Salvatore Mancuso involves more than military officials of the DAS and the Attorney

[Judi Lynn]

(This is a google translation of a Colombian article)

Salvatore Mancuso involves more than military officials of the DAS and the Attorney
April 21, 2010 24:06

paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso continued involving senior officers of the Armed Forces with the illegal organization and further argued that the paramilitaries had their chips in the DAS and the Prosecution.

Among the military commanders involved with paramilitary groups include General Ivan Ramirez, Marco Antonio Pedreros and Alberto Gómez Méndez, who said as collaborators with the paramilitaries.

General Ramirez was commander of the First Division in Santa Marta and according Mancuso collaborated with paramilitaries in operations against the guerrillas of the ELN and the EPL between 1996 and 1997.

Among the contributors to the DAS, Mancuso directly quoted Jose Miguel Narvaez, who was deputy director of the intelligence agency.

In statements made Mancuso from a U.S. prison in development of the process being conducted by the Supreme Court against the former director of Das, Jorge Noguera, said that at least 40 to 50 people, including some prosecutors, cooperated with your organization to combat the guerrillas.

Mancuso also claimed he was extradited to the United States to silence and denounced threats against his life and his family.

http://www.radiosantafe.com/2010/04/21/salvatore-mancuso-implica-a-mas-militares-y-a-funcionarios-del-das-y-la-fiscalia/#more-110523

[Peace Patriot]

1. As we suspected! The U.S./Colombia relationship has a heavy, heavy, HEAVY stink--

the stink of rotting corpses in mass graves. It is bad enough that the $7 BILLION in military aid that the U.S. is larding on Colombia has abetted massive and indiscriminate killing by the Colombian military and its death squads but there may be an even worse aspect to this, from the point of view of U.S. citizens. There is now reason to suspect that the U.S. (and possibly U.K.) military have been involved in killing Colombians, and not just FARC guerrillas, which would be bad enough but also civilians. Up to 2,000 bodes were recently found in a mass grave (with grave dates through 2009, but no names) in La Macarena, Colombia, nearby to one of the SEVEN U.S. military bases in Colombia, in a region of particular interest and activity by the U.S. military and the USAID. Local people say that the bodies of are 'disappeared' local community activists (human rights workers, teachers, community organizers, union leaders). When I read that Blackwater was active in Colombia, a couple of years ago, I suspected them of involvement in the murder of civilians in Colombia. That's what they did in Iraq. I thought that this was how the U.S. was 'laundering' its elimination of the leftist opposition in Colombia. But the La Macarena massacre points to possibly more official involvement. And when Mancuso was extradited to the U.S. on mere drug traffic charges, at the end of the Bush Junta, I strongly suspected a cover-up, as did others here. Mancuso is now making this charge--that his extradition was to silence him--and implicating the Colombian military in death squad activity. I can't help but wonder what he knows about Bush Junta/Pentagon involvement. As a prisoner in a U.S. federal prison, he might be reluctant to say. As I recall, Colombian prosecutors were outraged when he was extradited --swiftly, in the middle of the night sort of thing--in the midst of their investigations. I believe that it was an arbitrary Uribe decree. Uribe is the Bush Cartel's tool. And I don't think they would care all that much if their other tools--Defense Minister Santos (now running for president), Colombian generals--got nailed, except for what they may know and disclose about the Bush Junta and the Pentagon.

[naaman fletcher]

2. What evidence is there,

Of US troops killing people in Colombia besides your endlessly repeating it? Zero.

[Bacchus39]

3. the mass grave is the town cemetery n/t

s

[roody]

5. We are killing Colombians whether or not it is directly by

US troops. We buy the guns, helicopters and ammo and support the killing regime.

[naaman fletcher]

6. I agree,

But the accusation is being made that US and British troops are running around and killing peasants, apparently just because they get off on it or something.

