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Articles/Articulos:  Uribe - Duque

Communists Framed As Narcos By Colombian Intelligence  2/11/2021 Diaspora Tribune: "Colombia and the West have always attempted to scapegoat communist guerillas for narcotrafficking. Before the peace agreement of 2016, the Colombian government released reports attributing 60% of cocaine exports to FARC. However, if you look at this period of time and even at the present, you will find that banks and transnational corporations often dominate the market and profit the most off of narcotrafficking. The U.S. has been able to fund their numerous counterinsurgency programs throughout Colombia, and the rest of Latin America, through narcotrafficking. These counterinsurgency programs are directly responsible for much of the brutal violence witnessed at the hands of paramilitaries throughout Colombia. Many of Colombia’s highest-ranked military personnel, police officers and politicians, including Uribe, have known links to narcotrafficking."

Uribe’s Career Was Funded by Pablo Escobar, Report  12/28/2020 Diaspora Tribune: "Recently declassified documents from the U.S. State Department (linked at bottom of article) reveal that former Colombian president, Álvaro Uribe, received financial support from Pablo Escobar. Local media in Colombia confirm that the narcotrafficking Medellin cartel funded his campaigns for Senate. The papers also reveal that the far-right ex-president received several payments from Ochoa Vásquez, one of the infamous “Ochoa Brothers” and founding member of the Medellin Cartel. Additionally, the documents reveal that Uribe’s relationship with Escobar and the cartel originated as far back as 1991."

Documentos desclasificados en EEUU señalan que Uribe recibió financiamiento del cartel de Medellín  12/26/2020 Mazo Dando: "De acuerdo con los documentos desclasificados del Departamento de Estado, Uribe, quien gobernó en Colombia entre 2002 y 2010, recibió financiamiento "para sus campañas electorales al Senado por parte de la familia Ochoa Vásquez, miembro del cartel de Medellín". En esta información, amplificada este sábado por medios de prensa colombianos, se detalla que la relación de Uribe con el grupo del capo del narcotráfico Pablo Escobar data de 1993. Presuntamente, Escobar exigió a Uribe, a través de "Los Ochoa", que le ayudara a comunicarse con el entonces presidente César Gaviria (1990-1994) "a cambio del favor" de la financiación de su campaña, recalca el medio DW."

This Democrat Is Vying for a Powerful Foreign Affairs Role. His Ties To Right-Wing Groups in Colombia Could Haunt Him.  11/9/2020 In These Times: "But it is activists working with marginalized groups in Colombia, many of them Afro-Colombians themselves, who hold a special resentment toward Meeks — and fear of the Colombian figures he collaborated with to push through the Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA), a ?“free trade” law passed in 2011, after years of tension between big business and a bloc of labor, environmental and rights organizations. Meeks distinguished himself not only by being one of the Democratic Party’s most gung-ho supporters of this deal, but by collaborating closely with conservative then-President of Colombia Álvaro Uribe, who oversaw surveillance, sabotage and extrajudicial executions of journalists, union leaders and Afro-Colombian rights defenders. Through his work with the Uribe government to pass the Colombia FTA, Meeks formed a relationship with politician Edgar Ulises Torres, who was later jailed for receiving money from Freddy Rendón (known as ?“el Alemán”) — the brutal leader of the Elmer Cárdenas Bloc of the far-right paramilitary group, United Self-Defenses of Colombia (AUC). Some activists who work with social movements in Colombia and have direct knowledge of these Colombian para-politicians were reluctant to speak freely over concerns that they would endanger their own lives or the lives of their associates."

Is Colombia’s aviation agency trafficking for Sinaloa Cartel this time?  10/22/2020 Colombia Reports: "The trial against “El Chapo” additionally revealed how Uribe’s in-laws, the Cifuentes family, worked with the Mexican cartel since the 1990’s to secure drug trafficking routes while creating countless money laundering rackets in Colombia. The discovery of drug trafficking labs on the estate of the family of former Aerocivil director Fernando Sanclemente increases concern that the agency is being used for drug trafficking."

The resurrected Medellin Cartel has the US government by the balls  9/4/2020 Colombia Reports: "The AGC controls the Pacific coast and, together with their rivals “Los Caparrapos” many of the domestic routes with a little help of the National Army’s 7th Division. La Oficina focuses on the business side, laundering the traffickers’ money in Medellin and Bogota, just in case Washington DC stops chasing ghosts in Venezuela."

Declassified US State Department Cables: “Uribe Almost Certainly Had Dealings With The Paramilitaries”  9/2/2020 Finance Colombia: "But a collection of declassified State Department documents published by the National Security Archive in 2018 (and also featured in the New York Times) show that for years U.S. diplomats harbored serious concerns about Uribe’s links to the narcos—listing him, for example, on a cable identifying suspected Colombian “Narcopols.” In another case, an Uribe ally told the Embassy that the notorious Ochoa Vásquez brothers, co-founders of the Medellín Cartel, had “financed” Uribe’s Senate campaign. In another cable, U.S. Ambassador to Colombia Morris Busby, who coordinated U.S. efforts to help Colombia take down Pablo Escobar, said he believed there was “substance to the rumors” that Uribe and other politicians had ties to narcotics interests."

Uribe ‘almost certainly’ dealt with paramilitaries: 2004 US cable  8/31/2020 Colombia Reports: "Former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was told in 2004 that Colombia’s former President Alvaro Uribe “almost certainly” had ties to paramilitaries and that a memo on ties to Pablo Escobar was real, according to the National Security Archive. Despite the fact that the AUC was considered a foreign terrorist organization at the time, President George W Bush awarded the former Medellin Cartel associate a Medal of Freedom in 2009 for “confronting terrorism.”"

US cables: Colombia’s ex-president suspected of militia ties  8/31/2020 AP: "“Uribe almost certainly had dealings with the paramilitaries (AUC) while governor of Antioquia,” Peter Rodman, then a top Pentagon deputy, wrote Bush-era Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in a confidential 2004 dispatch. “It goes with the job.” The missive adds to suspicions – which Uribe has vehemently denied — that the man credited with turning the tide in Colombia’s long war with Marxist combatants himself engaged with violent actors while leading the province that includes Medellin in the 1990s. The United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, known by their Spanish acronym AUC, were declared a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. in 2001."

Colombia’s Supreme Court receives ‘proof’ Uribe was involved in massacres  8/26/2020 Colombia Reports: "The Supreme Court is additionally investigating if Uribe was involved in the 1998 assassination of human rights defender Jesus Maria Valle, who warned the former president of the impending massacres and was assassinated shortly after Uribe left office. The war crimes tribunal is additionally investigating the Hidroituango hydro-electric dam project on suspicion that the paramilitary groups in the region where sowing terror to save Medellin energy company money in buying up land from local farmers."

Duque cree imprescindible extraditar a Saab a EE.UU. para comprometer a Maduro con narcos  8/10/2020 Telam: "Para el mandatario colombiano "es fundamental" la extradición a Estados Unidos del abogado y empresario colombiano detenido en Cabo Verde y señalado como testaferro de Nicolás Maduro."

Solicitan audios de Álvaro Uribe sobre campaña de Uribe  8/9/2020 Diario de Huila: ""La Directora del partido Centro Democra´tico, Nubia Stella Marti´nez en audio, con Mari´a Claudia “cayita” Daza, interceptadas por orden del Honorable Magistrado de la Sala de Instruccio´n de la Corte Suprema, Dr. Misael Rodri´guez, en medio de la investigacio´n que adelanta ese alto tribunal contra el Ex Presidente de la Repu´blica y hoy Senador A´lvaro Uribe Ve´lez por Presunta Manipulación de Testigos", señala uno de los apartes del documento del CNE. El CNE le solicita a la Sociedad de Activos Especiales que certifique si tiene en la actualidad bienes que fueron propiedad del ganadero Jose 'Ñeñe' Hernández quien estaba siendo investigado por presuntas relaciones con el narcotráfico."

The crisis that could follow if Colombia’s Supreme Court jails Uribe  8/4/2020 Colombia Reports: "If Colombia’s Supreme Court decides to jail former President Alvaro Uribe, the government of President Ivan Duque is likely to enter a crisis while the ruling party implodes. Duque’s party, the Democratic Center, is referred to as “the Uribistas” for a reason; they are loyal only to Uribe and expect the same from the president. Within the government, the president is surrounded by Uribe’s most loyal underbosses, who have been able to make sure Duque doesn’t get the wrong idea he’s the boss."

How Colombia’s former president helped kick-start the Medellin Cartel  6/29/2020 Colombia Reports: "Before that, the Uribe family was already close to the Ochoa crime family, which helped late drug lord Pablo Escobar form the cartel, the former President told newspaper El Tiempo in 2002. But it was during 1978 and 1982, the year that Uribe left civil aviation agency Aerocivil, that the drug trade of Escobar and his partners really started making money, according to late Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara, who was murdered by cartel assassins in 1984."

The narco history of Colombia’s security forces | Part 2: Medellin  6/26/2020 Colombia Reports: "Escobar’s cartel days were counted though as the local elite, the police and the 4th Brigade took sides with one of Galeano’s enforcers, “Don Berna,” who turned the cartel’s local enforcer army into what is now known as the Oficina de Envigado. The legendary drug lord was dead in 18 months and Berna became the new best friend of the local elite and security forces, and a founding member of paramilitary group AUC. Their extreme violence triggered the US to put the AUC on its list of terrorism organizations in 2001. Fortunately for the Medellin mafia, the AUC terrorized Colombia to vote Uribe president, allowing Berna and La Oficina to run Medellin together with then-4th Brigade commander General Mario Montoya and the local Police."

Colombia’s finance minister tied to narco conspiracy to rig Duque’s 2018 election  3/19/2020 Colombia Reports: "Colombia’s finance minister has been linked to a Supreme Court investigation into former President Alvaro Uribe over a mafia conspiracy to rig the 2018 elections in favor of President Ivan Duque. Wiretaps have revealed that the late Jose Guillermo Hernandez, the alleged money launderer of drug trafficker Marquitos Figueroa, sought favors from Alberto Carrasquilla after he took office in 2018. Recently released wiretaps prove Hernandez did not just conspire to rig the elections, but maintained ties with the Uribe’s Democratic Center (CD) party and the Duque administration after the president had taken office."

The people of Colombia are cracking up the walls of war and authoritarianism  1/18/2020 Alternet: "Paramilitary commander Salvatore Mancuso—who had the temerity to talk about the Chiquita banana corporation and who is apparently going to return to Colombia sometime soon—is just the best-known name. Many others have found that being a paramilitary leads to a considerably shortened lifespan. Uribe, mayor of Medellín and governor of Antioquia during the heyday of the cartels, is named in numerous official documents as being close to both the narcotraffickers and the paramilitaries. The evidence keeps coming, as courts, now trying Uribe’s brother, keep getting closer to the man himself."

