Peasant Rights Activist Murdered in Colombia

Source: International Herald Tribune

Caracas,
Wednesday
May 19,2010

Peasant Rights Activist Murdered in Colombia

BOGOTA – Peasant leader Rogelio Martinez, a member of a non-governmental organization that advocates on behalf of victims of state crimes, was killed in a rural area of northern Colombia, that group said Wednesday.

The killing was carried out by “a group of hooded men dressed in black,” the National Movement of Victims of State Crimes, or Movice, said in a statement released in this capital.

The unknown assailants took the rights activist by surprise as he was traveling to his residence in La Alemania, a ranch in the northern province of Sucre that had been awarded more than a decade ago to dozens of rural families, the NGO said.

The gunmen forced him off his motorcycle and killed him, according to Movice, which did not specify what weapon the assailants used in the attack.

Read more: http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=357163&CategoryId=12393

---

Slaying of Colombian land activist is latest in series of attacks, rights groups say
By Associated Press
8:42 p.m. EDT, May 19, 2010

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — A leader of families displaced by Colombia's violence was shot dead in what human rights groups said Wednesday is the latest attack on activists seeking the return of land stolen by far-right paramilitary groups.

Rogelio Martinez, 51, was riding on a mototaxi near his residence in San Onofre, Sucre province when gunmen intercepted the vehicle and shot him at least three times Tuesday, police Col. Hugo Javier Agudelo said. No arrests had been made and police didn't offer a motive. Human rights groups said Martinez had been receiving death threats since December 2008.

Martinez lived with 52 displaced families locked in a dispute with a paramilitary group over a 556-hectare (1,374-acre) farm called "La Alemania," according to a press releases from the Interchurch Commission for Justice and Peace and the human rights group CODHES.

Christian Salazar, representative for the Colombia office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, condemned Martinez's killing and said activists for the displaced seeking return of their lands are one of the most threatened sectors of society.

More:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-lt-colombia-activist-killed,0,2834693.story

Google translation of an Agence France-Presse article:

Rights defender murdered in Colombia displaced
(AFP) - 1 hours ago.

BOGOTA - A defender of the rights of the displaced in Colombia was killed Tuesday by unknown persons in the department of Sucre (northwest) reported on Wednesday, prompting condemnation from human rights office of the UN.

Rogelio Martinez was killed by "a group of masked men dressed in black" after forcing him to lose his motorcycle on his way to his farm in the department of Sucre, said the National Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE).

The representation of UN condemned the killing and announced a visit to Sucre and Bolivar departments of a diplomatic mission and the European Commission to advance a dialogue "about the effective protection of human rights defenders."

"We urge the Colombian authorities quickly clarify responsibility for this murder," said Christian Salazar, representative in Colombia of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a statement.

The peasant leader, a member of this movement in Sucre, had received threats in 2008 and 2009 for his denunciations of paramilitary infiltration in the local and regional political bodies.

In recent years, according MOVICE, Rogelio Martinez led the return of half a hundred families were displaced by paramilitaries in the area.

"There is a persecution, extermination and a warrant has been completed," he told AFP another member of MOVICE in Sucre, Adil Melendez, who also received a threat in 2009.

According to attorney Rogelio Martinez was scheduled for Thursday a meeting with representatives of several embassies in Colombia.

Meanwhile, the Colombian Ombudsman, Volmar Perez, condemned the incident and asked the authorities "to advance a rigorous investigation" and "exemplary sanctions".

The Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES) also rejected the murder, stating that at least 34 leaders of displaced people have been killed since 2002.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gDXyk3DtCOViY5RsikDcTn6l7phg

Caracas,
Thursday
May 20,2010

Violence Increasing on Colombia-Venezuela Border, Group Says

The independent group Fundacion Progresar warned of a “serious” increase in human rights violations along Colombia’s border with Venezuela, where some 16,000 people have been murdered and 1,800 have disappeared over the past decade

BOGOTA – The independent group Fundacion Progresar warned Monday of a “serious” increase in human rights violations along Colombia’s border with Venezuela, where some 16,000 people have been murdered and 1,800 have disappeared over the past decade.

Fundacion Progresar, which is based in the northeastern province of Norte de Santander, aids victims of Colombia’s decades-long internal conflict.

Fundacion director Wilfredo Cañizalez told Efe that, far from diminishing, the cases of forced disappearance and murder along the border have increased in recent years.

In his opinion, the political confrontation between Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez “has created a blanket of obscurity to cover and hide the reality of the border.”

