For D.U. members interested in Colombian paras in Venezuela,

[Judi Lynn]

a subject we've been thinking about for years, discussing it here and in LBN. Look for this info. well into the article, almost 3/4th the way down the page:

Águilas Negras: Rising from the Ashes of Demobilization in Colombia
Written by C.L. Smith
Wednesday, 13 April 2011 19:55

~snip~
Disgraced former director of the Colombian intelligence services DAS, Jorge Noguera, who is currently serving a prison sentence for his collaboration with paramilitary groups during his tenure (also known as the parapolítica scandal), reportedly met on a variety of occasions with ex-AUC leader Jorge-40’s brother and cousin, Álvaro Pupo and Luis José Pupo, in 2004.

~snip~
His former director of information at DAS, Rafael García, who was also imprisoned for his role in the scandal, asserts that Noguera was working with Jorge-40 to destabilize the Chávez government by targeting not only the Venezuelan president, but also his vice president, attorney general, and interior minister as well.

Only one month after the first apparent meeting between Jorge-40’s relatives and Jorge Noguera, Venezuelan security services detained between 80 and 100 Colombian paramilitaries on a bus just outside of Caracas in El Hatillo, where they had been staying at a farm owned by a prominent Cuban exile, Roberto Alonso. Reputedly, they had been tasked with the assignment of attacking major government installations in the hopes of destabilizing or overthrowing the sitting government.

In November of that year, public prosecutor Danilo Anderson, who was investigating 300 people for their involvement in the 2002 coup attempt against Chávez, was killed after C-4 explosives that were planted in his car were detonated. In the subsequent investigation, the primary witness to come forward after being arrested was a former AUC member named Giovanni José Vásquez de Armas, who claimed that he smuggled the explosives into the country from Panama and had collaborated with law enforcement officials, ex-generals, and even bankers and journalists from Venezuela to carry out the assassination.

More:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/colombia-archives-61/2999-aguilas-negras-rising-from-the-ashes-of-demobilization

[Peace Patriot]

1. Thank you for posting this vitally important report.

Two thoughts occur, off the top of my head...

1. I was struck by the near identical language Uribe used and the "Black Eagle" death squads/criminal gangs use to target their opponents.

Bush tool Alvaro Uribe publicly stated that all who oppose him--trade unionists, political leftists, human rights activists, teachers, journalists, academics--are "terrorists" and are "aiding" the leftist guerrillas. The new incarnation of the rightwing death squads "(Black Eagles"/Águilas Negras) use quite similar language targeting similar groups--unions, human rights activists. They call them "‘auxiliaries’ of leftist guerrillas" and other such epithets. See the quote from this report, below.

Uribe was also spying on these groups and individuals (and very likely sending lists to the death squads). He was engaged in the same kind of "silencing of the opposition" as the death squads.

For a public official--the president!--to say that everyone who opposes him is a "terrorist"--is virtually a "license to kill" to those who support his fascist views, including the rightwing death squads and drug mafias with whom he has been associated since early in his career. Some 70 of his closest political cronies are under investigation or already in jail for their ties to the death squads and drug trafficking, and for illegal spying, bribery, corruption and other crimes. He was running the Colombian government basically as a criminal enterprise, with Washington's blessing and more than $7 BILLION in U.S. taxpayer funding.

-----


"...an increase in violence in places where the Águilas Negras operate. For example, between January and September of 2006, municipal authorities recorded 259 violent deaths in Cúcuta, a figure that had increased to 327 in the same time period of 2007.

"...the Águilas Negras has continued in the paramilitary tradition of silencing any potential critics. The group has proved to be particularly disdainful of human rights activists and NGOs working with internally displaced peoples and those who have experienced repression at the hands of irregular armed groups.

"Between June 2008 and October 2010, the Águilas Negras threatened activists at six prominent unions and NGOs in Barrancabermeja, labeling them ‘auxiliaries’ of leftist guerrillas. They also issued similar death threats against Corporación Nuevo Arco Iris, a Bogota based NGO primarily composed of former leftist rebels from ELN, and other civil society groups from the capital, calling the employees ‘civil guerrillas’, and ‘couriers for the guerrillas’.

"The group has even targeted the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), repeatedly, along with dozens other NGOs working with internally displaced Colombians, warning them that their operatives “will be killed without a trace” and that, “the moment has come to terminate all of you. Consider yourselves dead.”

"These threats have not been made in vain, as forty leaders of groups representing internally displaced peoples have been killed in Colombia since 2005."

--from the OP

----

And I suspect that Uribe's and the Black Eagles' purposes were/are similar: "The primary objective of the (Black Eagles) was to regain complete control of all black market activity in the areas where the AUC used to operate, particularly the local drug market, prostitution, the pimpinero and weapons trade, and of course the incredibly lucrative drug smuggling routes."

In the case of Uribe, it is my suspicion that his purpose was to gain control of the trillion-dollar-plus cocaine trade overall, to consolidate it into fewer hands and to deliver profits to the Bush Cartel, the CIA and U.S. banksters--all of this under color of the U.S. "war on drugs," and the U.S. "war on terror" (taking over FARC coca leaf farms and cocaine traffic and that of others who didn't buy "protection"). The Uribe/Bush purpose was never to end the cocaine trade but to control it.

--

2. It looks like I was right in my suspicion about Uribe, in his accusations against Chavez about "harboring" FARC guerrillas, that Uribe was PROJECTING--in Bush-like fashion--his own evil-doings. The "Black Eagles" moved into Venezuela under his regime and more than likely under his and the Bushwhacks' protection. Thus, when Uribe accused Chavez of "harboring" the FARC, what was actually going on was that Uribe was permitting these murderous gangs to operate in border areas and then cross over the border and wreak their special murder and mayhem in Venezuela, including the targeting of Venezuelan government institutions and Chavez himself. This is what the article reveals--that the "Black Eagles" moved into Venezuela and were in cahoots with Uribe's intelligence service, with the aim of destabilizing Venezuela and toppling the Chavez government.

Luckily, Venezuelan security and police have been active and successful at catching these "Black Eagle" operatives. (And of course no FARC guerrilla camps have been found in Venezuela--the evidence was phony).

This is something that I did not catch at the time, but I feel that I should have. Long ago, I formulated my "rule of thumb" for assessing Bush Junta statements, that, whatever they said, the opposite is true, and whatever they accuse others of, THEY are doing. It's a very useful rule, and a sure guide to the truth.

Given Uribe's closeness to Bush Jr., I should have guessed that, when he started accusing Chavez again--after a long history of this, using Rumsfeldian evidence--in his last weeks in power, that he was projecting what HE had been doing--infiltrating Venezuela with rightwing death squads.

This kind of projection is also a means of cover up. If the world thinks--and the Associated Pukes and the New York Slimes and the Miami Hairball and Rotters and all the other congenital liars of the corporate 'news' promulgate it everywhere--that Chavez is "harboring" FARC guerrilla--then no one will notice--and certainly the same corporate 'news' liars will fail to note--that in fact Colombia's fascists were infiltrating Venezuela.