Former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe linked to international drug trafficking through Sinaloa Cartel  1/16/2020 World Socialists: "According to the Air Cargo Lines security chief, between 2006-2008, while president, Uribe received large bribes from representatives of the Sinaloa Cartel in exchange for helping traffic 10,000 kilograms of cocaine from Colombia to Mexico. As part of the deal, Uribe authorized the construction of a hangar on the grounds of a Bogotá airport to be used as a logistical hub for the operation, and instructed the country’s aviation authority to allow a privately owned Mexican DC8 aircraft to fly in and out of the country without first passing through customs. The cocaine exported was provided by the Colombian Paísa cartel, which was composed of ex-members of the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC, or United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia), accurately described by Latin American crime research organization Insight Crime as “a coalition of right-wing death squads that used the [civil war] to camouflage their illicit economic activities [including] drug trafficking, displacement, kidnapping, and extortion.” The AUC paramilitary group has been exposed by Richard Maok as playing a key role in bringing Uribe to power in 2000."

Declassified US cables link Uribe to Colombia drug cartels  5/26/2018 AP: "Still, throughout this period, U.S. Embassy officials appeared to waver in their judgement. In another cable from March 1993, Ambassador Morris Busby states he believes there is “substance to the rumors,” if no hard evidence, that Uribe and future President Ernesto Samper, whose campaign he was backing in Medellin, had ties to drug traffickers. Prosecutors would later determine that the Cali cartel spent millions of dollars on Samper’s campaign and the U.S. would go on to revoke his visa and withdraw all support for his government."

Cables Contain Claims Former Colombian Leader Is Tied to Drug Traffickers  5/25/2018 NYT: "Michael L. Evans, a senior analyst at the National Security Archive, an investigatory nonprofit that provided The New York Times with the cables after petitioning that they be declassified. He added: “In these cables we learn more about the allegations that most worried the Embassy: the aviation licenses for cartel figures; his financial ties to the Ochoa clan; and above all the possibility that he might be indebted to them.” Mr. Uribe served as president from 2002 to 2010 and was considered America’s closest ally in the region in the war against drug traffickers. He negotiated a deal to demobilize paramilitary groups in 2004 and delivered the blows to leftist rebels that led to a peace deal under his successor in 2016. Both were financed by the cocaine trade."

When Ivan Duque’s dad confronted Alvaro Uribe over Medellin Cartel licenses  4/3/2018 Colombia Reports: "What Duque didn’t know was that the Uribe family was also close to Escobar. Uribe’s father was close friends with Fabio Ochoa, the patriarch of the Ochoa clan that would help form the Medellin cartel in 1982. Uribe and the Ochoa brothers knew each other since they were young, the former president has admitted. Furthermore, the aviation chief’s older brother Jaime had his first child with cartel associate Dolly Cifuentes a year before the phone call According to Contreras, Duque called Uribe and told him that “in case you didn’t know, this is a businessman who is linked to the mafia.” Uribe told the governor stone cold that Cardona was “a good man.”"

Bush, Colombia & Narco-Politics  8/8/2007 Consortium News: "The new disclosures also have brought back to public attention the Uribe family’s long history of ties to drug lords and paramilitary militias. Colombia’s Supreme Court announced in July that it was investigating Senator Mario Uribe, the president’s cousin and his point man in the Colombian Congress, for alleged links to the AUC. Several paramilitary leaders have said Mario Uribe was one of their allies and an intermediary with the government. He has denied any wrongdoing. But the family link to purported drug lords dates back several decades. As a young man and an aspiring politician, Álvaro Uribe lost his position as mayor of Medellín – after only five months on the job – because the country’s president ousted him over his family’s suspected connections to traffickers, according to media reports at the time. His father Alberto Uribe, a wealthy landowner, reputedly had been a close associate of the Medellín cartel and its kingpins, such as Pablo Escobar and the Ochoa brothers, who were personal friends. In 1983, Alberto Uribe was reportedly wanted by the U.S. government for drug trafficking when he was killed in a kidnapping attempt by the FARC. According to media accounts, his body was airlifted back to his family by one of Escobar’s helicopters. In the early 1990s, Álvaro Uribe’s brother, Santiago, was investigated for allegedly organizing and leading a paramilitary militia that was headquartered at the Uribe family hacienda. He was never charged and the case was dismissed for lack of evidence. But Santiago was photographed alongside Fabio Ochoa at a party even after the government had declared Ochoa one of the most notorious Medellín cartel kingpins. The incident with Santiago Uribe coincided with Álvaro Uribe’s eight years in the Senate, where he opposed extradition of drug suspects. His critics accused him of working for the Medellín cartel."

Alleged Hit Man Worked at US Embassy  4/25/2007 AP: "A retired army colonel accused of conspiring to assassinate President Alvaro Uribe's most vocal critic worked for the U.S. Embassy two years ago… Villate also was accused before his embassy job - when he was still in the military, in mid-2004 - of spying on leaders of Cali's public employees union in what the union described as an assassination plot. That scandal was widely publicized at the time, and remains under criminal investigation. The U.S. Embassy conducted normal background checks before hiring Villate that "did not turn up any derogatory information about him," Louis said in a later statement." [Uribe was revealed in a declassified DIA memo to have been a "close personal friend" of Pablo Escobar and a "narcosenator" prior to assuming the presidency.]

U.S. INTELLIGENCE LISTED COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT URIBE AMONG "IMPORTANT COLOMBIAN NARCO-TRAFFICKERS" IN 1991  8/2/2004 National Security Archives: "Then-Senator and now President Álvaro Uribe Vélez of Colombia was a "close personal friend of Pablo Escobar" who was "dedicated to collaboration with the Medellín [drug] cartel at high government levels," according to a 1991 intelligence report from U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) officials in Colombia. The document was posted today on the website of the National Security Archive, a non-governmental research group based at George Washington University. Uribe's inclusion on the list raises new questions about allegations that surfaced during Colombia's 2002 presidential campaign. Candidate Uribe bristled and abruptly terminated an interview in March 2002 when asked by Newsweek reporter Joseph Contreras about his alleged ties to Escobar and his associations with others involved in the drug trade. Uribe accused Contreras of trying to smear his reputation, saying that, "as a politician, I have been honorable and accountable." "

U.S. Intelligence Tied Colombia’s Uribe to Drug Trade in ’91 Report  8/2/2004 LA Times: "Under Uribe, Colombia’s production of coca, the source of cocaine, has dropped by more than 50% through intense, U.S.-funded fumigation efforts, and more than 160 suspected drug traffickers have been indicted, U.S. defense officials said. “We completely disavow these allegations against President Uribe,” said Robert Zimmerman, a spokesman for the State Department’s Western Hemisphere Affairs Bureau, which monitors Colombia. “We have no credible information that substantiates or corroborates the allegations.” News of the memo comes at a delicate time for Uribe, who is negotiating a peace deal with right-wing paramilitaries involved in drug dealing and is seeking a constitutional amendment to allow him to run for a second term in office."

Narcocandidato en Colombia  3/19/2002 Narco News: "Las 50 toneladas del precursor químico destinadas a GMP eran suficientes para fabricar 500 toneladas de hidroclorato de cocaína, con un valor en la calle de15 mil millones de dólares. El dueño de GMP Productos Químicos,de acuerdo al reporte de 2001 del jefe de la DEA, es Pedro Juan Moreno Villa, el jefe de campaña, ex secretario de gobierno y, por mucho tiempo, mano derecha del actual candidato a la presidenciade Colombia Álvaro Uribe Vélez. Moreno fue el alter ego políticode Uribe durante y después de esos nerviosos meses de1997 y 1998, cuando esperaba esos envíos de contrabando. Cuando Uribe fue gobernador del estadode Antioquía-cuya capital es Medellín-,, de 1995 a 1997, Moreno era el secretario de gobierno. Durante esos años, según el entonces jefe de la DEA Marshall, "entre1994 y 1998, GMP fue el más grande importador de permanganato de potasio en Colombia"."

Narco-Candidate In Colombia  3/19/2002 Narco News: "The 50,000 kilos of the precursor chemical destined for GMP were enough to make half-a-million kilos of cocaine hydrochloride, with a street value of $15 billion U.S.dollars. The owner of GMP Chemical Products, according to the 2001 DEA chief's report, is Pedro Juan Moreno Villa, the campaign manager, former chief of staff, and longtime right-hand-man for front-running Colombian presidential candidate Alvaro UribeVélez. Mr. Moreno was Uribe's political alter-ego before, during and after those nervous 1997 and 1998 months when he awaited those contraband shipments."
  

Articles/Artículos

Biden Pushes Colombia to Restart Glyphosate Spraying Program  3/20/2021 Common Dreams: "But in 2015, the Colombian Supreme Court ruled that the spraying must end if the spraying of glyphosate was creating health problems. Also, in 2015, the World Health Organization found that glyphosate—also known as "Roundup"—was harmful to the environment and health, potentially causing cancer. In 2014, ending aerial fumigation was central to peace negotiations with FARC, with the Colombian government agreeing with FARC negotiators that it would transition away from aerial spraying. The Colombian government was also facing significant pressure from the rural poor, who were organizing national protests against aerial fumigation and other forms of forced eradication. "National level protests blocking access roads and inhibiting movement were a major hindrance to manual eradication's ability to operate in major coca-growing regions, and also bedeviled aerial eradication operations," the US State Department reported in 2014."

Communists Framed As Narcos By Colombian Intelligence  2/11/2021 Diaspora Tribune: "Colombia and the West have always attempted to scapegoat communist guerillas for narcotrafficking. Before the peace agreement of 2016, the Colombian government released reports attributing 60% of cocaine exports to FARC. However, if you look at this period of time and even at the present, you will find that banks and transnational corporations often dominate the market and profit the most off of narcotrafficking. The U.S. has been able to fund their numerous counterinsurgency programs throughout Colombia, and the rest of Latin America, through narcotrafficking. These counterinsurgency programs are directly responsible for much of the brutal violence witnessed at the hands of paramilitaries throughout Colombia. Many of Colombia’s highest-ranked military personnel, police officers and politicians, including Uribe, have known links to narcotrafficking."

Uribe’s Career Was Funded by Pablo Escobar, Report  12/28/2020 Diaspora Tribune: "Recently declassified documents from the U.S. State Department (linked at bottom of article) reveal that former Colombian president, Álvaro Uribe, received financial support from Pablo Escobar. Local media in Colombia confirm that the narcotrafficking Medellin cartel funded his campaigns for Senate. The papers also reveal that the far-right ex-president received several payments from Ochoa Vásquez, one of the infamous “Ochoa Brothers” and founding member of the Medellin Cartel. Additionally, the documents reveal that Uribe’s relationship with Escobar and the cartel originated as far back as 1991."

Documentos desclasificados en EEUU señalan que Uribe recibió financiamiento del cartel de Medellín  12/26/2020 Mazo Dando: "De acuerdo con los documentos desclasificados del Departamento de Estado, Uribe, quien gobernó en Colombia entre 2002 y 2010, recibió financiamiento "para sus campañas electorales al Senado por parte de la familia Ochoa Vásquez, miembro del cartel de Medellín". En esta información, amplificada este sábado por medios de prensa colombianos, se detalla que la relación de Uribe con el grupo del capo del narcotráfico Pablo Escobar data de 1993. Presuntamente, Escobar exigió a Uribe, a través de "Los Ochoa", que le ayudara a comunicarse con el entonces presidente César Gaviria (1990-1994) "a cambio del favor" de la financiación de su campaña, recalca el medio DW."