“A porous border, where everything has a price, where criminal activities have been strengthening, where drug trafficking, the smuggling of gasoline, food, steel, vehicle theft, extortion and kidnapping are the daily fare,” Cañizalez said.

During six months of research in Norte de Santander and the neighboring Venezuelan state of Tachira, Fundacion Progresar determined that in the last decade there were about 1,800 reports of disappearances on the Colombian side of the border.

“Of these, we have been able to determine that in about 200 cases it is certain that the bodies were dumped on the Venezuelan side,” a regular practice that results in these disappearances not being included in the official figures or covered by the media, he said.

In addition, some 16,000 people were murdered on both sides of the border, 70 percent of them in Norte de Santander, and there has been a “worrying” increase in such killings in the past few years.

Meanwhile, in Tachira the situation has gone from 45 murders in 1998 to about 500 annually in each of the past three years, and in Norte de Santander, more than 800 people are known to have been killed last year, especially in the capital, Cucuta, where 1,200 people died in the past two years, 85 percent of them at the hands of killers for hire.

Cañizales said that the 2004 demobilization of the right-wing militias operating in Norte de Santander resulted in a decrease in rural violence, but the former fighters went to the cities, especially Cucuta, which subsequently acquired a huge concentration of guerrillas, paramilitaries and drug trafficking groups.

“We have not gotten an answer from either Bogota or Caracas to this phenomenon,” said Cañizalez, who criticized the fact that the only measure undertaken by both governments has been a militarization of the zone that has not managed to prevent the progressive strengthening of illegal groups.

http://laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=356766&CategoryId=10718

http://www.mapsofworld.com.nyud.net:8090/colombia/maps/colombia-political-map.jpg

Nothing like Colombia's REAL psycho autocrat to grandly illuminate their hypocrisy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

Columbia's gotten safer, Venezuela less safe, but both of them are still ridiculously dangerous places.

Funny how you must have missed these other statistics about Colombia which are much more damning:

BBC: 4 million Colombians displaced, second-most displaced nation in the world
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8014085.stm

Quote: "Whatever the actual figures, it is clear that two Colombias are developing under President Alvaro Uribe, says the BBC's Jeremy McDermott in Medellin.
Towns and cities, where the majority of Colombians live, have become safer under his administration, with murders and kidnappings down. But in rural areas,
where most of the displacement takes place, the situation is as bad, or perhaps worse,, our correspondent says."

Mass Graves uncovered in Colombia NOT VENEZUELA
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8276038.stm

Colombia's Right-Wing Death Squads NONE IN VENEZUELA
http://motherjones.com/politics/2000/08/colombias-death-squads

Colombia's Death Squads: Google it for much, much more
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=colombia+death+squad&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

Colombia's Journalists & Trade Unionists SLAIN -- despite the amount of ink spilled on Chavez's shutdown of military coup TV stations:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=colombia+slain&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

Why isn't Alvaro Uribe a household name like Chavez? Who do you think is more bloody?

I know I won't get an answer.

It's a regional, cultural, problem in many ways, nothing to do with who's at the top, or their system of government. Partisans can (and do) pretend that their "good" lethal system is better than another "bad" lethal system, but that doesn't mean it's less lethal.

In this reckoning, Columbia and Venezuela are #1 and #4 for worst in the world:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita

So it ain't Uribe's fault is what you're SORT OF saying in so many words, without being cornered on actually using names.

So it didn't matter whether Pinochet or Allende was president, those thousands were going to be tortured and hunted and murdered anyway? Sorry.

So it doesn't matter to Bolivian peasants whether Evo is president, versus Goni or Hugo Banzer? Sorry.

So it doesn't matter to Venezuela's poor that Pedro Carmona's 48-hour coup d'etat was shooting their families in the streets for protesting the unlawful overthrow of Chavez? Sorry.

"It's a regional, cultural problem in many ways" can be taken so many ways. Imagine if Rand Paul said those very words.

Still didn't get an answer on why Uribe is not a household name, but Chavez is a so-called threat on our doorstep.

Uribe hides from the media, Chavez grandstands, says bizarre things, and *requires* media coverage.

Simple as that.

Evo seems to be doing a decent job, but the place is hosed. Chavez is in a similar struggle, but is more media-savvy, at least for the purposes of making headlines.

"It's a regional, cultural problem in many ways" can, indeed, be taken many ways. There's such a level of conflict between the wealthy, the farmers, the politicians, the militants, the religious leaders, those in industrial labor.... that it has been characterized numerous ways, but they're *shooting each other*.

