Colombia's "Genocidal Democracy" May Have Claimed Over 150,000 Lives

Posted: April 26, 2010 11:20 AM
Colombia's "Genocidal Democracy" May Have Claimed Over 150,000 Lives

In his book, Colombia: The Genocidal Democracy, Father Javier Girardo, a Jesuit priest and long-time human rights activist in Colombia, estimated that, between 1988 and 1995, more than 60,000 Colombians lost their lives to the internal conflict in Colombia - most of them at the hands of the state, either in the form of the official Colombian military or the paramilitary forces supported by the state.

As for the Colombian state's support for the paramilitaries, also known as "death squads," that is well-known. Thus, as the U.S. State Department has concluded in its annual human rights reports, the paramilitaries have received active support from the Colombian government and from the Colombian military which has provided the paramilitaries with weapons, ammunition, logistical support and even with soldiers. Given that the U.S. has aided the Colombian military with over $7 billion in military assistance since 2000, all the while knowing the military's close collaboration with the murderous paramilitaries, the U.S. itself is complicit in the paramilitaries' crimes.

The extent of the Colombian state's connections with the paramilitaries continues to be exposed, with former paramilitary leaders revealing the heights of the government support for their activities. Within the past days, for example, former paramilitary commander Salvatore Mancuso confirmed that the current Colombian Vice-President, Francisco Santos, and the Defense Minister, Juan Manual Santos, had close ties with the paramilitary forces. Juan Manual Santos is expected to be the next President of Colombia.

Up till recently, the prevailing estimate of civilians killed specifically by the paramilitaries has been around 30,000. Father Girardo, citing new estimates by Colombia's own Prosecutor General, has now shattered those original estimates, announcing that the Prosecutor General is currently investigating 150,000 extrajudicial killings by the paramilitary groups - killings which took place between the late 1980's and the current time. Even the prior, more conservative estimates would have made Colombia the worst human rights abuser in South America in recent times, having victimized more than Argentina's fascist junta and Chile's Pinochet dictatorship.

The new estimates place Colombia in a category all of its own as the worst human rights abuser in the Western Hemisphere. And, in terms of peoples internally displaced as a result of the conflict in Colombia - over 4 million - Colombia ranks only second in the world to the Sudan. And, not too surprisingly given the U.S.'s usual support for the worst human rights abusers, the Washington Post reported in an article by Juan Forero on April 19, 2010, that Colombia is "Washington's closest ally on the continent."

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-kovalik/colombias-genocidal-democ_b_551847.html

Also posted in Editorials:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x532145

As this article was going to publication, we learned that Javier Girardo, and his human rights group, Justicia y Paz, have received death threats in retaliation for the above-mentioned revelations about the paramilitaries. Please take a moment to write a note of concern for the life of Father Javier to Hillary Clinton (Fax 202 647-2283) and President Alvaro Uribe at the Colombian Embassy in D.C. (Fax 202 232-8643).

We have learned this is absolulely ordinary in Colombia's reign of terror, implemented to try to silence all REAL pleas for help, one way or another.

As Colombian born, I´m absolutely agree with Judi´s post. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, former collaborator of the deceased drug kingpin Pablo Escobar and a former US Golden Boy of the Bush Administration, is direct responsible of the high unsafety levels in Colombia created by his bloodthirsty narcoparamilitary friends. Just during Uribe´s regime of terror, between January 2002 and March 2010, have been assasinated 122,000 people in Colombia. Father Giraldo is in serious danger, especially due to his strong opposition to Uribe.

last week against Father Javier Girardo. Such threats in Colombia are not to be taken lightly. I hope he will be safe.

Dreyfus, welcome to the Latin American forum. As a native of Colombia you have inside knowledge that we do not. Looking forward to your posts.

:hi:

our corporate media tries to pass off as the truth about Colombia.

We've been following it day after day and are so sick about how they TOTALLY conceal what has been happening there, as they continue to praise Uribe and his dirty regime.

We've heard idiots boasting, instead, that Uribe has really cut down violence so much, and made Colombia a safer place.

In the meantime, we've read reports from newspapers outside the country that the crime rate is actually going UP.

Once these killers are out to get someone it's not so easy to stay safe, is it? What a shame Uribe has enabled them to have so much freedom to murder people, without ever having to worry about going to jail for it. So few murders they've committed have EVER gone to trial, we know that much. The government doesn't want to try people who've done it favors by executing government critics.

Over the last 5 years?

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

Nationmaster is using the last available data provided by the Venezuelan govt. They stopped providing it in 2001.


1. Honduras: 58
2. Venezuela: 52
3. Sierra Leone: 50
4. El Salvador: 49 (up to 72 according to elfaro.net)
5. Jamaica: 49
6. Guatemala: 45
7. Trinidad: 42.3
8. Angola: 40
9. South Africa: 37
10. Colombia: 36

I've been to Colombia many times. You are making yourself look uninformed. Crime is way down. That is why Mockus says he will continue Uribe's crime policies. This doesn't mean Uribe is a good guy, but there is no reason to try to deny reality. Right now you can get on a plane to Bogota, check into a hotel, and see the sites without having to worry Bout getting kidnapped. Go ahead and try it, it's a great place. five years ago I would not tell you to do that.