This Democrat Is Vying for a Powerful Foreign Affairs Role. His Ties To Right-Wing Groups in Colombia Could Haunt Him.  11/9/2020 In These Times: "But it is activists working with marginalized groups in Colombia, many of them Afro-Colombians themselves, who hold a special resentment toward Meeks — and fear of the Colombian figures he collaborated with to push through the Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA), a ?“free trade” law passed in 2011, after years of tension between big business and a bloc of labor, environmental and rights organizations. Meeks distinguished himself not only by being one of the Democratic Party’s most gung-ho supporters of this deal, but by collaborating closely with conservative then-President of Colombia Álvaro Uribe, who oversaw surveillance, sabotage and extrajudicial executions of journalists, union leaders and Afro-Colombian rights defenders. Through his work with the Uribe government to pass the Colombia FTA, Meeks formed a relationship with politician Edgar Ulises Torres, who was later jailed for receiving money from Freddy Rendón (known as ?“el Alemán”) — the brutal leader of the Elmer Cárdenas Bloc of the far-right paramilitary group, United Self-Defenses of Colombia (AUC). Some activists who work with social movements in Colombia and have direct knowledge of these Colombian para-politicians were reluctant to speak freely over concerns that they would endanger their own lives or the lives of their associates."

Is Colombia’s aviation agency trafficking for Sinaloa Cartel this time?  10/22/2020 Colombia Reports: "The trial against “El Chapo” additionally revealed how Uribe’s in-laws, the Cifuentes family, worked with the Mexican cartel since the 1990’s to secure drug trafficking routes while creating countless money laundering rackets in Colombia. The discovery of drug trafficking labs on the estate of the family of former Aerocivil director Fernando Sanclemente increases concern that the agency is being used for drug trafficking."

The resurrected Medellin Cartel has the US government by the balls  9/4/2020 Colombia Reports: "The AGC controls the Pacific coast and, together with their rivals “Los Caparrapos” many of the domestic routes with a little help of the National Army’s 7th Division. La Oficina focuses on the business side, laundering the traffickers’ money in Medellin and Bogota, just in case Washington DC stops chasing ghosts in Venezuela."

Declassified US State Department Cables: “Uribe Almost Certainly Had Dealings With The Paramilitaries”  9/2/2020 Finance Colombia: "But a collection of declassified State Department documents published by the National Security Archive in 2018 (and also featured in the New York Times) show that for years U.S. diplomats harbored serious concerns about Uribe’s links to the narcos—listing him, for example, on a cable identifying suspected Colombian “Narcopols.” In another case, an Uribe ally told the Embassy that the notorious Ochoa Vásquez brothers, co-founders of the Medellín Cartel, had “financed” Uribe’s Senate campaign. In another cable, U.S. Ambassador to Colombia Morris Busby, who coordinated U.S. efforts to help Colombia take down Pablo Escobar, said he believed there was “substance to the rumors” that Uribe and other politicians had ties to narcotics interests."

Uribe ‘almost certainly’ dealt with paramilitaries: 2004 US cable  8/31/2020 Colombia Reports: "Former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was told in 2004 that Colombia’s former President Alvaro Uribe “almost certainly” had ties to paramilitaries and that a memo on ties to Pablo Escobar was real, according to the National Security Archive. Despite the fact that the AUC was considered a foreign terrorist organization at the time, President George W Bush awarded the former Medellin Cartel associate a Medal of Freedom in 2009 for “confronting terrorism.”"

US cables: Colombia’s ex-president suspected of militia ties  8/31/2020 AP: "“Uribe almost certainly had dealings with the paramilitaries (AUC) while governor of Antioquia,” Peter Rodman, then a top Pentagon deputy, wrote Bush-era Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in a confidential 2004 dispatch. “It goes with the job.” The missive adds to suspicions – which Uribe has vehemently denied — that the man credited with turning the tide in Colombia’s long war with Marxist combatants himself engaged with violent actors while leading the province that includes Medellin in the 1990s. The United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, known by their Spanish acronym AUC, were declared a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. in 2001."

Colombia’s Supreme Court receives ‘proof’ Uribe was involved in massacres  8/26/2020 Colombia Reports: "The Supreme Court is additionally investigating if Uribe was involved in the 1998 assassination of human rights defender Jesus Maria Valle, who warned the former president of the impending massacres and was assassinated shortly after Uribe left office. The war crimes tribunal is additionally investigating the Hidroituango hydro-electric dam project on suspicion that the paramilitary groups in the region where sowing terror to save Medellin energy company money in buying up land from local farmers."

Duque cree imprescindible extraditar a Saab a EE.UU. para comprometer a Maduro con narcos  8/10/2020 Telam: "Para el mandatario colombiano "es fundamental" la extradición a Estados Unidos del abogado y empresario colombiano detenido en Cabo Verde y señalado como testaferro de Nicolás Maduro."

Solicitan audios de Álvaro Uribe sobre campaña de Uribe  8/9/2020 Diario de Huila: ""La Directora del partido Centro Democra´tico, Nubia Stella Marti´nez en audio, con Mari´a Claudia “cayita” Daza, interceptadas por orden del Honorable Magistrado de la Sala de Instruccio´n de la Corte Suprema, Dr. Misael Rodri´guez, en medio de la investigacio´n que adelanta ese alto tribunal contra el Ex Presidente de la Repu´blica y hoy Senador A´lvaro Uribe Ve´lez por Presunta Manipulación de Testigos", señala uno de los apartes del documento del CNE. El CNE le solicita a la Sociedad de Activos Especiales que certifique si tiene en la actualidad bienes que fueron propiedad del ganadero Jose 'Ñeñe' Hernández quien estaba siendo investigado por presuntas relaciones con el narcotráfico."

The crisis that could follow if Colombia’s Supreme Court jails Uribe  8/4/2020 Colombia Reports: "If Colombia’s Supreme Court decides to jail former President Alvaro Uribe, the government of President Ivan Duque is likely to enter a crisis while the ruling party implodes. Duque’s party, the Democratic Center, is referred to as “the Uribistas” for a reason; they are loyal only to Uribe and expect the same from the president. Within the government, the president is surrounded by Uribe’s most loyal underbosses, who have been able to make sure Duque doesn’t get the wrong idea he’s the boss."

How Colombia’s former president helped kick-start the Medellin Cartel  6/29/2020 Colombia Reports: "Before that, the Uribe family was already close to the Ochoa crime family, which helped late drug lord Pablo Escobar form the cartel, the former President told newspaper El Tiempo in 2002. But it was during 1978 and 1982, the year that Uribe left civil aviation agency Aerocivil, that the drug trade of Escobar and his partners really started making money, according to late Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara, who was murdered by cartel assassins in 1984."

The narco history of Colombia’s security forces | Part 2: Medellin  6/26/2020 Colombia Reports: "Escobar’s cartel days were counted though as the local elite, the police and the 4th Brigade took sides with one of Galeano’s enforcers, “Don Berna,” who turned the cartel’s local enforcer army into what is now known as the Oficina de Envigado. The legendary drug lord was dead in 18 months and Berna became the new best friend of the local elite and security forces, and a founding member of paramilitary group AUC. Their extreme violence triggered the US to put the AUC on its list of terrorism organizations in 2001. Fortunately for the Medellin mafia, the AUC terrorized Colombia to vote Uribe president, allowing Berna and La Oficina to run Medellin together with then-4th Brigade commander General Mario Montoya and the local Police."

Colombia’s finance minister tied to narco conspiracy to rig Duque’s 2018 election  3/19/2020 Colombia Reports: "Colombia’s finance minister has been linked to a Supreme Court investigation into former President Alvaro Uribe over a mafia conspiracy to rig the 2018 elections in favor of President Ivan Duque. Wiretaps have revealed that the late Jose Guillermo Hernandez, the alleged money launderer of drug trafficker Marquitos Figueroa, sought favors from Alberto Carrasquilla after he took office in 2018. Recently released wiretaps prove Hernandez did not just conspire to rig the elections, but maintained ties with the Uribe’s Democratic Center (CD) party and the Duque administration after the president had taken office."

Overview of Violence Against Social Leaders in Colombia  2/18/2020 Insight Crime 

Águilas Negras: el 'genérico' de las amenazas en Colombia  1/20/2020 El Tiempo, Colombia: "De ellos se supo por primera vez en Norte de Santander, en donde empezaron a circular panfletos con su firma. Desde entonces no han dejado de aparecer ese tipo de amenazas con la misma imagen, aunque no exista detrás de las mismas una organización criminal. Fuentes de la Policía señalan que esos panfletos se usan en muchas ocasiones por la delincuencia común como forma de presión a las personas que están siendo objeto de extorsión."

The people of Colombia are cracking up the walls of war and authoritarianism  1/18/2020 Alternet: "Paramilitary commander Salvatore Mancuso—who had the temerity to talk about the Chiquita banana corporation and who is apparently going to return to Colombia sometime soon—is just the best-known name. Many others have found that being a paramilitary leads to a considerably shortened lifespan. Uribe, mayor of Medellín and governor of Antioquia during the heyday of the cartels, is named in numerous official documents as being close to both the narcotraffickers and the paramilitaries. The evidence keeps coming, as courts, now trying Uribe’s brother, keep getting closer to the man himself."

Former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe linked to international drug trafficking through Sinaloa Cartel  1/16/2020 World Socialists: "According to the Air Cargo Lines security chief, between 2006-2008, while president, Uribe received large bribes from representatives of the Sinaloa Cartel in exchange for helping traffic 10,000 kilograms of cocaine from Colombia to Mexico. As part of the deal, Uribe authorized the construction of a hangar on the grounds of a Bogotá airport to be used as a logistical hub for the operation, and instructed the country’s aviation authority to allow a privately owned Mexican DC8 aircraft to fly in and out of the country without first passing through customs. The cocaine exported was provided by the Colombian Paísa cartel, which was composed of ex-members of the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC, or United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia), accurately described by Latin American crime research organization Insight Crime as “a coalition of right-wing death squads that used the [civil war] to camouflage their illicit economic activities [including] drug trafficking, displacement, kidnapping, and extortion.” The AUC paramilitary group has been exposed by Richard Maok as playing a key role in bringing Uribe to power in 2000."

Disidencias matan a indígenas en Cauca por oponerse al narcotráfico  10/16/2019 El Tiempo: "Con el homicidio de Canas Velasco este fin de semana en zona rural de Toribío, norte del Cauca, son 36 los indígenas asesinados en lo corrido de este año en ese departamento –de acuerdo con cifras de la Fiscalía General–. Naciones Unidas señala que durante 2018 fueron asesinados 26 indígenas. Estos crímenes, que afectan en su gran mayoría a líderes o integrantes de la Guardia Indígena, han sido perpetrados por integrantes de las disidencias de las Farc, de según los resultados arrojados en medio de las investigaciones."