I'm not sure what Rand Paul has to do with with that, he didn't invent political or social violence... but it doesn't take much of an education to learn that the regional, cultural solution has far too often been murder to settle disputes.

I've seen articles describing the fact that Colombian journalists have been so terrorized by the government and its paramilitary assassins that they openly admit they "self-censor" ordinarily to AVOID being murdered themselves, at least the ones left there who didn't flee the country already.

It's not unusual for Uribe to start flogging them publicly, setting his government on them with investigations, making charges against them in public, which is ALWAYS followed by a barrage of phone threats, even threats made to them on their cell phones, on unlisted phone numbers, etc. People fleeing the country after death threats have even found in hiding they could start getting death threats THERE, as well.

IF anyone is courageous enough to dare to write articles which illuminate criminality connected to the government, the military, the paramilitary, he/she knowingly is inviting the sky to fall on him/her, and it often does.

In Venezuela, on the other hand, the right-wing oligarchy controls almost ALL of the newspapers, radio, tv stations. They are breathing down Chavez neck around the clock, ready to pounce on EVERY word he utters. The very idea that anyone here dares to claim this is simply because he craves getting in the news is truly ignorant beyond comprehension, or a deliberate attempt to mislead the gullible who are too lazy to keep up.

What has happened to him in their media is so far beyond anything which would be allowed here it defies belief. Only the most obnoxious, treacherous people on earth would ever stoop low enough to pretend he curtails their "freedoms."

I'm sure you recall how our own CIA assisted Nixon's schemes against the Chilean people's elected, well respected President, Salvador Allende by pouring huge chunks of change into buying the Chilean media while he was running for election. Here's a brief summary of wat happened, taken from an interview with Peter Kornbluh, from the National Archives, etc.:

Pinochet's Penman
September 12, 2003

~snip~
BROOKE GLADSTONE: First of all, who is Augustin Edwards?

PETER KORNBLUH: Augustin Edwards is really the Rupert Murdoch of Chile. He controlled in 1970 the vast majority of Chilean media. His main newspaper, El Mercurio, was the largest newspaper in Chile at the time, routinely compared to the New York Times here. He was also at that point considered Chile's richest man and a key player in government circles and in international circles as well.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So Allende's just been elected, despite the opposition of El Mercurio, and Edwards contacts the Nixon administration. So what happens then?

PETER KORNBLUH: The first thing Edwards did is he went to Ambassador Edward Korry to say to him are you going to move militarily against Allende? What are you going to do? And Korry basically told him that the United States wasn't going to move militarily to block Allende from taking office, and since that answer wasn't satisfactory, Edwards flew to Washington, met with his close friend, Don Kendall, the CEO of the Pepsi Company, and said you have to tell the president that, you know, Chile is going to hell and the Communists are taking over, and this is bad for the United States. And Kendal actually went to the White House, told Nixon that Edwards was in town and what he was saying, and Nixon immediately ordered Henry Kissinger and the CIA director, Richard Helms, to meet with Edwards and find out what he was saying.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So ultimately the U.S. government passed to Edwards nearly 2 million bucks, which is worth considerably more on the black market, and how was that money used?

PETER KORNBLUH: What this money purchased was really El Mercurio being able to become a bullhorn --not only for a free press -- beyond that - it went into the arena of violating Chile's Constitution, calling for the military to take power and supporting that military once it did take power, I might add.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And this obviously goes beyond anti-Allende articles and editorials. But when you say "bullhorn" -- did the paper identify places that ought to be attacked? Did the paper call for the assassination of people? Where is the line crossed between exercising a vigorous opposition and becoming seditious?

PETER KORNBLUH: Well that is a very important question, but, but here-- you had the owner of the newspaper already having told U.S. officials that he favored military action to stop Allende, and you had editorials declaring that Allende's government was illegitimate and essentially inciting people to rise up against it.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: You quote from a CIA paper that credits El Mercurio with making the military takeover possible. Is that what you think?

PETER KORNBLUH: El Mercurio was the centerpiece of the CIA's largest covert action in Chile between 1970 and 1973 -- what was called "The Propaganda Project." And the CIA's own internal memoranda state that this project set the stage for the coup of September 11th, 1973.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: But you, Peter Kornbluh, know a huge amount about the opposition to Allende at the time. You have a vast array of documents. How crucial do you think El Mercurio was?