:hi:

You're Colombian but living abroad, is that right? I wanted to ask you what do you think about the numbers of decreasing murder rates in Colombia. The numbers I find all describe a rate around 35-40/100,000. The decrease looks amazing but I tend to distrust the data provided by the current govt. so I was wondering if you had data from different sources?

Gangs tied to paramilitaries cited in Colombia violence
By Arthur Brice, CNN
February 3, 2010 3:13 p.m. EST

CNN) -- Criminal gangs that emerged from Colombia's former paramilitary organizations are carrying out massacres, rapes and extortion, a human rights group said Wednesday.

Nowhere is that violence more pronounced than in Medellin, which recorded more than 200 slayings in January alone. The city's homicide rate also more than doubled in 2009 from the previous year.

Bogota, the nation's capital, also is seeing a surge in violence, with more than 100 killings reported last month.

"Whatever you call these groups -- whether paramilitaries, gangs or some other name -- their impact on human rights in Colombia today should not be minimized," said Jose Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch.

"Like the paramilitaries, these successor groups are committing horrific atrocities, and they need to be stopped."

A report released Wednesday by Human Rights Watch details widespread abuses by "successor groups" to the paramilitary coalition of 37 armed groups called the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, better known by its Spanish acronym AUC.

The Colombian government has said it decommissioned more than 30,000 AUC members from 2003 to 2006, but Human Rights Watch said many of those demobilizations were fraudulent. Large numbers of heavily armed paramilitaries never left the organizations, or new recruits took the place of those who stepped down, the rights group said.

As a result, Human Rights Watch said, widespread violence has exploded in four regions where the groups have a substantial presence: Medellin, the Uraba region of Chocó state and the states of Meta and Nariño.

The Colombian Center for Human Rights and the Displaced also blames the renewed violence on the resurgence of organizations linked to former paramilitary groups. "Emerging gangs have planted the seed of terror," the group said.

More:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/02/03/colombia.violence/index.html

Posted on Thursday, 02.04.10
Paramilitaries, successors still terrorizing Colombia

A reemergence of the paramilitaries, and their successors, are terrorizing Colombia anew.
By SIBYLLA BRODZINSKY
Special to The Miami Herald

BOGOTA -- For some human rights activists, the new face of violence in Colombia comes with a familiar mask.

While a female activist was providing assistance to a woman victim of the paramilitaries at the victim's home in Antioquia, five men wearing balaclavas broke into the house, raped both women and warned the rights defender to stop doing human rights work.

The men who attacked them -- the rights worker feared having her name used -- were members of what Human Rights Watch calls the ``successor groups'' to Colombia's long-feared right-wing paramilitary groups, most of which demobilized under a deal with the government of President Alvaro Uribe.

In a new report released here Wednesday, called Paramilitaries Heirs: The New Face of Violence in Colombia, the U.S.-based NGO said the successor groups pose a growing threat to human rights and security in Colombia.

6 MAIN GROUPS

By the most conservative estimates, the new groups have at least 4,000 members who regularly commit massacres, killings, and forcibly displace individuals and entire communities. And as their ranks have swelled, the groups have consolidated into six main organizations and are present in 24 of Colombia's 32 provinces.

The groups are committing ``egregious abuses and terrorizing the civilian population in ways all too reminiscent of the AUC,'' the report said referring to the federation of paramilitary groups called the Self-Defense Forces of Colombia that demobilized more than 30,000 men between 2003 and 2006.

More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/02/04/1461762/paramilitaries-successors-still.html

NGO denounces rise in human rights abuses at Venezuela border
Tuesday, 11 May 2010 07:41 Kirsten Begg

Colombian NGO Fundacion Progresar Monday condemned "serious" human rights violations at the Colombia-Venezuela border, which, according to the organization's statistics, has seen 16,000 murders and 1,800 disappearances over the last decade.

Fundacion Progresar director, Wilfredo Cañizalez, who works with conflict victims in Colombia's Norte de Santander department, said that homicide and forced displacement along the border have increased in recent years.

Cañizalez believes that ongoing squabbling between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, "has created a cloak of darkness that covers and hides the reality of the border ."

The NGO director describes the border as "permeable, where everything has a price, where criminal activities have been strengthened, where the trafficking of drugs, the smuggling of gasoline, goods, steel, the theft of vehicles, extortion and kidnapping are our daily bread."

Following a six month investigation, Fundacion Progresar determined that in the last decade Norte de Santander has registered close to 1,800 reported disappearances.

"Of these, we have been able to determine that in close to 200 cases, it is certain that the bodies were dumped on the Venezuelan side," a habitual practice that ensures that these disappearances do not appear in official statistics and are not covered by the media, Cañizalez said.