Will a Texas attorney’s alleged shakedown of drug lords reveal covert deals between the U.S. and Colombian narcos?  10/13/2019 Dallas Morning News: "When the secret recording made it into the hands of the feds, Balagia and Morgan were arrested for allegedly shaking down the Segura brothers and Ordonez. Morgan pleaded guilty and is in prison. And Balagia is going to trial Tuesday in North Texas. The prison video is a key bit of evidence against Balagia. The Austin attorney has been charged with money laundering for knowingly taking $1.5 million in drug money and obstruction of justice for interfering in cooperation negotiations between the Colombians and U.S. prosecutors. The Colombian drug traffickers are now fraud victims in the eyes of the U.S. government."

In partnership with the U.S., Colombia is on a solid path to stability and prosperity  9/26/2019 Miami Herald: by Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart - "President Ivan Duque has continued this progress. Since his inauguration in August 2018, Colombia has eradicated 6,253 hectares — 15,450 acres — of coca fields a month, which is a more than 50 percent increase over the monthly rate during Colombia’s previous administration. Late last year, Colombia interdicted 457 metric tons of cocaine and coca base, which is about half of Colombia’s estimated total cocaine production."

Rastrojos  9/16/2019 Colombia Reports: "The “Rastrojos” is a drug trafficking organization that exports cocaine mainly from Colombia’s Pacific coast and to Venezuela. Unlike the majority of other major Colombian drug trafficking organizations, the Rastrojos is not formed from the demobilized paramilitary organization AUC, but has its origins in the now-extinct Norte del Valle cartel."

The witnesses who will begin testifying in Uribe trial on September 3  8/19/2019 Colombia Reports: "Colombia’s Supreme Court will begin hearing witnesses in a criminal case against former President Alvaro Uribe on September 3. Among the 48 witnesses are 17 former members of paramilitary group AUC, some of whom have changed their testimony in the time the court was investigating witness tampering."

Rubio, Scott Urge President Trump to Certify Colombia's Commitment to Combating Illegal Drug Trade  8/5/2019 Marco Rubio: "U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rick Scott (R-FL) today sent a letter to President Donald Trump urging him to certify to Congress that Colombia is fully committed to working with the United States government on efforts to combat the illegal drug trade. The Florida Senators believe Colombia, as one of the most proactive nations countering narco-trafficking in the Western Hemisphere, should be certified as a major partner in the fight against illicit drugs In the letter, the Senators note that “[s]uccessive U.S. administrations have worked closely with Colombia’s elected leaders and security forces to build the capacity of the Colombian security forces, stem the flow of illicit trafficking, and interdict narcotics bound for the U.S.” " [All such leaders have been closely tied to narcotics traffickers.]

Mohamed Atta snorted coke; Seized Learjet came from same source as Barry Seal’s  7/27/2019 Daniel Hopsicker: "Though the Justice Department, through the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Orlando, declined to prosecute, the affidavits filed by DEA agents after the heroin trafficking arrests make clear their belief that the pilot of the plane, who worked directly for the Lear’s owner Wally Hilliard, was also involved and should have been charged along with the five Venezuelan and Colombian nationals who eventually pled guilty in the case, called “the largest-ever seizure of heroin in Central Florida” by the Orlando Sentinel."

Colombia: Two Police Officers Linked to 'Aguilas Negras' Arrested As Group Issues New Threats  6/1/2019 teleSUR: "The two officers, Deputy Commissioner Gerardo William Molano Galvis, who has served on the force for 26 years, and patrolman Enrique De Leon Rodriguez, are believed to have ties to the right-wing narco-paramilitary group. They will be charged with crimes they allegedly committed in 2008 and 2009. They were detained in the town of Puerto Wilches and will be tried in the capital of the department of Santander, Bucaramanga, the area from which the group originated."

Colombia: a Paramilitary State  3/18/2019 The Quiet Mancunian: "“My name is Adolfo,” he said, “born with pure German blood in 1946” "

El narcoestado colombiano y su guerra económica contra Venezuela (crónica)  12/28/2018 Mision Verdad: "El narcoestado colombiano asesina, explota y controla a su propio pueblo con múltiples aparatos legales (como las empresas de la comunicación) e ilegales (como la droga cuyo consumo es visiblemente mayor cada día), reprime la protesta popular con cuerpos de seguridad tan sanguinarios como el ESMAD, y se refuerza con cuerpos de seguridad privados, ejércitos paramilitares y sicarios. Firma acuerdos de paz que no cumple, deja en la más absoluta impunidad los asesinatos de quienes se atreven a disentir, instituye la privatización de los servicios básicos y la flexibilización laboral. Pero logra convencer a buena parte de su pueblo de que no es ahí, sino al lado, donde hay una dictadura."

Declassified US cables link Uribe to Colombia drug cartels  5/26/2018 AP: "Still, throughout this period, U.S. Embassy officials appeared to waver in their judgement. In another cable from March 1993, Ambassador Morris Busby states he believes there is “substance to the rumors,” if no hard evidence, that Uribe and future President Ernesto Samper, whose campaign he was backing in Medellin, had ties to drug traffickers. Prosecutors would later determine that the Cali cartel spent millions of dollars on Samper’s campaign and the U.S. would go on to revoke his visa and withdraw all support for his government."

Cables Contain Claims Former Colombian Leader Is Tied to Drug Traffickers  5/25/2018 NYT: "Michael L. Evans, a senior analyst at the National Security Archive, an investigatory nonprofit that provided The New York Times with the cables after petitioning that they be declassified. He added: “In these cables we learn more about the allegations that most worried the Embassy: the aviation licenses for cartel figures; his financial ties to the Ochoa clan; and above all the possibility that he might be indebted to them.” Mr. Uribe served as president from 2002 to 2010 and was considered America’s closest ally in the region in the war against drug traffickers. He negotiated a deal to demobilize paramilitary groups in 2004 and delivered the blows to leftist rebels that led to a peace deal under his successor in 2016. Both were financed by the cocaine trade."

When Ivan Duque’s dad confronted Alvaro Uribe over Medellin Cartel licenses  4/3/2018 Colombia Reports: "What Duque didn’t know was that the Uribe family was also close to Escobar. Uribe’s father was close friends with Fabio Ochoa, the patriarch of the Ochoa clan that would help form the Medellin cartel in 1982. Uribe and the Ochoa brothers knew each other since they were young, the former president has admitted. Furthermore, the aviation chief’s older brother Jaime had his first child with cartel associate Dolly Cifuentes a year before the phone call According to Contreras, Duque called Uribe and told him that “in case you didn’t know, this is a businessman who is linked to the mafia.” Uribe told the governor stone cold that Cardona was “a good man.”"

ABLE DANGER INTEL EXPOSED HEROIN TRAFFICKING  2/26/2018 Daniel Hopsicker: "“It confirms the sad fact that a massive amount of heroin is coming through Central Florida,” U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration special agent Brent Eaton told the paper. “It’s very disturbing to the DEA that more and more high quality heroin is coming from Colombia and at a cheaper price.” The DEA was “very disturbed” enough to look more closely at Wally Hilliard’s jet charter operation. The result was their firm opposition to returning the Lear to Hilliard, even though no one from Hilliard’s company, Plane 1 Leasing, had been charged with any crime."

Marco Rubio's Ties to a Drug-Smuggling Brother-in-Law Were Closer Than Advertised  10/26/2016 Miami New Times: "Tabraue was a violent piece of work. In 1980, his crew murdered a federal agent, Larry Nash, and Tabraue tried to hack him to pieces with a machete before giving up and letting his cronies use a circular saw instead. He was also charged with ordering a brutal hit on his first wife, who was shot nine times. But he beat that case at trial. "Mario was absolutely ruthless," says Fisten, who investigated the hit on Tabraue's wife. "He had hired killers working for him all over South Florida.""

Marco Rubio: Entre drogas, narcotráfico, Uribe y más…  7/31/2016 Radio Orinoco: "En Washington, hubo chistosos que llamaron “Narco” Rubio al senador por su amistad con el colombiano Álvaro Uribe. Pero la relación cada vez más fuerte del político de la Florida con el expresidente de Colombia se convirtió poco a poco en una alianza que le hizo fruncir el ceño a más de un observador. A principios de noviembre de 2014, Rubio realizó una visita en Colombia durante dos días. La noche de su primer día en el país, se reunió con Uribe y su gente, en un salón discreto de un bar exclusivo de la capital, hecho registrado por su propio departamento de prensa y por los medios neogranadinos. El diálogo fraternal seguirá en febrero de 2015 cuando Uribe realiza una gira por Estados Unidos en la que se entrevista con congresistas “para expresar sus objeciones al proceso de paz, entre otros asuntos”."

Marco Rubio, esposo de colombiana, cuñado de narco y socio de Uribe  3/2/2016 Contrainjerencia: "Es que Rubio y Uribe, además de ensañarse contra Venezuela y sus aliados, llevan episodios en su historial que les vinculan, de una manera u otra, al narcotráfico… lo que abre bien grande la puerta a delicadas conjeturas."

Frank Sinatra was ‘a better cocaine dealer than singer’: Pablo Escobar's son makes extraordinary claim that the crooner was his drug lord father's business partner  11/7/2015 Daily Mail: "Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar's son has sensationally claimed singer Frank Sinatra was his dad's business partner. Sebastian Marroquín described the legendary crooner as a 'better cocaine dealer than singer' in an interview with a Brazilian newspaper. He said the American artist was one of his father's partners in Miami."

The US Shouldn’t Export Colombia’s Drug War ‘Success’  11/1/2015 Task Force on the Americas: "Since 2007—and more intensively since 2011—the US has paid for Colombian security forces to train military and police in Central America, the Caribbean, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru—and even West Africa—in counternarcotics tactics."

Plan Colombia’s Genocidal Legacy  5/27/2014 Cuba Si: "Extinction may well be the shared fate awaiting some 40 Colombian indigenous groups, UN official Todd Howland announced last month. Howland’s assessment underlined the risks mining operations pose to these communities, and echoes the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia’s finding, presented last year, that 66 of the country’s 102 indigenous communities could soon vanish—“victims of a genocide that is forcing cultural and physical extermination.”

The Vanishing: Christian Cult’s Airport Disappears  3/21/2014 Daniel Hopsicker: "“We don’t have any membership. Every group is autonomous,” he continued. “They’re only affiliated through like beliefs, and through their understanding of the Word. They are all independent ministries.” juliet-papa-and-john-gottiRight, I thought. And John Gotti and his buddies at the Ravenite Social Club in New York just got together to play cards. I didn’t say anything. But I felt slightly embarrassed, as if I had. So I asked a dumb and very obvious question. “So, um, in the early ‘80’s, how did your group end up with colonies in Colombia, Peru, and Guatemala?”"