PETER KORNBLUH: I think El Mercurio was pivotal. You have to imagine what it would be like in our own country if the New York Times decided to take up a significant strident and eventually even violent opposition to our government. We have a, a country where we have many, many newspapers, but imagine if the New York Times was one of only three or four papers in the country and was beyond a doubt the leading and most read newspaper. You can imagine the, the influence that it might play.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Now there's a battle to bring ethics charges against Edwards. The courts back then didn't find him guilty of libel or sedition. Is this a largely symbolic act now?

PETER KORNBLUH: This is not just about what El Mercurio published. In fact it's not about what El Mercurio published, because Chileans-- believe that whatever he published, he had the right to publish. The ethics charges that they're investigating against him are predicated upon his contacts with the Central Intelligence Agency -- the fact that he discussed with the CIA director a military option in Chile and received money from the Central Intelligence Agency.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: In Rwanda, media chiefs who called for the roundup and murder of individuals are being prosecuted for real. Do you think that could ever happen in Chile? Should it?

PETER KORNBLUH: Well I think that for the moment this really isn't about a courtroom verdict. It's about a verdict of history. And Chileans themselves have not really had access to this information, and obviously now with the declassification of U.S. documents that shed light on the activities of individuals like Augustin Edwards, I think there will be a verdict of history at least that is important for everybody to know.

