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A connection between the Israeli Military man Yair Klien and the Colombian Death Squads.
A deadly union of Zionist torturers and Colombian oligarchs.
NorteAmericanos for Bolivar
—– Original Message —–
Subject: Colombia’s Paramilitaries and Israel
New World Phalange, Colombia’s Paramilitaries and Israel
by Jeremy Bigwood
December 04, 2002
“I copied the concept of paramilitary forces from the Israelis.”
Carlos Castaño, Mi Confesión 2002[1]
In 1983, an intense 18-year-old Colombian arrived in Israel to take a yearlong course called “562.”[2] He was no normal foreign exchange student. His name was Carlos Castaño and the course was about making war, something that he would exceed at: he was destined to become the most adept and ruthless paramilitary leader in Latin America’s history.
Carlos Castaño had been impelled along this vengeful path after his cattle-ranching father had been killed during a botched rescue attempt by the army while being held for a “tax” ransom by the FARC – Colombia’s strongest left-wing guerrilla army.[3] Bitter over their father’s death, Carlos and his older brother, Fidel, vowed revenge, a vengeance that would dovetail with both the interests of the Colombian right-wing landholding classes and US foreign policy. It is a vengeance that continues into the present..
The brothers first offered their services as scouts for the Colombian Army’s Bombona Battalion – fingering FARC sympathizers, providing intelligence and even participating in military operations. But Fidel – some 14 years older than Carlos – concluded that by merely working for the army, they were going to get nowhere.[4] One of the battalion’s majors introduced them to a local paramilitary death squad called “Caruso,” with whom they started a killing spree. When local police started to investigate them, they found it necessary to operate even more clandestinely. Unlike in many other third-world countries under the U.S.’s shadow, Colombia’s police and judiciary have sometimes played an independent role from the Army.
Later, according to press reports,[5] Fidel started his own paramilitary death squad called “Los Tangueros,” named after his ranch, “Las Tangas.”[6] The Los Tangueros was responsible for more than 150 murders during the late 1980s and early 1990s. When discussing this period in his book, Castaño openly talks about murders he has committed or ordered, making his habit of executing what he calls “‘guerrillas’ in towns” sound routine.[7] In one massacre alone, the Los Tangueros captured dozens of campesinos from a neighboring town. Back at the ranch, “they tortured them all night with crude instruments before shooting some and burying others alive.”[8] Los Tangueros along with other death squads dispersed throughout the country would evolve into the present 9,000-strong paramilitary force in Colombia, [9] now killing up to twenty civilians per day.[10]
During the early 1980s when Castaño’s father was captured by the FARC, rural Colombia was rife with small diverse paramilitary units working for the army and the landholding upper classes.[11] Many of these groups were merely the enforcers and protectors of the local wealthy, while others worked protecting the “new rich” of the cocaine trade from the “taxation” of the left-wing insurgencies. Some of these groups bore the names of petty criminal gangs or the names of their leaders. They liked to call themselves “self-defense” or “auto defense” groups, but here we will use the term ‘paramilitaries” to avoid confusion. In the 1980s, these paramilitary groups were disparate and not well trained, and sometimes got involved in turf battles between themselves. If they were to take the offensive against the steady advances of the leftist guerrillas, the paramilitaries would need both political/military training and unification. And while these paramilitaries essentially worked for the same counterinsurgent goals as those of US foreign policy, the US could not directly support them. But another country could.
Exactly how Carlos Castaño got to Israel is still a mystery, as is precisely which entity trained him there. But whoever set it up, the Israeli course “562″ definitely had a strong effect on Castaño. “Something clicked in me, and I began to behave differently[12]…My perception of this war changed radically after my trip to Israel,”[13] he said in his “as told to” Colombian run-away bestseller of interviews edited by Spanish journalist Mauricio Aranguren Molina.