Urabeños Potential Actor in Colombia Armed Conflict: ICC  1/23/2014 Insight Crime: "The International Criminal Court has called the Urabeños Colombia’s most dangerous and well-organized criminal organization, stating that the group is powerful enough that they could become a player in the country’s conflict. In a report accessed by El Tiempo, the International Criminal Court (ICC) states that of the narco-paramilitary groups categorized by the authorities as BACRIM (an abbreviation from the Spanish for “criminal bands,”) such as the Rastrojos and the Aguilas Negras, the Urabeños has the by far the highest levels of “organization and capacity to do harm” ."

Colombian Drug Lord Vanishes After Conviction… in the US!  8/30/2013 Daniel Hopsicker: "Court documents indicate Abadia was sentenced to 25 years in Federal prison. But a search of the prisoner locater at the Federal Bureau of Prisons website does not list his name as among those currently incarcerated. The Assistant US Attorney in charge of the Abadia case, Carolyn Pokorny, declined to comment on his whereabouts. And that’s where the trail ends, at least for the moment. Another anomaly: There is no record of his sentencing. Among the official court documents available through PACER is a transcript of a hearing held before the court accepted Abadia’s guilty plea, to ensure he understood his rights, and was pleading guilty voluntarily. There is a binding 9-page forfeiture agreement. Abadia agreed to forfeit $10 billion (that’s billion with a ‘b’) in currency and property to the US Government. There is also an order by District Judge Sandra Townes accepting his guilty plea. But—more than two years later—there is no record of his being sentenced. Whether the discrepancy concerns missing documents, years-long deferred sentencing, or some other cause is unknown at this time."

Uribe was ‘the head of Colombia’s paramilitaries’: former AUC ringleader  8/29/2013 Colombia Reports: "“He was our commander,” claimed Sierra. “He never fired a gun; but he led, he contributed, he was our man at the top.” “The massacres, the disappearances, the creation of an [AUC] group: he is responsible,” said Sierra."

Murder of Miami’s ‘Cocaine Queen’ Offers Teaching Moment  10/6/2012 NarcoNews: "Griselda Blanco, 69, was cut down in front of a butcher shop in Medellin, Colombia, in early September by a middle-aged man who was delivered to the murder scene on the back of a motorcycle — and who calmly, methodically, jumped off the back of that bike, held a gun to Blanco’s head, and pumped two bullets into her brain."

News Corp. nominates Chao, Uribe to board  9/4/2012 Marketwatch: Uribe was named in an early 80's DIA memo as a "narcosenator" and "close personal friend of Pablo Escobar"

The Drug Trade as an Instrument of Imperial Domination  5/31/2012 ALAI: "The recent declaration of the Central Command Secretariat of the FARC-EP (9), for the occasion of the forty-eighth anniversary of the beginning of the rebels’ armed struggle, denounces the link between drugs and capital: "the monies from drug-trafficking are converted into land, flood the banks, and the finance sector, productive and speculative investment, the hotel industry, construction and public contracts, becoming functional and even necessary in the game of raising and circulating big capital which characterizes neo-liberal capitalism today. This also happens in Central America and Mexico.”"

The Secret Service and the girls from Cartagena  4/19/2012 Milfuegos: "One major question remains, however. Why did the Colombian police, who have a history of covering up such incidents in order to protect VIP visitors and their staffs, decide to make the incident public? The answer to that question lies in the frosty pre-Summit interchanges between Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. ambassador to Colombia Michael McKinley over Santos's pre-summit trip to Havana to meet with Cuban President Raul Castro to apologize for Washington's and Ottawa's insistence that Cuba be barred from attending the Cartagena summit. Santos was also furious with pre-summit statements by U.S. officials flatly rejecting his and other Latin American leaders' proposals to legalize drugs and supporting Argentina's claims over the Malvinas or Falkland Islands, which are controlled by Britain."

Uribe formally accused of forming paramilitary group  4/12/2012 Colombia Reports: "The charges were based on testimonies of two ex-paramilitaries who claimed Uribe helped found the Bloque Metro of the AUC paramilitary organization, which he then allegedly ordered to carry out massacres and assassinations during his 2002-2010 tenure. During a debate on paramilitary activity in Uribe’s home department Antioquia, socialist Representative to the House Ivan Cepeda said the testimonies were supported by evidence. The congressman presented photographs allegedly showing prolonged paramilitary presence at the Uribe brothers’ ranch in northern Colombia, during Uribe’s 1995-1997 term as Governor of Antioquia."

Wikileaks Cables Reveal Killing Hits Record Levels - Slaughter in Colombia  2/23/2012 CounterPunch: "Thus, in a November 19, 2009 U.S. Embassy Cable, entitled, “2009-2010 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report,” the U.S. Embassy in Bogota acknowledges, as a mere aside, the horrific truth: 257,089 registered victims of the right-wing paramilitaries. And, as Human Rights Watch just reported in its 2012 annual report on Colombia, these paramilitaries continue to work hand-in-glove with the U.S.-supported Colombian military."

Cocaine, Death Squads, and the War on Terror  1/15/2012 Monthly Review 

Re-demobilized Colombian paramilitaries to sign Free Trade Agreement with U.S.  5/5/2011 Pulse: "When we reached the center of Barichara, the campesinos veered toward the church and my mom and I bought a copy of the day’s El Espectador, which contained a report on the WikiLeaks release of cables from the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá confirming awareness of complaints that palm oil producers had contracted paramilitaries to illegally displace Afro-Colombian communities from their land in the department of Chocó. Of course, the palm oil-paramilitary team-up was already publicized in the mainstream media years ago, as was Uribe’s role in promoting the crop as a biofuel."

Palmeros y el fantasma paramilita  4/24/2011 El Espectador: "El conflicto por la propiedad de la tierra en las regiones de Curvaradó y Jiguamiandó y la extensión de cultivos de palma africana en estos territorios del Chocó, constituye uno de los dilemas más significativos para la sociedad colombiana en el contexto de la lucha por los derechos humanos. La prueba de ello es que entre 2007 y 2009, al menos en once ocasiones la Embajada de Estados Unidos en Colombia remitió cables diplomáticos a Washington detallando este problema y dejando ver las dificultades para solucionarlo por la polarización de sus protagonistas." [Links to wikileaks cables]

RawFeed: WikiLeaks Casts Old Light on New Problem  2/22/2011 Insight Crime: "One cable (reproduced below), sent to Washington from the U.S. Embassy in Bogota in November 2006, discusses a meeting between high-level Colombian government and military officials and the Organization of American States’ Mission to Support the Peace Process in Colombia (MAPP). The body presented a report on some 22 “criminal structures associated with former demobilized paramilitaries,” which “have survived military and police operations to dismantle them.” According to the cable the report paid particular attention to gangs formed by former mid-level paramilitaries from the AUC’s so-called Northern Bloc, whose organizations, it says, “remain largely intact.”"

RawFeed: Bishop Talks Truce Between Rival Colombian Gangs  2/8/2011 Insight Crime: "Bishop Julio Cesar Vidal, who was one of the observers of the peace talks between the government and paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia – AUC) in the early 2000s, told InSight that he has been in touch with “the top levels” of command of drug-trafficking groups, including the Rastrojos, the Urabeños, the Paisas and the Aguilas Negras, about negotiating a “nationwide” disarmament."

Colombia asks Israel to extradite mercenary convicted of training drug assassins  1/27/2011 AP: "Colombia asked Israel on Thursday to extradite former Israeli army Lt. Col. Yair Klein, who was convicted by a Colombian court and sentenced in absentia to nearly 11 years in prison for training drug lords' assassins in the late 1980s. "The evidence (against Klein) is conclusive," Interior Minister German Vargas told a news conference, saying the formal request had been made in Tel Aviv by Colombia's embassy there. "For the Colombian government it is essential that this sentence is completed and that this citizen clarify his participation in the organization and training of these groups."

Aguilas Negras  1/23/2011 InSight Crime 

Venezuela arrests 'Aguilas Negras commander'  1/23/2011 Colombia Reports: "Venezuela on Sunday claimed it arrested the leader of Colombian neo-paramilitary group "Aguilas Negras" in the northwestern city of Maracaibo. According to Interior Minister Tarek El Aissami, the arrested suspect is Victor Gonzalez Sierra, leader of the feared Aguilas Negras and wanted in Colombia for "various homicides." "This is a heavy blow to criminal drug trafficking organizations and this group trying to use our territory to escape justice of other governments," Venezuelan state radio quoted the minister as saying."

Afro-Colombian Farmers on Displacement and Resistance  1/5/2011 Upside Down World: "Activists working on behalf of Colombia’s internally displaced population are subjected to extrajudicial killings and death threats by paramilitary groups supported by the Colombian army and palm oil firms active in rural areas, Sanchez and Guzman report. "They say we're guerrillas and that they're going to kill us," says Sanchez."

Wealthy Colombian businessman is a drug-trafficker, CIA operative alleges  3/21/2010 NarcoNews: “Colombia exports $100 billion or more in drugs each year and everyone that has been arrested accounts for only a very small amount of that retrieved [by the authorities],” Vega claims. “And they [the Colombian narco-traffickers now in control] have been working for 10 to 15 years making $100 billion a year, so where is all that money?”

Suspected Colombian paramilitary leader Magaly Moreno captured in Venezuela  11/21/2009 LA Times: "A woman described by Venezuelan authorities as an important leader of a Colombian paramilitary group has been captured, the justice minister said today. Interpol had called for the arrest of Magaly Janeth Moreno Vega, who was wanted by Colombian officials on homicide charges, said Venezuelan Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami. He referred to the 39-year-old suspect as a paramilitary chief for the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC... Moreno previously worked as an investigator for Colombian prosecutors and was detained with her boss several years ago on accusations of aiding militias, according to news reports. Moreno was convicted on conspiracy charges tied to various crimes after she acknowledged working for paramilitary boss Jorge Ivan Laverde, who has said he participated in the killings of more than 2,000 people, the Associated Press reported."

US military base plan fuels Latin American tensions  8/11/2009 VoltaireNet: "Washington and Bogota have cast the agreement as a response to the shutdown of the US air base in Manta, Ecuador by the government of President Rafael Correa. That facility was ostensibly dedicated to anti-drug trafficking operations. The scope of the US-Colombian pact and both the number and location of the bases involved, however, indicate that Washington is pursuing far wider regional objectives. The Bogota daily El Tiempo, pointed out, “The absence of an airfield close to the Pacific, through which the principal drug-trafficking routes pass is noteworthy.” The Manta base was on the Pacific coast of Ecuador."

Diaz-Balart Meets with Colombian Defense Minister, Urges Free Trade Agreemen  7/23/2008 Mario Diaz Balart: "“The United States Congress must stand in solidarity with President Alvaro Uribe and his democratically elected government,” said Diaz-Balart."