More:
http://www.onthemedia.org/yore/transcripts/transcripts_091203_chile.html

~~~~~
So after reading information like this, and there's a LOT of it now, a person is tempted to stroke his or her imaginary beard, and query, "Doesn't this seem strangely familiar, for some reason?"

The model was in play LONG ago. God knows how long they had been doing this kind of thing before that.

Is it possible this has never happened since they got Allende's government destroyed, and Allende himself killed inside the Presidential Palace? Hardly.

Thanks for mentioning this ugly area. It needs airing as often as possible. It needs to be known MORE than people need to hear a spewing of lies again. I'm glad you pointed out all of these absolutely essential areas. There is true moral conflict in each area for conscientious U.S. Americans. You know what kind of people they are from the position they take on this vast sanctioned criminality.

The state often colludes with these atrocities. FARC is unfortunately militarist and commits many abuses against its own fighters and cadres, but I must say that without it, it is probably that the popular movement would be in even worse shape.

Colombian land rights activist shot dead in taxi
Thursday 20 May 2010

A leader of families displaced by Colombia's long-running civil conflict was shot dead on Tuesday in the latest attack on activists seeking the return of land stolen by right-wing paramilitary groups.

Rogelio Martinez was riding on a mototaxi near his residence in San Onofre, Sucre province, when gunmen intercepted the vehicle and shot him three times.

No arrests were made and police declined to offer a motive. Human rights groups said Mr Martinez had been receiving death threats since December 2008.

Mr Martinez lived with 52 displaced families who were locked in a dispute with a paramilitary group over a 556-hectare farm, La Alemania.

More:
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/90590

the terrorist and assassination school we run at Ft. Benning.

20 May 2010
Colombia urged to investigate shooting of human rights activist

Amnesty International has called on the Colombian authorities to investigate the killing of a human rights defender who was campaigning against abuses committed by paramilitaries and the security forces in the north-western region of Sucre.

Rogelio Martínez, who represented displaced rural communities in the area of San Onofre, was shot dead by a group of hooded men dressed in black as he travelled home by motorbike taxi on Tuesday.

"Rogelio Martínez campaigned long and hard to ensure that peasant farmers in the area could reclaim lands stolen from them by paramilitaries in collusion with the security forces, and he was dedicated to exposing human rights violations committed by these groups," said Marcelo Pollack, Colombia researcher at Amnesty International.

Martínez was also a member of the National Movement of Victims of State Crimes (MOVICE). He had been repeatedly threatened with death because of his work, along with other MOVICE members and land right activists in Sucre.

Activists campaigning for the return of lands stolen by paramilitary groups have been particularly vulnerable to threats and killings in recent years.

"Those campaigning for truth, justice and reparation and for the return of lands stolen by paramilitary groups in the context of Colombia's long-running armed conflict continue to pay a heavy price for their human rights work," said Marcelo Pollack.

"The Colombian authorities also have a responsibility to ensure that human rights defenders in Sucre, and in the country as a whole, are effectively protected so that they can carry out their work safely and free from fear", said Marcelo Pollack.

Amnesty International has condemned the killing of Rogelio Martínez and urged the authorities to carry out an immediate and impartial investigation to ensure that those responsible for his death are brought to justice.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=ENGPRE011662010&lang=e

Friday, May 21, 2010
Colombia: NGO partner murdered - LWR calls on Colombian and U.S. officials to quickly investigate

http://1.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_MAYbaiWGxyA/S_Yv40Y91fI/AAAAAAAAJ0o/DCNRAlzRWOE/s200/LutheranWorldRelief_1.jpg

Lutheran World Relief mourns the death of partner Rogelio Martínez Mercado, murdered May 18 at 6:00 p.m. in the province of Sucre, Colombia. He is survived by his wife, Julia Torres Cancino, and four children.

LWR calls on Colombian and U.S. officials to quickly investigate Martínez’s murder, provide protection to his family and colleagues, and transform security and development policies on Colombia’s northern coast that have left small farmers vulnerable to violence.

In 2000, Martínez and his family were violently displaced from their farm, located in the municipality of San Onofre, by members of the paramilitary group “Héroes Montes de Maria.” Between 2000 and 2001, paramilitaries forced more than 50 other families from adjoining farms. The paramilitary forces, led by Rodrigo Tovar Pupo and Rodrigo Mercado Peluffo, turned these farms into a base for torture, murder and combat operatives.

After an initial demobilization of paramilitary forces in Colombia, Martínez returned to his farm in 2007 and helped lead the return of 53 other displaced farming families to the same area. With LWR’s support, Martínez and these families established La Alemania Farm, comprising 552 hectares for planting crops and grazing cattle.

In late 2009, Martínez told LWR staff, “I was forced to leave everything behind—my land, my crops, even my dignity. But now we have corn seed in the ground again and have harvested rice and yucca.” Before his death, Martínez was eagerly planning small pig and fish farming projects with fellow farmers.

In December 2008, after returning to La Alemania and assuming leadership in the National Victims’ Movement—Sucre chapter, Martínez began receiving verbal and written death threats.

Annalise Romoser, LWR’s acting director for public policy and advocacy explains, “Land is highly disputed in northern Colombia. Small farmers are under constant threat by reorganized paramilitary forces to turn over lands or face death. If they are not displaced by violence or fear then crushing debt and lack of credit drives them from their land.”