Carlos Castaño was clearly a good and highly motivated student. Of his studies in Israel, which is the subject of chapter 6 of in his book, he reminisces:
“Unlike what one might think, we studied in the classroom more enthusiastically than in the military training. The classes emphasized the regular and irregular ways in which the world operates… It was there that I rounded out my education… [The teachers] insisted on us carrying ourselves well, in both the way we dressed and in the way we spoke in public. I also received a class on how to enter and register in a hotel and we analyzed how to behave around immigration police in airports. We read in libraries and spent long sessions on both the self-esteem and the security that an individual should have. This was an invaluable process which taught me to respect and have confidence in myself, to triumph during tough intimidating moments.”[14]
Most importantly for the eager student, he “received lectures on how the world arms business operates, and how to buy arms.”[15]
And of course, there was also a military component:
“I received instruction in urban strategies, how to protect oneself, how to kill someone, or what to do when someone is trying to kill you, depending on the situation. We learned how to stop an armored car and use fragmentation grenades to break through and enter into a target. We practiced with multiple grenade launchers, and learned how to make accurate shots with RPG-7s, or shoot a cannon shell through a window.”[16]
“We also took complementary courses on terrorism and counter terrorism, night vision equipment, and parachuting. We also learned how to make homemade bombs. In short, we learned what the Israelis know, but, in all sincerity, very little of all of this has been applied to the war in Colombia. I got a very good basic education, and there I learned how to do the most important thing – I learned how to control fear…”[17]
Castaño also describes training that could not have taken place without the express permission of the highest authorities of the Israeli Defense Forces, such as when he performed “airborne maneuvers and [we] parachuted at night over islands of the Mediterranean. I had to carry weights as ballast to adjust my free-fall speed.” [18]
Not all was study for Castaño in Israel, and he used his free time to meet with Colombian soldiers undergoing regular military training there, in which the worst human rights violators in the western hemisphere were being trained by the worst human rights violators in the Middle East. But these were precisely the connections that would prove so useful in the future.
“In the Sinai desert, I also had the opportunity of meeting military men from our country, the men of the Colombia battalion. I did not meet the battalion as a whole, but on my R & R days, we went to the same places, and I spent time in the company of sergeants and officers.” [19]
Castaño summarizes his epiphany in Israel: “Upon returning to Colombia, I had become another person… I learned an infinite amount of things in Israel and to that country I owe part of my essence, my human and military achievements, although I repeat, in Israel I didn’t only learn about things related to military training. There I became convinced that it was possible to destroy the guerrillas in Colombia. I started to understand how a people could defend itself against the whole world. I understood how to bring into the “cause” a person who had something to lose in the war, with the aim of converting him into the enemy of my enemies.”[20]
By 1985, shortly after Castaño returned to Colombia, some of the paramilitary groups that were springing up had become completely dependant on the monies from drug trafficking. Indeed, some paramilitary units had merely evolved as such from drug protection rackets. In fairness it is true that some of the paramilitary groups were not related to illicit drug protection: some were formerly the guards of rich landowners, cattle ranchers and the like. A secret 1989[21] Colombian Police (DAS) Intelligence document [22] includes a section on the “Contamination of the Paramilitaries by Drug Trafficking,” even places a time and a place on this event, although there is other evidence (below) that this took place earlier. “The economic crisis facing the paramilitary forces in 1985 was resolved by an alliance with drug trafficking… This alliance came about in mid-1985 when the Paramilitary intercepted a camper full of cocaine… After conversations with the drug traffickers through the initiative of HENRY PEREZ, the Paramilitary forces returned the camper and the drugs to their owners, receiving in exchange for it a four-door Toyota pickup…”[23] It should be noted that Henry Perez was part of the Caruso paramilitary gang, at the time also known as the Autodefensas del Magdalena Medio (Paramilitary Militia of Magdalena Medio)- as were the Castaños. In fact, Castaño calls Henry Pérez one of the “fathers” of the paramilitaries, along with his brother Fidel, and the previously mentioned Bombona battalion Major Alejandro Álvarez Henao, who had introduced the brothers to their first death squad.[24] From this point onwards, these paramilitaries expanded, protecting operations of the Medellín cartel and others, including that cartel’s competition in Cali.