UK palm oil consumption fuels Colombia violence, says report  5/11/2008 The Guardian: "British consumers have become the biggest export market for the controversial crop which is used in margarine and pastries as well as toothpaste, soap and detergents and cosmetics. The surge in demand has sustained a ruthless landgrab by rightwing paramilitary groups in Colombia's rural areas, War on Want, a London-based advocacy group, says in its report. "The UK, despite being one of the largest consumers of Colombia's palm oil products, remains unaware of the devastating impact of cultivation of this crop on the lives of indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities."

New Colombia drug gangs wreak havoc  5/4/2008 LA Times: "The young farmer was killed in a roadside ambush in February near this mining and drug trafficking hub in north-central Colombia, apparently by one of a new generation of criminal gangs that have emerged in the two years since right-wing paramilitary fighters officially disbanded. The status of the paramilitary fighters has serious ramifications for President Alvaro Uribe, a conservative U.S. ally who famously broke up the militias, which were playing a role in destabilizing the country. But he has seen his presidency challenged by revelations that many of his closest allies were tied to the right-wing gunmen. The paramilitary groups, originally formed to defend farmers and ranchers against leftist rebels, subsequently turned to drug trafficking and other criminal activities, including extortion and mass killings, prosecutors say."

Mark Penn and the Stealth Corporate Campaign - By Al Giordano  4/4/2008 NarcoNews 

Colombia's Uribe Says Passage Of Free-Trade Pact Is Critical  4/4/2008 WSJ: "Failure by the U.S. Congress to pass a free-trade agreement with Colombia this year would be a serious setback for Washington's closest ally in South America, President Alvaro Uribe said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. "I wouldn't know what to say. It would be very serious," said Mr. Uribe during an interview on the presidential plane Wednesday. Mr. Uribe said he can't understand why Congress would fail to pass the treaty, given that Colombia has a "historic friendship with the U.S." and, with U.S. help, has fought the hemisphere's "most serious terrorist threat." "

Clinton Aide Met on Trade Deal - Penn Held Talks On Colombia Pact Opposed by Senator  4/4/2008 WSJ: "Attendance by the adviser, Mark Penn, was confirmed by two Colombian officials. He wasn't there in his campaign role, but in his separate job as chief executive of Burson-Marsteller Worldwide, an international communications and lobbying firm. The firm has a contract with the South American nation to promote congressional approval of the trade deal, among other things, according to filings with the Justice Department."

Uribe’s Attack on Obama - The Far Right’s Spokesman in Latin America Is Worried About What Could Be Long Overdue Changes in US Policy  4/3/2008 NarcoNews 

Top Colombian cocaine chief 'Jabon' found shot dead  2/1/2008 AFP: "He was indicted by the US Justice Department on May 6, 2004, which called him the head of Colombia's most powerful cocaine cartel, allegedly responsible at the time for exporting 500 tonnes of cocaine worth 10 billion dollars to the United States. The indictment said the cartel used the paramilitary Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia forces to protect its drug routes and laboratories. The cartel collected its drugs in the Valle del Cauca region and then shipped them to the Pacific port of Buenaventura, where they were transferred to Mexican drug transporters for shipping via boats and aircraft to the United States, according to the indictment. Varela's death brings to an end the era of the three big Colombian cartels, with their once huge presence filled by numerous harder-to-detect small trafficking organizations, according to Colombian experts."

Colombian Leader Disputes Claim of Tie to Cocaine Kingpin  10/3/2007 NYT: "President Álvaro Uribe of Colombia lashed out on Tuesday at claims in a new book that he had close ties to the cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar. He said he never aided Mr. Escobar’s drug dealings or benefited from his political patronage. Mr. Uribe’s comments were in response to the book, “Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar,” by Virginia Vallejo, Mr. Escobar’s former mistress. Ms. Vallejo repeats claims that Mr. Uribe, as head of the civil aviation authority in the early 1980s, helped Mr. Escobar’s cartel secure licenses for landing strips used to transport cocaine." See also Text of DIA report that Uribe was a close personal friend of Pablo Escobar

The Octopus in the Cathedral of Salt  9/14/2007 Virginia Quarterly Review: [The Octopus is United Fruits, renamed Chiquita Brands to avoid the connotations of its monstruous history, some of which is discussed in this article. The Cathedral of Salt is a famous cathedral in Bogota.] - "Although the FARC is involved deeply in the business, it is the right-wing AUC that worked closely with the cartels to organize the smuggling system. Coca growers, who are usually poor peasants or campesinos, earn the least of all… In a front-page deal reached with the US government this year, Chiquita pleaded guilty to making millions of dollars in payments to a group on the State Department list of foreign terrorist organizations: the AUC. Lawyers for the company argued that they were forced into the making payments out of fear for the safety of its workers. Chiquita also admitted that they had a similar arrangement with the FARC. The result of the plea deal was a $25 million fine for a business that earned $3.9 billion in revenue in 2006, and there were no charges filed over the weapons shipment. It is not surprising that Chiquita Brands was forced to make protection payments to armed groups operating around their plantations, but that is not the entire story."

Traffickers Infiltrate Military in Colombia Officers Provided Secret Information On U.S. Navy Ships  9/8/2007 WaPo: "An investigation by the Colombian Defense Ministry has found that drug traffickers and rebels from the country's largest guerrilla group infiltrated the U.S.-backed military here, paying high-ranking officers for classified information to help elude capture and continue smuggling cocaine. The information obtained by the powerful Norte del Valle drug cartel included the secret positioning of U.S. naval vessels and aircraft in the Caribbean early last year, part of a carefully coordinated web designed to stop cocaine from reaching the United States, according to high-ranking Colombian military officials. The cartel is headed by Diego Montoya, who is on the FBI's list of most wanted fugitives… Colombian authorities have passed on their findings, particularly the navigational charts, to the Drug Enforcement Administration and other U.S. agencies. The Colombian military does not track the coordinates of U.S., Dutch or British ships on patrol, suggesting there had been a breach in American security… The investigation into the activities of rogue officers in the Third Division has shed light on a murky episode from 2006 that angered Colombian officials and raised questions among U.S. lawmakers. On May 22, a platoon of troops ambushed and killed 10 members of an elite, U.S.-trained team of policemen that was on a counter-drug operation in the town of Jamundi. Authorities now say that army Col. Bayron Carvajal and several soldiers -- all of whom were arrested last year -- were probably in the pay of the Norte del Valle cartel. "You can presume that Jamundi is connected to the penetration of the Third Brigade," Santos said, "because of where it happened, because of the ties to narco-trafficking."

Bush, Colombia & Narco-Politics  8/8/2007 Consortium News: "The new disclosures also have brought back to public attention the Uribe family’s long history of ties to drug lords and paramilitary militias. Colombia’s Supreme Court announced in July that it was investigating Senator Mario Uribe, the president’s cousin and his point man in the Colombian Congress, for alleged links to the AUC. Several paramilitary leaders have said Mario Uribe was one of their allies and an intermediary with the government. He has denied any wrongdoing. But the family link to purported drug lords dates back several decades. As a young man and an aspiring politician, Álvaro Uribe lost his position as mayor of Medellín – after only five months on the job – because the country’s president ousted him over his family’s suspected connections to traffickers, according to media reports at the time. His father Alberto Uribe, a wealthy landowner, reputedly had been a close associate of the Medellín cartel and its kingpins, such as Pablo Escobar and the Ochoa brothers, who were personal friends. In 1983, Alberto Uribe was reportedly wanted by the U.S. government for drug trafficking when he was killed in a kidnapping attempt by the FARC. According to media accounts, his body was airlifted back to his family by one of Escobar’s helicopters. In the early 1990s, Álvaro Uribe’s brother, Santiago, was investigated for allegedly organizing and leading a paramilitary militia that was headquartered at the Uribe family hacienda. He was never charged and the case was dismissed for lack of evidence. But Santiago was photographed alongside Fabio Ochoa at a party even after the government had declared Ochoa one of the most notorious Medellín cartel kingpins. The incident with Santiago Uribe coincided with Álvaro Uribe’s eight years in the Senate, where he opposed extradition of drug suspects. His critics accused him of working for the Medellín cartel."

Biofuel gangs kill for green profits  6/3/2007 London Times: "The paramilitaries are not subtle when it comes to taking land,” said Dominic Nutt, a British specialist with Christian Aid who recently visited Colombia. “They simply visit a community and tell landowners, ‘If you don’t sell to us, we will negotiate with your widow'."

Alleged Hit Man Worked at US Embassy  4/25/2007 AP: "A retired army colonel accused of conspiring to assassinate President Alvaro Uribe's most vocal critic worked for the U.S. Embassy two years ago… Villate also was accused before his embassy job - when he was still in the military, in mid-2004 - of spying on leaders of Cali's public employees union in what the union described as an assassination plot. That scandal was widely publicized at the time, and remains under criminal investigation. The U.S. Embassy conducted normal background checks before hiring Villate that "did not turn up any derogatory information about him," Louis said in a later statement." [Uribe was revealed in a declassified DIA memo to have been a "close personal friend" of Pablo Escobar and a "narcosenator" prior to assuming the presidency.]

Did "Bogotá Connection" Embassy Leaks Doom U.S. Spy Plane in Colombia?  2/15/2007 Narco News 

Colombia’s Coca Survives U.S. Plan to Uproot It  8/19/2006 NYT: ''Jon Caulkins, a drug policy expert at Carnegie Mellon University, echoing other analysts, estimates that the drug war has cost American taxpayers upward of $40 billion annually in recent years, though there is no comprehensive government tally of all its state and federal spending. Today that money goes for patrol boats, prisons, police departments and extradition flights to bring drug kingpins to trial in the United States — not to mention a dedicated federal bureaucracy.''

Colombia’s Secret Narco-Police - Claims of Collaboration with Drug Traffickers and Paramilitaries Sting the Country’s DAS Security Service and Support Allegations of DEA Corruption Published in Narco News  4/29/2006 NarcoNews: "Though it has barely registered in the U.S. press, a national scandal is currently unfolding in Colombia, where a jailed high official of the Administrative Department for Security (DAS, in its Spanish initials) has been speaking freely with journalists about the extensive collaboration between the secret police agency and right-wing paramilitary groups. Rafael García lost his post as DAS’ information technology chief after being charged with taking bribes from rightwing paramilitaries and narcos (often, one and the same). He now claims that DAS has been working for years, at least since Uribe’s 2002 election, in conjunction with the paras and their narco allies, sharing documents and intelligence to help kill and intimidate activists and unionists, help powerful drug traffickers avoid prosecution and murder informants. And investigative journalists in Colombia have verified and shed more light on a number of these claims."

Alleged Former Paramilitary Named Military Commander  3/22/2006 NarcoNews: "A general who is believed to have once been a member of a right-wing terrorist group now heads Colombia's armed forces. Just days before signing a trade agreement with the U.S. which will accelerate the sell-off of Colombia’s land and resources to foreign corporations, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe appointed General Mario Montoya to head Colombia’s armed forces. Uribe brought in Montoya, long a favorite of the U.S., to help rehabilitate the military’s image following a hazing scandal. Montoya, however, has his own dark past – throughout a long career, working to consolidate resource-rich areas, the general has frequently been charged with working hand in hand with right-wing paramilitaries. At the press conference announcing Montoya’s promotion, Uribe said “In this moment of our Nation’s history we need triumphant commanders. We don’t need commanders to justify defeats” and called for “a final victory” -- giving Montoya a clear go-ahead to use any means necessary to crush resistance in Colombia."