[Peace Patriot]

9. My suspicion that the U.S. military may have been involved in the La Macarena massacre

is based on several aspects of that particular horror including its proximity to the U.S. military base, the USAID "pacification" plan for that region (so similar to what is going on in Afghanistan), the U.K. military's involvement in training the Colombian commander who was involved and the near complete silence about this horror in the corpo-fascist press--also, some ancillary circumstances, for instance, the secrecy with which the recent Colombia/U.S. military was negotiated and one of its provisions--total diplomatic immunity for U.S. soldiers and U.S. 'contractors'--combined with the justification used to defend the agreement, that it merely formalizes existing arrangements. It seems to me that a lot might have been at stake as to getting an official signature on total diplomatic immunity. It is a suspicion that the U.S. military was actively involved. I think it needs investigation.

The U.S./Colombian operational plan in La Macarena, The La Macarena massacre (includes a description of, and links to docs about, U.S. ops in La Macarena)
http://www.cipcol.org/?p=1303

The UK military connection
http://www.tribunemagazine.co.uk/2010/02/04/silence-on-british-army-link-to-colombian-mass-grave/

U.S. and Colombia Cover Up Atrocities Through Mass Graves, by Dan Kovalik 4/1/10
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-kovalik/us-colombia-cover-up-atro_b_521402.html

[Judi Lynn]

7. Don't know if you saw it or not but the guy who lead the right foreigners to that MASS grave,

and I mean MASS grave, not one old villager buried after a proper religious ceremony after another, but rather an OPEN GRAVE into which anonymous bodies were tossed TOGETHER then covered, that guy has been MURDERED in the intervening time since we first heard of this.

I know I posted it somewhere back here in the dungeon, and I'll post it if I see it again. In the meantime, some refresher articles:

Colombian human rights lawyers investigating La Macarena mass grave in Brussels to call for stop to Colombia FTA
22/03/2010

22 March 2010, Brussels – Despite the recent discovery of 2000 unidentified bodies in La Macarena in Colombia, the EU-Colombia Free Trade Agreement is about to enter its final ratification phase. Two human rights lawyers investigating the case will be in Brussels this week to warn Members of the European Parliament against ratifying such a deal.

“We are gravely concerned with the European Commission’s insistence of forging ahead with this trade agreement. Serious and systematic violations of human and trade union rights are going on right now in Colombia, with the discovery in La Macarena only adding to a long list of violations. Signing the agreement will simply legitimise them,” said Conny Reuter, Secretary General of SOLIDAR.

In December 2009 Mr Cuellar and Ms Hoyos, two human rights lawyers from Colombia, alerted the international community to the discovery of 2000 unidentified bodies buried in a graveyard next to an army base in the small village of La Macarena. Photos and eyewitness reports from British and Spanish groups who went there would appear to indicate that the vast majority of dead bodies are from 2002-2009, with a significant number from the last two years.

The Colombian army claims that all of the bodies were of guerrillas killed in combat. However, locals deny this given that there have never been so many guerrillas within the village’s vicinity. In addition, the UN recently revealed that the Colombian Army has been involved in what they describe as “widespread and systematic” extrajudicial executions of civilians whom they later claim are guerrillas killed in combat in order to qualify for bonuses.

