para-politico scandal

[Judi Lynn]

Gutsy former guerrilla puts Colombia's president in hot seat over para-politico scandal
The Associated Press
Published: February 20, 2007

BOGOTA, Colombia: The political scandal that forced Colombia's foreign minister to quit and put other close allies of President Alvaro Uribe in jail is being driven in large part by a rebel-turned-senator who has defied death threats to become the opposition's most fearless provocateur.

Sen. Gustavo Petro has relentlessly accused the law-and-order president of letting a poisonous alliance prosper between the political class and illegal right-wing militias, which are responsible for brutal massacres and the theft of millions of acres from poor peasants.

Colombians who fear taking explosive information to police or prosecutors often turn to Petro instead, and the scrappy senator regularly goes public with their allegations, tempting fate in a country where political assassination has a long tradition.

A former leftist rebel, Petro has nine bodyguards, wears custom-tailored bulletproof sport jackets and has a crew of loyalists looking out for him. Twice, he has foiled paramilitary plots to kill him, and he has periodically fled into exile for safety. In an interview with The Associated Press, he casually mentioned that it would be nice to die of old age.
(snip/...)

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/02/20/america/LA-GEN-Colombia-Uribes-Nemesis.php



Senator Gustavo Petro

[acmavm]

1. I wonder what it is that makes some people able to realize that

by doing the right thing they might be killed, but then they go ahead and do the right thing anyway. What does it take to make someone a heroic figure? A person who will go for broke regardless of the cost?

[Mudoria]

2. I wonder how many folks didn't get the chance

to see old age thanks to Petro?

[Judi Lynn]

6. You won't be able to lead DU'ers to be confused about which group bears the lion's share

of the horrendous bloodshed in Colombia. Might as well forget about that.

July 1, 2005

Colombia's Disappeared
Their Names, At Least
By JUSTICIA Y PAZ


Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Vélez opened negotiations with the country's right-wing paramilitaries almost as soon as he took office in August 2002. The paramilitaries -- currently grouped in a national federation called the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) -- have been responsible for the majority of murders and forced displacements of civilians in Colombia's tragic armed conflict for many years. Over 3 million Colombians have been uprooted from their homes and communities -- "displaced" -- since 1985, and tens of thousands more have been murdered. The paramilitaries' signature terror methods include slow torture, dismemberment, and the use of chainsaws. When guerrilla groups participated in the formation of new political parties in the 1980s as part of an attempt to resolve the decades-old war between the government and guerrillas, paramilitaries exterminated over 3,000 members of these new parties.
(snip/...)

http://www.counterpunch.org/cryan07012005.html

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September 30, 2002

Reinventing Carlos Castaño

by Garry Leech

The U.S. Justice Department timed its request for the arrest and extradition of Colombian paramilitary chief Carlos Castaño on drug trafficking charges to coincide with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's arrival in Washington. Undoubtedly, the White House wanted to use the issuing of the extradition request and the "anti-terrorism" pow-wow between President Bush and Uribe as evidence that Washington and Bogotá are combating right-wing paramilitaries as well as leftist guerrillas in Colombia. But while this charade was clearly a public relations ploy, what's not so obvious is the reasoning behind Castaño's announcement that he is willing to cooperate with the extradition request and face justice in the United States. One possible explanation is that the Bush administration has entered into some kind of Faustian deal with Colombia's notorious death squad leader.

Castaño, a former army scout and associate of drug lord Pablo Escobar, took over the reins of Colombia's largest paramilitary force, the Self-Defense Forces of Córdoba and Urabá (ACCU), in 1994 after his older brother Fidel disappeared. The ACCU and other regional paramilitary groups in Colombia worked hand in glove with the U.S.-backed Colombian military, which routinely provided them with intelligence, weapons and transportation so they could effectively target suspected rebel sympathizers including labor leaders, community organizers and human rights activists. With funding from drug traffickers, wealthy landowners, and the business community, Colombia's paramilitaries grew dramatically during the 1990s from an estimated 850 paramilitary fighters at the beginning of the decade to approximately 12,000 today. In 1997, Castaño oversaw the merging of the regional paramilitary forces into one national organization, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).

AUC fighters routinely induced fear in the rural population by entering villages and rounding up the residents in the town plaza. They would then brutally kill a handful of villagers, often dismembering them with machetes and chainsaws, before ordering the rest of the people to leave the region. By forcibly displacing the rural population in this manner, the paramilitaries hoped to eliminate local support for the guerrillas. This strategy has aggravated the already grossly inequitable distribution of arable lands as large landowners, as well as multinational corporations interested in oil, coal and natural gas resources, have taken over much of the abandoned land. More than 2.5 million rural Colombians have been displaced by the conflict in the past 15 years, many of them fleeing to the impoverished shantytowns that are rapidly encircling many of Colombia's cities.
(snip/...)

http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia133.htm

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~snip~
Washington has provided more than $1.3 billion in mostly military aid to Colombia over the past two years--making Colombia the third-largest recipient of U.S. military aid behind Israel and Egypt. The United States has provided weapons, helicopters and training to a Colombian military that is closely-allied to right-wing paramilitary death squads responsible for more than 70 percent of the country's human rights abuses, especially civilian massacres.
(snip)

http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia121.htm

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

AMNESTY HOME > ANNUAL REPORTS INDEX > 2001

~snip~
Torture - often involving mutilation - remained widespread, particularly as a prelude to murder by paramilitary groups. ''Death squad''-style killings continued in urban areas. Children suffered serious human rights violations particularly in the context of the armed conflict. New evidence emerged of continuing collusion between the armed forces and illegal paramilitary groups. Progress continued in a limited number of judicial investigations, but impunity for human rights abuses remained the norm.
(snip/...)

http://www.web.amnesty.org/web/ar2001.nsf/webamrcountries/COLOMBIA?OpenDocument

[rman]

7. Do you now.

Just keep on wondering, if that's what you want to do.

[PLF]

3. I hope all this leads to the death of Plan Colombia

[Robbien]

4. "Since Petro aired his allegations on the Senate floor, eight members of Congress have been jailed"

Such an informative article.

Senator Gustavo Petro, a name to keep in mind as one of the good guys.

[Union Thug]

5. Give 'em hell! n/t