Informant weighs in on U.S. law enforcement corruption in Colombia  3/18/2006 NarcoNews: "Vega told Narco News that between 1997 and 2000, the FBI and DEA each employed him as an informant in separate investigations focused on the North Valley Cartel leadership. At the same time, Vega claims, he also worked as a foreign counterintelligence source for the CIA. During the course of those DEA and FBI investigations, Vega claims he discovered the operations were being compromised by corrupt players within both DEA and U.S. Customs — a federal law enforcement agency whose investigative arm has since become U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. ICE is part of the Department of Homeland Security. U.S. Customs, too, was involved in targeting Colombian narco-traffickers during the same period that Vega was working with the FBI, DEA and CIA in Colombia. Vega claims that ICE did have access, at one point, to much of the information about the informants and cooperating sources within the North Valley organization that had been cultivated through the separate FBI and DEA investigations. Vega alleges that agents in the DEA office in Bogotá as well as someone within U.S. Customs were leaking information about ongoing U.S. law enforcement investigations to key players in the Colombian National Police (CNP). Vega says those CNP officials were aligned with North Valley narco-traffickers. In the wake of the information being leaked, there was a bloodbath, Vega says, with numerous informants and cooperating sources being assassinated in the aftermath. Similar allegations are made in the Kent memo."

El precio de la justicia - Los herederos de El Mexicano le entregaron a E.U. 80 millones de dólares a cambio de que no los persigan. ¿Debería ser ese dinero para Colombia?  3/9/2006 Cambio 

Rightwing Narco's Family Paid $83 Million to the U.S. to Avoid Prosecution  3/9/2006 NarcoNews: "the Colombian newsmagazine Cambio (owned and directed in part by former drug legalization supporter Gabriel García Marquéz) has dug up a juicy tidbit of its own. In this week’s issue, whose cover reads “The Price of Justice,” the magazine reveals that on January 31 of this year the U.S. Justice Department received the last $1.3 million of an $83 million payment from the family of slain Colombian paramilitary boss and narco-trafficker Gonzalo “The Mexican” Rodríguez Gacha. In return for the massive payment, the family – Rodríguez’ widow and seven of his “heirs” – received immunity from prosecution, which they were facing from the Jacksonville, Florida U.S. District Court."

Bogotá DEA Corruption Allegations Interect with Covert FBI, CIA Activity in Colombia - New Document Unravels More Mysteries in Kent Memo; Narco-Trafficker, Informant Drop the Dime on Suspected DEA Foul Play  3/6/2006 NarcoNews: “Specifically, the narcotics traffickers in Colombia were infusing acrylic with cocaine and shaping it into any number of commercial goods,” Kent states in his memo. “The acrylic was then shipped to the United States and Europe where, during processing, the cocaine was extracted from the acrylic.” Informants working with Fields and other Florida agents sent samples of the cocaine-laced acrylic to the DEA, but the agency’s chemists couldn’t figure out how to extract the cocaine. As a result, the Florida agents decided to have the informants come to the United States with a sample of the acrylic, so they could walk the DEA’s chemists through the extraction process. “Agents contacted the Bogotá [DEA] Country Office to discuss the informants’ planned travel and their bringing cocaine out of Colombia infused in acrylic,” the Kent memo alleges. “They were advised that the best tact was for the informants to carry it out themselves.” But when the informants got to the airport to leave for the U.S., they were arrested. A DEA agent in Bogotá, it turns out, had told Colombian officials to “lock them [the informants] up and throw away the key,” according to the Kent memo. The Bogotá agent then claimed that he had no idea the Florida agents had given the informants permission to transport the cocaine. Kent’s memo does not name the Bogotá agent allegedly responsible for double-crossing the Florida agents and their informants. But Narco News sources claim Pena is that agent. “His [Pena’s] misrepresentations were backed by another agent in Bogotá,” Kent alleges in his memo. “The informants were imprisoned for nine months while the accusations flew back and forth. Once it was determined that the agents in Bogotá were lying, the informants were released. One of the informants was kidnapped and murdered in Bogotá where he had gone into hiding.”

Danilo's war - The story of one officer's rise and fall in Colombia's drug wars illustrates the challenges police face.  3/6/2006 St Petersburg Times: published 1/05 - "Sensing their days were numbered, the cartel bosses were looking to get out of the business and cash in their assets. So, one by one they approached U.S. law enforcement agents to explore cooperation deals in return for reduced jail time. Mutual suspicion over who would be the next to turn set off a bloody vendetta between the potential snitches in the valley. Hundreds died. Eventually, Gonzalez realized that the time had come to make his own pitch for survival. Early in 2003 he contacted a Colombian fashion photographer in Miami, Baruch Vega, who had worked for years as a U.S. government informant. Gonzalez offered to mediate the surrender of the entire cartel. "There's a lot of people willing to cooperate with information," he told Vega, who tape-recorded their conversations. During hours of discussions, Gonzalez admitted to knowing "every drug trafficker, almost without exception," but he insisted he had an explanation. "In one or another form I received information from them," he said. He claimed that since leaving the police he had dedicated himself to raising cattle and had never been directly involved in drug trafficking. He was willing to meet with U.S. officials and discuss surrender terms. "If there's something that has to be resolved I am willing to do it," he said. "Otherwise I can never live in peace.""

New Documents Shed More Light on Alleged DEA Corruption in Colombia  2/22/2006 NarcoNews 

DEA is caught in the chicken coop in Bogotá corruption case  1/22/2006 NarcoNews: "From what I can see, the fox that has supposedly been sent back into the chicken coop to count the chickens now has a few feathers sticking out of its snout."

Doubt cast on AP story's claim of “No Wrongdoing” in DEA corruption scandal  1/17/2006 NarcoNews: "Although the AP story headline seems to imply that the corruption charges are a dead issue, at least one former high-ranking DEA official contends the allegations are, in fact, very credible. In addition, representatives of the two watchdog agencies charged with investigating the corruption, to date, don’t seem to have their stories straight about the status of their investigations, based on comments made to Narco News. Narco News published its exclusive story on Jan. 9 based on a leaked memo drafted by Department of Justice attorney Thomas M. Kent. In the memo, Kent alleges that DEA agents in Bogotá assisted narco-traffickers, engaged in money laundering, and conspired to murder informants."

DEA Responds to Narco News Story, Says It Will Investigate Agents in Colombia  1/13/2006 NarcoNews 

Leaked Memo: Corrupt DEA Agents in Colombia Help Narcos and Paramilitaries  1/9/2006 NarcoNews: "Internal Justice Dept. Document Alleges Drug Trafficking Links, Money Laundering and Conspiracy to Murder"

Colombian cocaine suspect in Cuba, out of U.S. reach  12/27/2004 Miami Herald: "Even as Colombia extradites a record number of drug traffickers to the United States, one reputed capo is eluding capture and extradition in an unusual way: He is being held in Cuba on a charge of using a false passport. Havana has been slow to move on the charge against Hernando Gómez, and Colombian authorities say they have no news on their request for is extradition to Bogotá to face charges here. Now, some of Gómez's associates have told The Herald that they suspect that Gómez may have bribed his way into an extended stay in Cuba so he could avoid a Colombian prison and later possible extradition to the United States."

U.S. Intelligence Tied Colombia’s Uribe to Drug Trade in ’91 Report  8/2/2004 LA Times: "Under Uribe, Colombia’s production of coca, the source of cocaine, has dropped by more than 50% through intense, U.S.-funded fumigation efforts, and more than 160 suspected drug traffickers have been indicted, U.S. defense officials said. “We completely disavow these allegations against President Uribe,” said Robert Zimmerman, a spokesman for the State Department’s Western Hemisphere Affairs Bureau, which monitors Colombia. “We have no credible information that substantiates or corroborates the allegations.” News of the memo comes at a delicate time for Uribe, who is negotiating a peace deal with right-wing paramilitaries involved in drug dealing and is seeking a constitutional amendment to allow him to run for a second term in office."

Colombia: Paramilitary Commanders Address Congress  7/29/2004 AntiWar.com: "Three senior paramilitary leaders wanted for mass killings of civilians and drug trafficking addressed a congressional hearing in Colombia Wednesday while protesters and supporters clashed outside. Although previous Colombian governments have stuck to the official position of considering members of the paramilitary militias criminals who should be brought to justice, right-wing President Alvaro Uribe is following a different strategy, engaging in negotiations with the main umbrella group. Salvatore Mancuso, Iván Roberto Duque and Ramón Isaza, three of the most wanted men in Colombia, spoke in Congress Wednesday in the midst of tight security, after receiving a safe-conduct pass."

Afro-Colombians: 'Invisible' People Strive to Survive War, Racism  4/16/2004 NCM: "Ingrid Vaicius, a Colombia Project Associate at the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C., said the “invisibility” of Colombians of African descent stems from their staying to themselves on the Pacific Coast. And, she said, the Colombian government does not want to admit that its poorest and most marginalized citizens are Black. “The secret is out now because of so many Blacks being displaced from their farms and turning up in cities such as Bogotá, the Colombian capital. They have the worst education, and now they are at every stoplight begging and this is causing people to question why this is happening,” Ms. Vaicius explained… He and the other two activists also pointed out that U.S. foreign policy and militarization of the fight against drugs through “Plan Colombia” has displaced huge numbers of Blacks. “Plan Colombia,” started in 1999 under President Bill Clinton, was launched to stop cocaine production by supplying the Colombian government with helicopters and other aircraft to spray fields as well as military assistance. The U.S. gave $2.5 billion of aid. Critics say the operation has clearly caused more harm than good, with the brunt of Plan Colombia borne the backs of farmers. They complain that insecticides sprayed to kill coca plants often destroy food crops. Many also suspect the U.S. wants access to Colombia’s oil reserves and natural resources, like gold, silver and copper."

The Oliver North File: His Diaries, E-Mail, and Memos on the Kerry Report, Contras and Drugs  2/26/2004 National Security Archive: "Diaries, e-mail, and memos of Iran-contra figure Oliver North, posted today on the Web by the National Security Archive, directly contradict his criticisms yesterday of Sen. John Kerry's 1988 Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee report on the ways that covert support for the Nicaraguan contras in the 1980s undermined the U.S. war on drugs."

Colombia Plane Crash Kills One American  4/7/2003 AP: "A U.S. State Department plane used to fumigate drug crops crashed Monday and its American pilot was killed, the U.S. Embassy said. It was not immediately clear if the crash was caused by an accident or if it had been shot down, the embassy said. The American, whose name was not released pending notification of relatives, was the fourth to die in three crashes of U.S. government planes in Colombia this year." On a recent visit to Bogota, an African American delegation was exposed to the woman running the fumigation reparations program. She boasted how only 3 of 400 cases where Colombians claimed fumigation damages had proved legitimate in her yes. She travels with her personal goon squad to "verify" claims.