Because of the threats, Martínez was granted protection measures by the Inter-American Court and limited protection measures from the Colombian Ministry of the Interior, including two plane tickets to use in case of imminent threat and the need to flee Sucre.

Eyewitnesses report that hooded men approached Martínez’s moto-taxi as he neared his home at La Alemania farm on Tuesday evening and shot him several times. Before he was shot, Martínez managed to yell at his moto-taxi driver to flee and escape the attack. Martínez’s body remained on the roadside well into the night due to delayed action by local police. Today, LWR staff and Martínez’s family will participate in funeral and mourning services.

More:
http://ionglobaltrends.blogspot.com/2010/05/colombia-ngo-partner-murdered-lwr-calls.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FzqKG+%28i+On+Global+Trends%29

May 21 - 23, 2010

The Colombian Government Grows Desperate
The Death Squads' DC Embassy
By DANIEL KOVALIK

On May 13, 2010, staff from the Washington Office on Latin America (“WOLA”), a D.C.-based human rights organization, met with long-time Colombian Ambassador Carolina Barco at the Colombian Embassy in Washington. At this meeting, WOLA staff, including Gimena Sanchez, expressed their concern for the safety of a number of its human rights partners in Colombia who, in the words of WOLA, have been victimized by “threats, sabotage of activities and baseless prosecutions.” WOLA is taking the threats against its partners very seriously as a number of leaders from social groups, particularly from Afro-Colombian and Indigenous groups, have been killed in recent months.

On May 14, the very next day, WOLA received a death threat directed to itself as well as 80 other Colombian human rights, Afro-Colombian, Indigenous, internally displaced and labor rights organizations and individuals. This threat, from the Colombian paramilitary group known as “The Black Eagles,” stated: “as so called human rights defenders don’t think you can hide behind the offices of the Attorney General or other institutions . . . we are watching you and you can consider yourselves dead.” As WOLA noted in an open letter dated May 17, The Black Eagles go “on to falsely accuse the listed organizations of having links to the FARC guerillas and as such declaring themselves military targets.”

WOLA further notes in this letter that “(o)rganizations listed in the death threat are long time partners of WOLA who work on internal displacement, Afro-Colombian and indigenous issues.” In addition, a number of labor unions are also listed, including the SINALTRAINAL union which I have personally worked with over the years in their lawsuit and campaign against The Coca-Cola Company. This threat was sent by e-mail to, among others, Gimena Sanchez herself who had been to the Colombian Embassy the day before.

The very fact that the paramilitary death threat followed the day after the WOLA visit to the Colombian Embassy is enough to give one pause about possible link between the paramilitaries and the Embassy. However, timing is not the only evidence of such a link. Thus, the intimidation of individuals and organizations critical of Colombian policies, by various means, including attempting to publicly link such groups and individuals to the guerillas, is a policy of the Colombian government itself.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/kovalik05212010.html

Bloodshed returns to Medellin
By Nadja Drost - GlobalPost
Published: May 20, 2010 06:23 ET

http://www.globalpost.com.nyud.net:8090/sites/default/files/imagecache/torso/photos/215/Colombia-Medellin-violence-2010-05-11-2.jpg

Soldiers patrol the violent Comuna 13
neighborhood in Medellin, Sept. 18, 2009.
(Albeiro Lopera/Reuters)

MEDELLIN, Colombia — Even the prescience of 13-year-old Luis Serna Varela couldn't save him.

He worried he would find himself caught in a shootout, or even with his finger pressed to the trigger of a gun, just another teenager unable to escape the gang warfare in his poor neighborhood atop Medellin. He asked his mother one morning: "Why don’t we leave from here?”

Now it's too late for his mother to do more than wonder about what she could have done differently. Luis went to buy eggs and cheese for his family’s breakfast in January when he was killed by a stray bullet.

He is yet another homicide victim in a city where 10 year olds carry guns and where the police's "necro-mobile" patrols the streets nightly, collecting dead bodies.

More:
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/colombia/100331/medellin-violence-part-1

New and Devastating Evidence on the Criminal Character of the Colombian Regime has been Exposed
By Manuel Rozental
Saturday, May 22, 2010

"The Circle is Closing" is the title of the report just released by Colombian magazine Semana <[i>]. It refers to how indeed the circle is closing on the Presidential Palace in Colombia, where the headquarters of a "criminal enterprise" involving Colombia's secret services (DAS), function under the direct orders of President Alvaro Uribe and his advisors. This latest report provides evidence, not only of involvement, but direction, orders and full control from the Presidential Palace and the President's closest friends and advisors of illegal and criminal operations. This criminal machinery has no parallel in history and a lot is to be unveiled yet. The Government and the President initially denied, then expressed concern and finally indignation at the accusations and against the evidence. The testimonies and documents provided and exposed in this report (and added to the already abundant existing proof) are conclusive.

From Colombia's top office and higher post, a criminal state structure has been established (it is still in place and being covered up). This structure is dedicated to spying, defamation, corruption, intimidation, threats, assassinations, disappearances and much more. Those affected by these actions include Supreme Court magistrates, human rights lawyers, members of parliament, political opposition leaders, academics, journalists, union members, indigenous, afro-Colombian, women, peasant leaders and advisors and many civilians and community members. Aurelio Suarez described these criminal activities as a "fraction of what the CIA-Nixon-Watergate scandal involved."<[ii>] All of this comes under the direction of Colombia's presidential palace and the highest people in power. The evidence against those involved makes it impossible for President Uribe to keep maintaining that he did not know. The circle is indeed closing.

