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Author Topic: Plan Colombia will soon expire
Briguy
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1885

posted 15 April 2004 12:43 PM      Profile for Briguy     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Documentary evidence connecting the US-backed Colombian government with paramilitary death squads could surface in war crimes trial.

The general and his labyrinth

quote:
a story has just broken in Bogotá which threatens to confirm allegations that they conspire with the United Self-defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) - an illegal paramilitary army headed by the country's most feared warlord, Carlos Castaño - to carry out massacres and terrorise farmers and villagers.

The man at the eye of the storm is former army general Jaime Alberto Uscátegui, who is awaiting trial for his participation in a gruesome paramilitary atrocity. In the tragic annals of Colombian atrocities there have been too many massacres, but events in the southern jungle town of Mapiripán in July 1997 haunt the Colombian collective memory with a particularly painful intensity. Uscátegui is accused of supporting the paramilitaries as they spent five days and nights terrorising the town, torturing more than thirty people to death and dismembering their victims alive in the municipal slaughterhouse.

Now, according to Bogotá's weekly news magazine Cambio, Uscátegui has put his military superiors on notice. From his quiet prison cell at an army base in the capital, the general has said that unless his superiors help him avoid jail, he will go public with documentary evidence of a policy of official military collusion with paramilitary terror.

As reported by Cambio, the documents in Uscátegui's possession were retrieved from an army computer belonging to a military intelligence agent and equipped with a special password used in all communications between the army and the paramilitaries.

According to the general, the material includes pamphlets produced at battalion headquarters and handed out by the paramilitaries at Mapiripán and other massacre sites, the rules of paramilitary engagement as drafted and drawn up by the army, and a complete list - including names and aliases - of all 93 members of the AUC front that committed the Mapiripán massacre. The latter item also contains the payroll and individual monthly salaries for all the members of the front, together with their rank and responsibilities.



From: No one is arguing that we should run the space program based on Physics 101. | Registered: Nov 2001  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490

posted 15 April 2004 03:00 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I wonder if FARC has dirty laundry of their own they want to keep under wraps. It remains to be seen if they will somehow prevent Uscátegui from being "saved" by his superiors in order that he release the documentary evidence - as such evidence could shake public confidence that the Colombian government has been fighting an "honorable" war on dug-in leftist rebels.

In this case, Congress might well vote to save its own skin and refuse to extend more support to Colombia, as such spending would bring questions to the surface such as, "Why are you supporting a government which has allied itself with paramilitary death squads?"

We shall see.


From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
BLAKE 3:16
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2978

posted 15 April 2004 10:37 PM      Profile for BLAKE 3:16     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The US is pretty brazen about their support for rigthwing militias around the world. The Colombian state is an important strategic ally for imperialism. Colombian "democracy" is the longest running one in Latin America. It's also a complete sham -- it does a nice tic toc between the Liberals and Conservatives. Kinda like the Republican and Democrats...

It's also a lot cheaper and more diplomatic to fund Colombians to repress leftists than to have to go in militarily.

BTW, for a more personal take on paramilitaries read Michael Taussig's terrifying Law in a Lawless Land


From: Babylon, Ontario | Registered: Aug 2002  |  IP: Logged

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