More:
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/9649-ngo-denounces-human-rights-abuses-at-border.html

DAS spied on NGO workers, including priests
Monday, 03 May 2010 14:09 Cameron Sumpter

http://colombiareports.com.nyud.net:8090/pics/2010/05/javier_giraldo.jpg

Colombian security agency DAS kept files on Father Javier Giraldo and other members of the NGO Center for Investigation and Popular Education (CINEP), including records of personal finances and travel histories, reports Caracol Radio.

The files, made available to Radio Caracol, represent new evidence of DAS's illegal wiretapping and surveillance activities.

Records of Father Giraldo's movements between 1960 and 2004 are attached to his file, as well as a list of 32 CINEP researchers who also have detailed files.

Resumes of Eduardo Umaña Luna and Father Gabriel Izquierdo, financial records of Giraldo Moreno and Gabriel Izquierdo, and detailed reports of CINEP's human rights' activities were in the files obtained by Caracol.

Speaking at an international conference last week, Father Javier Giraldo highlighted Colombia's problem of violence by illegally armed groups, saying that Colombia's prosecutor general is investigating 150,000 murders by paramilitaries.

Liberal Party presidential candidate Rafael Pardo said that the International Criminal Court should intervene in the DAS wiretapping scandal if Colombia does not successfully prosecute those involved.

http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/9502-das-spied-on-ngo-workers-including-priests.html

Afro-Colombian rights activists targeted by smear campaign
Wednesday, 28 April 2010 12:18 Brett Borkan

The recent threats against three Colombian human rights activists form part of an ongoing campaign to publicly discredit and smear their work of protecting Afro-Colombian communities in the Choco region, according to the Inter-Church Commission for Justice and Peace.

According to the commission, the threats against Danilo Rueda, Father Alberto Franco, and Father Javier Giraldo, which include accusations of terrorism and racial discrimination, death threats, kidnapping threats, and illegal phone and email intercepts, come as a result of their work to investigate human rights abuses by paramilitary organizations since 1996 in the Bajo Atrato region of the department of Choco, ALC Noticias reported Wednesday.

In addition, threatening messages have been written via graffiti across Bogota against Father Javier Giraldo.

A press release from the Center for Investigation and Popular Education, the Colombian NGO where Father Giraldo works, denounced the threats and vowed to keep fighting to protect human rights. "We reject these threats against Father Giraldo, who has tried to defend human rights and not leave the crimes against.. rights to go unpunished."

In regards to the activists' operations in the Bajo Atrato region, an Afro-Colombian area severely hit by the conflict, the commission said that opponents to their work "seek to discredit and destroy the efforts to protect life and land... The region is found within an internal conflict zone and the operations of businesses are destroying the ecosystems."

Residents of the Bajo Atrato account for over 16% of the total displaced people in Colombia, according to the Citizen Commission for Monitoring Displacement. This is due to paramilitaries forcefully taking control of large portions of land for cultivation and to exploit the large quantities of natural resources.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:xqrdhois7d8J:colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/9408-afro-colombian-rights-activists-targeted-by-smear-campaign.html+Afro-Colombian+rights+activists+targeted+by+smear+campaign&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

AUC paramilitaries

(Was alerted to this today by Dreyfus.)

A former paramilitary has testified that rightwing uribista paramilitaries used crematorium ovens to dispose of bodies. He said the crematoriums were used in the province of Antioquia near the city of Medellin. (Alvaro Uribe was Antioquia governor at the time.)

This is the second time have seen references to paramilitary crematoriums; a few months ago the use of the ovens in the province of Norte de Santender was revealed.

Some of the details are chilling.

Snips

~~ The oven was inaugurated with a man named Alberto who had stolen some money, he was put in the oven alive. The oven was managed with a man nicknamed the "undertaker." Two men maintained the grills and chimneys because they would clog up with human fat.

~~ The door to the oven was hermetic, it had thick glass windows, there were three buttons, a red one to ignite the oven and the other two to raise the temperature. It smelled like burnt pork skins. Only one person fitted in the oven. The bodies were tied to a metallic table; when the temperature was raised, the bodies would lift up. Many people died before they were put in the oven.



More (Spanish)

http://www.verdadabierta.com/nunca-mas/nuncamas/2439-los-paras-tambien-tenian-crematorios-en-antioquia


------------------------------------------

This is one secret they have probably killed people to keep quiet, no doubt whatsoever. Now it's out. Thank goodness.

No one can be more brutal than this, combined with the chainsaw murdering, and hacking to death.

There's nothing the Nazis did worse than this. The only difference was the scale and the availability of lots of victims at any one time.

Hope many many people will hear of this new legitimate information. Sooner or later all the ties between these hellish monsters and the "elected" people in government will be exposed. In time this country is going to be forced by international condemnation to withdraw such excessive financial and material support of such evil, such corruption.

You know the serious ones among us thank you with deepest sentiment, and are so glad Dreyfus called this out for us to learn.

The website is one to keep for future reference.