But this is only the DAS scandal. Then there are the thousands of assassinations known as "false positives;" the abuse and the misuse of the judicial system to attack civilians and democratic social and political leaders; the corruption of the largest and most notorious government initiatives, where funds for the poor and social sectors are systematically transferred to drug lords, paramilitaries, wealthy industrialists and entrepreneurs and friends of the President and his ministers; the buying of votes in Congress to obtain constitutional reform; and the approval of many legislative acts, including FTAs, to benefit a few at the expense the many in open violation of the Colombian Constitution and all international treaties, agreements and charters of rights and freedoms. Add to that the assassination of key witnesses; the payback of favours to the Government with land, government posts and jobs and funds; the massive and illegal accumulation of resources; the illegal assignment of contracts to the President's relatives, including his two sons. In all of this, the mainstream media is complicit in these facts by covering them up: the farce of the paramilitary disarmament, whereby massive amounts of capital from the drug trade have been laundered; brutally acquired land legalized; crimes against humanity, including systematic cannibalism, massacres, mass graves and more to be discovered, have been minimally exposed and mostly ignored. When key witnesses and paramilitary commanders have begun to expose their involvement and cooperation with governments and transnational corporations, they have been extradited abroad and silenced. Meanwhile, paramilitary aggression continues and is worsening through threats and assassinations throughout the Colombian territory.

Over the ground laid by previous Governments in coordination with their national and transnational counterparts, during the last 8 years, the Colombian Government has dedicated its every effort to transforming the Colombian State into a criminal enterprise. The structure of the Colombian regime is rotten. It is a State against its obligations, against the Colombian people, against the Colombian economy, against nature, against humanity. All this is known even while those in power maintain control of the State. If "democratic security" and "Investor Trust," the hallmark policies of this government, were to be removed, expelled from the structure of the Colombian regime, and if the required legal proceedings and investigations were allowed to advance as they should, one cannot begin to imagine the horror and perversity revealed to be at the core of this model regime, designed "hand in glove" for -and most likely by- major foreign government and corporate counterparts.

More:
http://www.zcommunications.org/the-circle-opens-out-by-manuel-rozental

Coca-Cola's murderous record of anti-union activity in Colombia exposed
Saturday, May 22, 2010 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer

(NaturalNews) Coca-Cola: to many, it is simply the all-American cola that everyone grew up drinking. Originally created in the late 1800s as a medicine, Coca-Cola eventually evolved into one of the world's most popular soft drinks. Besides being a very unhealthy beverage, Coca-Cola has another dirty secret for which few people are aware; the Coca-Cola Company has been involved in a series of kidnappings involving union leaders and organizers at its Colombia bottling facilities. Many of those kidnapped have been severely tortured and even murdered by company thugs.

As shocking and unbelievable as all of this sounds, there is a trail of documented evidence against Coca-Cola for its crimes against union officials. In fact, back in 2001, the United Steelworkers of America and the International Labor Rights Fund, filed a joint lawsuit on behalf of SINALTRAINAL to address the problems in Colombia.

Javier Correa, President of the National Union of Food Industry Workers, and William Mendoza, President of the Barrancabermeja location in Colombia, have joined together with Ray Rogers, Director of the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke, to bring light to the issue and push for an end to the atrocities.

How did it all start?

Most people recognize that unions are formed to protect workers from unfair treatment and abuse by employers. Though some do not operate as intended, the general idea of unions is to ensure that workers are receiving fair pay for their labor and that they are not being grossly extorted by those for whom they work.

U.S. laws have been designed to protect American workers who form labor unions from being threatened or silenced by the companies for whom they work, and while they are not perfect, their intent was for the best interests of American workers.

When workers at Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia began to step up and organize unions, the Coca-Cola Company allegedly began to contract with paramilitary security forces to deal with leaders and organizers, something they would not legally be able to do in the U.S. Even today, these forces are using extreme tactics to silence anyone who would dare attempt to organize workers to form a union. These tactics include violent detention efforts, torture and even murder.

Internal Pentagon records that were eventually required to be made public revealed that Colombian troops connected with Coca-Cola's paramilitary forces were also being trained at the U.S. Army's School of the Americas (SOA) in Fort Benning, Georgia, to torture and murder those who conduct "union organizing and recruiting", distribute "propaganda in favor of workers", and "sympathize with demonstrators or strikes."

More:
http://www.naturalnews.com/028844_Coca-Cola_Colombia.html

assassinations --

It's the age old question . . . what is the solution to the violence of the few

among us. Never been answered.

(Just ran across this, and wanted to get it on the record, since I've never seen it before, and it's valuable.)