COLOMBIAN REPORTER TELLS ALL - TO U.S. PRESS  1/12/2003 American Reporter: "Colombian journalist Ignacio Gomez told a roomful of America's most influential journalists Tuesday how Washington-supported Colombian president Alvaro Uribe is connected to drug traffickers and how U.S. military trainers helped organize a massacre in his country. Among the 1,000 guests at the Committee to Protect Journalists' annual dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria grand ballroom were NBC's Tom Brokaw, CBS's Dan Rather, Time-Warner's Walter Isaacson, Reuters CEO Thomas Glocer and executives and reporters from the nation's major TV networks, newspapers and newsmagazines. Gomez, 40, has twice gone into exile after death threats. The media "stars" applauded him for his courage. But did they put his revelations into print or on air? If you didn't see the stories he recounted in the American press, don't be surprised. As they do every year at the CPJ event, "leading" U.S. journalists lauded the courage of people chancing death for telling the truth, but continue to pull punches in their own news organizations for fear of endangering their multi-million-dollar salaries. Here's more of what Gomez unveiled for colleagues. After he investigated a 1997 massacre in Mapiripan, in which 67 people were decapitated, Gomez reported in 2000 that the Colombian military officer accused of masterminding the crime had been accompanied "at all times" by a dozen U.S. military trainers. He also linked the massacre to paramilitary leader Carlos Castano."

Colombian rebel attack kills 60  12/29/2002 BBC: "Colombian Marxist rebels have attacked their right-wing paramilitary enemies of the United Self-defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) in the northern province of Bolivar. At least 60 people were killed in the fighting, the majority paramilitaries, which were driven from the area. The right-wing paramilitaries of the AUC have called a ceasefire and are looking to start a peace process with the government… The paramilitaries are seeking to demobilise after their organisations fragmented over the issue of drugs. The largest group in the AUC, led by feared warlord Carlos Castanao, wanted to sever links with the drugs trade which provides most of the group's income. Other elements were not so enthusiastic." Do a search on Google for "AUC massacre" and you will get 2,120 results.

Colombian drug production soars despite ‘Plan Colombia’  12/21/2002 ANNCOL: or because of it? "Information taken from testimony given before the House Committee on Government Reform in Washington on December 12th, show that whilst nearly a million acres of Colombian soil have been fumigated in the past 5 years, cocaine production in Colombia has tripled in the same period… Representative Bob Barr (Republican-Georgia) also alleged during the hearings that at least 22 US helicopters have crashed or been shot down by rebels in Colombia in recent years although the Pentagon and US Embassy in Bogotá have refused to confirm or deny this." More denials, as in Kuwait and Afghanistan, maintaining the superman image.

Colombia Naval Admiral Resigns  11/26/2002 AP: "Rear Adm. Rodrigo Quinones, Colombia's military attache to Israel, resigned Tuesday after U.S. officials accused him of drug trafficking, the defense minister said. Quinones is the highest-ranking military official in recent memory to be implicated in drug trafficking in Colombia, which produces most of the world's cocaine and most of the heroin used in the United States. Quinones has also been accused of failing to protect villagers who were massacred in northern Colombia last year by right-wing paramilitary gunmen, when Quinones was stationed in the region."

Colombia's Drug War Attracts Dubious Ally  8/19/2002 LA Times: "A fledgling U.S. program to eradicate cocaine in central Colombia has gained a notorious ally: a right-wing paramilitary army that the State Department has labeled a terrorist organization. The so-called self-defense forces, responsible for the majority of massacres in Colombia's bloody internal conflict, have thrown their support behind a U.S. alternative development program that seeks to persuade farmers to give up their profitable coca crops for legal products such as beans, chocolate and cattle."

Colombia death squads 'disbanded'  7/20/2002 Telegraph, UK: "But observers said the move was part of the death squads' plan to reinvent themselves as the government, backed by America, plans to take action against them. They also hope it will give them a seat at peace talks. The announcement by the feared paramilitary warlords Carlos Castano and Salvatore Mancuso that the 12,000-strong United Self Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) were being disbanded took the country by surprise. Insisting that "anarchy and drugs trafficking" had penetrated parts of the organisation, the warlords said they had no choice but to break up the federation of death squads."

Colombian Rebels Tell Mayors to Resign Now, or Face Death  6/27/2002 NYT: "Colombia's largest rebel army is threatening to kill or kidnap the country's mayors and municipal judges if they do not resign, in its biggest offensive against civilian authorities in 38 years of guerrilla war. In an interview atop a mountain outside the capital, Bogotá, late Tuesday, a commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia said the rebels aimed to destroy the state from the bottom up. He said the elimination of mayors and all municipal authorities was the first step, and he demanded that the mayors resign by midnight tonight… The American ambassador to Colombia, Anne Patterson, said Washington would give mayors financial support under a protection program already earmarked under the Plan Colombia antidrug offensive." The American "drug war" pretext for Plan Colombia finally dropped.

Narco-Candidate In Colombia  3/19/2002 Narco News: "The 50,000 kilos of the precursor chemical destined for GMP were enough to make half-a-million kilos of cocaine hydrochloride, with a street value of $15 billion U.S.dollars. The owner of GMP Chemical Products, according to the 2001 DEA chief's report, is Pedro Juan Moreno Villa, the campaign manager, former chief of staff, and longtime right-hand-man for front-running Colombian presidential candidate Alvaro UribeVélez. Mr. Moreno was Uribe's political alter-ego before, during and after those nervous 1997 and 1998 months when he awaited those contraband shipments."

Narcocandidato en Colombia  3/19/2002 Narco News: "Las 50 toneladas del precursor químico destinadas a GMP eran suficientes para fabricar 500 toneladas de hidroclorato de cocaína, con un valor en la calle de15 mil millones de dólares. El dueño de GMP Productos Químicos,de acuerdo al reporte de 2001 del jefe de la DEA, es Pedro Juan Moreno Villa, el jefe de campaña, ex secretario de gobierno y, por mucho tiempo, mano derecha del actual candidato a la presidenciade Colombia Álvaro Uribe Vélez. Moreno fue el alter ego políticode Uribe durante y después de esos nerviosos meses de1997 y 1998, cuando esperaba esos envíos de contrabando. Cuando Uribe fue gobernador del estadode Antioquía-cuya capital es Medellín-,, de 1995 a 1997, Moreno era el secretario de gobierno. Durante esos años, según el entonces jefe de la DEA Marshall, "entre1994 y 1998, GMP fue el más grande importador de permanganato de potasio en Colombia"."

Who Is Israel’s Yair Klein and What Was He Doing in Colombia and Sierra Leone?  6/1/2000 Democracy Now: "Klein is a former lieutenant colonel in the Israeli Army. In the 1980s he established a paramilitary mercenary company called Spearhead Ltd. Through this company, Klein began providing arms and training to forces in South America. In 1989, Klein, along with several other former Israeli officers, was charged by authorities in Colombia of providing paramilitary training and arms to drug lords running international cocaine cartels. He is also accused of training Mafia assassins whose targets have included Colombian politicians. Klein is also suspected of involvement in the explosion of a Colombian airliner in November 1989."

COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT TOOK DRUG FUNDS, AIDE SAYS  1/23/1996 WaPo: ""I think I have to answer the fundamental question in Colombia: Did President Samper know of the narco-financing of his campaign?' " Botero said. "With sadness, because President Samper is my friend, I have to answer categorically that yes, he knew. And not just that. I must also say President Samper is deeply involved in those actions.""

Links/Enlaces

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Eagles

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_del_Golfo

www.occrp.org/en/

observatoriodeviolencia.org.ve

Félix Ismael Rodríguez: Mr Narco The man who killed Che.

Paul Helliwell, a personal friend of William Donovan, founder of OSS, created the banking infrastructure for the Indochina drug traffic, involving Santos Traficantes, a Cuban from Tampa who was one of Meyer Lansky's boys. This network was later used for the Central America CIA trafficking.

Helliwell is interviewed starting at minute 5, 39 sec in HO CHI MINH PRIME MINISTER OF NORTH VIETNAM VIET CONG & VIETNAM WAR where he discusses a meeting with Ho Chi Minh.

Gary Webb's Dark Alliance restored: narconews.com/darkalliance/drugs/start.html

Israeli role in the Formation of the Colombian Paramilitaries

Israel in Colombia – Part I  3/15/2008 Machetera: "The serial killer had plenty to say about “Zionism’s firmness…which has always been used to defend itself, invade and capture territory…From there, I returned convinced that it is possible to topple Colombia’s guerrillas.” Castaño died in 2004 and recent history remembers him for what he was: one of Colombia’s bloodiest paramilitary members. However, Castaño was not alone in his training in Israel. Salvatore Mancuso, another “historical leader” of United Colombian Self-Defense (AUC, 1997), was there as well, although he is presently in prison. In the middle of the 1990’s, Mancuso organized the paramilitaries of the “Harmonious Cooperative,” financed by Álvaro Uribe Vélez, who was at that time the governor of Antioquia."

Israel en Colombia I  3/13/2008 Rebelion: "No obstante, y acaso de un modo no tan invisible, quien también sintió regocijo fue el general Israel Ziv, ex comandante del regimiento de Gaza, y el de más alto rango entre los oficiales israelíes que ocupan tareas relacionadas con el entrenamiento de personal en el gobierno colombiano. Los nexos militares entre Israel y Colombia datan del primer lustro de 1980, cuando un contingente de soldados del Batallón Colombia “… uno los peores violadores de los derechos humanos en el hemisferio occidental, recibieron entrenamiento en el desierto del Sinaí por algunos de los peores violadores de los derechos humanos en Medio Oriente”, según el investigador estadunidense Jeremy Bigwood. Experto en utilizar la ley de Libertad de Información para liberar documentos censurados por el gobierno de Estados Unidos, Bigwood observa que el entrenamiento de los jóvenes paras colombianos no podría haberse dado sin el permiso expreso de las más altas autoridades de las fuerzas de defensa de Israel."

Israel's Latin American trail of terror  6/5/2003 Third World Traveler: "I learned an infinite amount of things in Israel, and to that country I owe part of my essence, my human and military achievements" said Colombian paramilitary leader and indicted drug trafficker Carlos Castao in his ghostwritten autobiography, Mi Confesin. Castao, who leads the Colombian paramilitaries, known by their Spanish acronym AUC, the largest right-wing paramilitary force to ever exist in the western hemisphere reveals that he was trained in the arts of war in Israel as a young man of 18 in the 1980s…. Where Israel has excelled is in advising, training and running intelligence and counter-insurgency operations in the Latin American "dirty war" civil conflicts of Argentina, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and now Colombia."

Doing the US's Dirty Work - The Colombian Paramilitaries and Israel  4/8/2003 NarcoNews 

1989 Secret document from Colombian Police (DAS) regarding training of paramilitaries by Israelis and British  4/8/2003 Jeremy Bigwood: fecha de 1989

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