Colombian Supreme Court orders return of lands stolen by paramilitary leader Jorge 40 (Spanish)

[Derechos]

El Alto Tribunal le dio 30 días al Incoder para revocar los títulos de predios que fueron entregados por el Instituto a testaferros de Rodrigo Tovar Pupo, alias 'Jorge 40', por abandono y devolvérselos a los campesinos que despojados por los paramilitares.

Los magistrados consideraron que había una falsa motivación en las razones invocadas por el Incoder para reasignar los predios entre 2002 y 2003. La Corte ordenó compulsar copias a un fiscal de la Unidad Antiterrorismo para investigar a los funcionarios del Incoder Magdalena que intervinieron en la titulación fraudulenta.

La solicitud de revocar los títulos espurios y devolvérselos a los campesinos de Pivijay, Chivolo y San Ángel ya había sido presentada ante un tribunal de Justicia y Paz en Barranquilla, que negó la petición de la Fiscalía.

http://www.verdadabierta.com/index.php?option=com_content&id=2964

[naaman fletcher]

1. too bad he can't do anything about the wealth stolen by Jorge 43. nt.

[Derechos]

2. This case is the first time the Colombian Supreme Court

has ruled that abandonment proceedings were not proper grounds for title/ownership transfers to paramilitary hands. This is a very important case that opens up the possibility that the tens of thousands of displaced indigenous and campesino communities will also be able to have their title or ownership claims to their lands reinstated and return home.

[Peace Patriot]

3. I hope that this start of restitution of lands, by the Colombian Supreme Court,

gets expanded to lands stolen from peasants by Alvaro Uribe and his pals, by the Colombian military and their pals and by U.S. multinational ag and resource plunderers, and expands further to investigation of all the numerous murders associated with these thefts, and other associated crimes, such as pervasive domestic spying by Uribe--on judges, prosecutors, opposition politicians, trade unionists, human rights groups, peasant activists and others.

However, Colombian prosecutors and courts have been foiled in pursuing death squad cases, and spying and other crimes by Uribe. First, there was the U.S. midnight extradition of death squad witnesses to the U.S., on mere drug charges, and the 'burial' of these witnesses in the U.S. federal prison system--out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors and over their objections--by the unusual complete sealing of their cases in U.S. federal court in Washington DC.

The spying investigation was foiled by spiriting the chief spy witness against Uribe out of Colombia, and that witness getting highly irregular asylum in Panama (another U.S. client state), likely arranged by the CIA--and also over the objections of Colombian prosectors. Six other witnesses in the same case have applied for asylum in Panama, and whether they get it or not probably depends on how important their testimony is, as to nailing Uribe. If it's not that important, they won't get asylum. Uribe is meanwhile teaching international 'law' at Georgetown and Harvard (where President Obama evidently learned that the law doesn't apply to the rich and the powerful and that we "must look forward not backward" when big, powerful, rich people slaughter tens of thousands of human beings to steal their oil, torture prisoners, rip up constitutions and commit GRAND theft), and Obama has given Uribe a prestigious appointment to an international legal commission.

Uribe oversaw all of this official land theft--and the mayhem, terror and murder that accompanied the displacement of FIVE MILLION peasant farmers--THE worst human displacement crisis on earth. Most of it was done by the Colombian military and its closely tied death squads (with $7 BILLION in military aid from the U.S.) Drug lord land theft is a minor matter, by comparison--and the drug lords that Uribe gave land to (the protected drug lords) probably won't be touched and certainly the multinationals won't be touched. I'm glad SOME peasant farmers may get their land back. Millions of others won't. They will become the slave labor pool for "free trade for the rich." And the ravaged and the dead, of course--those with "post-traumatic stress syndrome" from being raped, beaten, tortured and seeing their family members and communities slaughtered, and those who were slaughtered, will just be forgotten. "We need to look forward not backward."

It's awful when the correction of one injustice is used to provide the cosmetics and coverup for much greater injustice. I believe that that is what is happening here. You can't help but applaud ANY campesinos getting their lands back. But the overall injustice is very, very great, and was implemented to permanently condition Colombia as a U.S. client state. The overall injustice will never be recompensed and U.S. "free trade for the rich" will sail through the Scumbag Congress with loud oinks and squeals about "reform" in Colombia.