~~~~~
Conspiracy of Silence?
Colombia, the United States and the Massacre at El Salado

By Michael Evans

The question of the exact role played by Colombian security forces in the February 2000 El Salado massacre occupies a small but crucial part of the new report issued this week by Memoria Histórica (Historical Memory), the independent group charged by Colombia’s National Commission on Reparation and Reconciliation with writing the history of Colombia’s internal conflict. A long overdue account of one of the most horrific and indiscriminate paramilitary atrocities in Colombian history, the report is also a stinging indictment of the culture of impunity that has long shielded members of the Colombian security forces from justice.

The killings unfolded over five fateful days during which time hundreds of paramilitaries, mostly from the Bloque Norte (Northern Bloc), descended upon El Salado and other towns in the region, leaving behind a trail of torture, mayhem and murder that left 60 people dead and forced thousands from their homes, most of whom have never returned.

But while the paramilitary authors of the El Salado massacre were identified long ago, the exact role of the Colombian military has never been definitively established. Nevertheless, and despite very limited access to military records on the case, the report is adamant about the responsibility of the Colombian state.

The El Salado massacre raises not only the question of omission but also the action of the {Colombian} State. Omission in the development of the acts because it is not understandable how the security forces were neither able to prevent nor neutralize the paramilitary action. A massacre that lasted five days and that involved 450 paramilitaries, of which only 15 were captured a week after the massacre ended.*

For the United States, the potential involvement of the Colombian security forces in paramilitary crimes was the crux of the matter. The killings came as the development of Plan Colombia was in its final stages—a package that called for massive increases in aid for the Colombian military, but would also require the Colombian government to show that the military was severing longstanding ties with paramilitary forces.

Declassified records from the era show just how low the bar had been set for the Colombian military. In the view of the U.S. Embassy, the fact that Colombian security forces had captured a mere 11 of the 450 paramilitaries involved in what it characterized "an indiscriminate orgy of drunken violence" was actually reassuring. In its first report on El Salado, sent to Washington just days after the killings, the Embassy, under Ambassador Curtis Kamman, said it was "the first time Post can recall that the military, in this case the Marines, pursued paramilitaries in the wake of atrocities in the region with some vigor." El Salado, it seemed, was a military success story, and the Embassy had little else to say about El Salado for nearly five months.

The United States should not have been too surprised by the allegations that security forces were involved at El Salado. During the previous year, U.S. officials had frequently expressed doubts about the willingness of the military to combat paramilitary forces.

• During a January 1999 meeting with NGO representatives organized by the Colombian armed forces and attended by U.S. Embassy staff, Deputy Army Commander General Nestor Ramirez said that the Army "had no business pursuing paramilitaries" as they were "apolitical common criminals" that "did not threaten constitutional order through subversive activities."
  
  
• Another 1999 report from U.S. military sources found that the Colombian armed forces had "not actively persecuted paramilitary group members because they see them as allies in the fight against the guerrillas, their common enemy."
  
  
• The United States was also well aware of the "body count syndrome" that fueled human rights abuses in the Colombian security forces. Intelligence reports from throughout the 1990s described "death squad activity" among the armed forces. A Colombian Army colonel told the U.S. that the emphasis on body counts "tends to fuel human rights abuses by well-meaning soldiers trying to get their quota to impress superiors" and that it led to a "cavalier, or at least passive, approach when it comes to allowing the paramilitaries to serve as proxies … for the in contributing to the guerrilla body count."
  
  
• Evidence of military participation in the 1999 La Gabarra massacres left little doubt that there were military officers who viewed paramilitary forces as allies in the fight against guerrillas. Army Col. Victor Hugo Matamoros, with responsibility for the region around La Gabarra, told Embassy staff that he did not pursue paramilitaries in his area of operations. Separately, the Vice President’s office told the Embassy that Colombian Army troops had "donned AUC armbands" and participated in one of the massacres.

Eerily similar patterns emerged just a few weeks after El Salado. In March, U.S. military sources reported on the movements of Colombian security forces in the days around the killings. Buried beneath the details in one Intelligence Information Report is a short paragraph, based on an unidentified source, indicating that "many of the captured paramilitaries were wearing Colombian military uniforms." This, the source said, suggested "that many of the paramilitaries are ex-military members, or that they obtain the uniforms from military or ex-military members."

Even so, it was apparently not until July, when the New York Times published a detailed investigation of the alleged military complicity in the massacre, that the Embassy began to take the allegations seriously. Among other things, the Times article found that Colombian police and marine forces had vacated the town before the killings began, set up roadblocks to prevent humanitarian aid to reach the town, and otherwise did nothing to stop the paramilitary carnage. Still, State Department talking points drawn up to respond to press inquiries about the case again pointed to the capture of 11 of the paramilitaries as evidence that security forces had actively pursued the perpetrators.

sent a cable to Washington summarizing what it knew about El Salado and the status of the investigation. Repeated requests by the National Security Archive have now produced two very different versions of this cable, telling two very different stories. A copy of the cable declassified in 2002 omits several paragraphs that were later declassified in a version released in December 2008. These portions of the document, based on a conversation with a source apparently close to the investigation, strongly suggest that the Colombian Army knew about the massacre ahead of time and cleared out of the town before the killing began.

{Source}believes that the Army likely knew from intelligence reports that the paramilitaries were in the area, but left prior to the massacre. The paramilitaries then entered in trucks from Magdalena, went to Ovejas first and then onto El Salado…

More:
http://colombiasupport.blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html