More:
http://www.solidar.org/Page_Generale.asp?DocID=13955&thebloc=24303

~~~~~

Posted: April 1, 2010 09:22 AM
U.S. & Colombia Cover Up Atrocities Through Mass Graves

The biggest human rights scandal in years is developing in Colombia, though you wouldn't notice it from the total lack of media coverage here. The largest mass grave unearthed in Colombia was discovered by accident last year just outside a Colombian Army base in La Macarena, a rural municipality located in the Department of Meta just south of Bogota. The grave was discovered when children drank from a nearby stream and started to become seriously ill. These illnesses were traced to runoff from what was discovered to be a mass grave - a grave marked only with small flags showing the dates (between 2002 and 2009) on which the bodies were buried.

According to a February 10, 2010 letter issued by Alexandra Valencia Molina, Director of the regional office of Colombia's own Procuraduria General de la Nacion - a government agency tasked to investigate government corruption - approximately 2,000 bodies are buried in this grave. The Colombian Army has admitted responsibility for the grave, claiming to have killed and buried alleged guerillas there. However, the bodies in the grave have yet to be identified. Instead, against all protocol for handling the remains of anyone killed by the military, especially those of guerillas, the bodies contained in the mass grave were buried there secretly without the requisite process of having the Colombian government certify that the deceased were indeed the armed combatants the Army claims.

And, given the current "false positive" scandal which has enveloped the government of President Alvaro Uribe and his Defense Minister, Juan Manuel Santos, who is now running to succeed Uribe as President, the Colombian Army's claim about the mass grave is especially suspect. This scandal revolves around the Colombian military, most recently under the direction of Juan Manuel Santos, knowingly murdering civilians in cold blood and then dressing them up to look like armed guerillas in order to justify more aid from the United States. According to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pilay, this practice has been so "systematic and widespread" as to amount to a "crime against humanity." And sadly, when Ms. Pilay made this statement, she literally did not know the half of it.

To date, not factoring in the mass grave, it has been confirmed by Colombian government sources that 2,000 civilians have fallen victim to the "false positive" scheme since President Uribe took office in 2002. If, as suspected by Colombian human rights groups, such as the "Comision de Derechos Humanos del Bajo Ariari" and the "Colectivo Orlando Fals Borda," the mass grave in La Macarena contains 2,000 more civilian victims of this scheme, then this would bring the total of those victimized by the "false positive" scandal to at least 4,000 --much worse than originally believed.

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-kovalik/us-colombia-cover-up-atro_b_521402.html

~~~~~

Jan 28,2010
Army mass grave in La Macarena

Miami’s El Nuevo Herald and Spain’s Público have run stories in the past two days about a shocking find in La Macarena, about 200 miles south of Bogotá.

Residents say that after it entered the strongly guerrilla-controlled zone in the mid-2000s, Colombia’s Army began dumping unidentified bodies in a mass grave near a local cemetery. The grave may contain as many as 2,000 bodies.

Público reports:

Since 2005 the Army, whose elite units are deployed in the surrounding area, has been depositing behind the local cemetery hundreds of cadavers with the order that they be buried without names. …

Jurist Jairo Ramírez, the secretary of the Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Colombia, accompanied a delegation of British legislators to the site several weeks ago, when the magnitude of the La Macarena grave began to be discovered. “What we saw was chilling,” he told Público. “An infinity of bodies, and on the surface hundreds of white wooden plaques with the inscription NN (name unknown) and dates from 2005 until today.”

Ramírez adds: “The Army commander told us that they were guerrillas killed in combat, but the people in the region told us of a multitude of social leaders, campesinos and community human rights defenders who disappeared without a trace.”

El Nuevo Herald reports:

A spokesman of the Prosecutor-General’s Office (Fiscalía) in Bogotá revealed to El Nuevo Herald that a mission from that institution’s Technical Investigations Corps (CTI) has already gone to the cemetery and confirmed the existence of “a large number” of cadavers in the grave, though it only made a few excavations.

“We became the site for the depositing of the war dead,” declared Eliécer Vargas Moreno, mayor of the municipality. …

Residents of La Macarena interviewed over the phone by El Nuevo Herald, under the promise that their identities would not be revealed, expressed their suspicion that among the bodies are relatives who disappeared during the last four years. They denied that the bodies are those of guerrillas and asked for the chance to prove it.

More:
http://www.cipcol.org/?p=1303

[naaman fletcher]

8. Thanks,

but again, what evidence is there that the US or UK troops have been out in the field killing villagers? The answer is ZERO.

[Bacchus39]

4. doesn't sound like he is keeping quiet n/t

s