The DEA was also watching: Its agents had noticed a paramilitary/drug trafficking connection at least as early as 1993: “Intelligence indicates that some of Colombia’s private paramilitary groups have been co-opted by cocaine trafficking organizations. Throughout the 1980s, the Autodefensas del Magdalena Medio (Self-Defense Militia of Magdalena Medio), one of the most important of these groups, had close ties with the Medellín Cartel’s organization.”[25]
A year later, in another report, the DEA looked at the relationship between the left-wing insurgencies and the drug trade, accurately stating: “Despite Colombian security forces’ frequently claim that FARC units are involved directly in drug trafficking operations, the independent involvement of insurgents in Colombia’s domestic drug production, transportation, and distribution is limited…No credible evidence indicates that the national leadership of either the FARC or the ELN has directed, as a matter of policy, that their respective organizations directly engage in independent drug production or distribution. Furthermore, neither the FARC nor the ELN are known to have been involved in the transportation, distribution, or marketing of illicit drugs in the United States or Europe.”[26] In other words, the left-wing insurgencies taxed the production of coca or its products’ transportation through insurgent-controlled areas, but were not involved in its processing to cocaine, shipping or marketing – as opposed to the paramilitaries who ran and still run processing factories and were and still are actively involved in shipping it out of the country.[27]
Paramilitary leaders also set up clandestine training schools in Colombia, or “schools for assassins” as they were called by the previously mentioned secret 1989 Colombian Police (DAS) Intelligence report.[28] The first such school that was discovered was called “El Tecal,”[29] and it trained the first of the paramilitary forces, and as these extended themselves deeper into the countryside and received greater funding form the drug trade, they formed other schools in other areas. For instance, “Cero Uno [Zero One] located at kilometer 9 of the Puerto Boyocá-Zambito road,” and “El Cincuenta”[30] [# 50] located on the road between Delirio and Arizá (Santander).”[31] There were also “satellite schools” with names reminiscent of bars such as “Galaxias.”[32] According to the DAS report, “Personnel graduated from these schools to incorporate into the ‘paramilitary-narcotrafficking’ structure with an aim to undertaking four specific jobs:
a. Protect the community and the properties of narcotrafickers from the guerrillas and rival groups.
b. Be responsible for the personal protection of the heads of the cartels and those of the paramilitary forces, functioning as bodyguards.
c: Produce cocaine in the laboratories of that organization…
d: Attack members of the Unión Patriótica[33] [legal political party affiliated with the FARC] and members of the government or political parties that opine against the drug trade.”[34]
To qualify as a candidate for training in these “schools for assassins” one had to be interviewed by narco Henry Perez and his cohorts, all friends of the Castaño brothers. Students were selected by “the express recommendation of a rancher, farmer or narcotraficker from the region.” with questions like “What is your ideology? Are you capable of killing your father, mother or brother if it can be confirmed that they are guerrillas?” The candidates were told that the war may go on forever and that the only enemy was communism. And “upon the evaluation and verification of all of the information supplied by the candidate, the candidate is given a medical exam and placed in a basic training course. During the first stage of training, recruits are selected to work in the financial apparatus (drug production) or security (bodyguards, patrolmen). The training course includes: a.) Camouflage techniques, b.) Handling small arms and parading, c.) Explosives, d.) Personal defense, e.) Identity preservation, f.) Body guarding, g.) Intelligence, h.) Counterintelligence, i.) Communications, j.) First Aid.”[35]
But apparently this training by fellow Colombians was not enough, and in 1987 the Israelis were called in to help. In the mainstream media the 16 Israeli and British trainers were presented as “mercenaries,” perhaps because of the bias of the Colombian DAS agents who wrote a report on them. These foreign military trainers were far too well connected to be ordinary “mercenaries”-they clearly acted with some government approval, most definitely that of Israel, and probably of some US entity also – as we shall see below. Castaño, who attended these courses, said that members of the Colombian Army had actually arranged the courses, which featured the training by a famous Israeli officer, Yair Klein.[36]
Again, it was Castaño ally Henry Perez who picked the candidates – along with drug kingpin Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha. According to his book, Carlos Castaño took part in the courses, and their organization occupied five[37] of the 50 scholarships.[38]
a. A group of five Israelis taught the course called “PABLO EMILIO GUARIN VERA” in the “El Cincuenta” school of Puerto Boyocá.
b. The instructors were in the area for a period of 45 days after having entered the country through Cartegena (Bolivar). Initially, they stayed in the “El Rosario” residence of Puerto Boyocá and later in a rustic house on the Isla de la Fantasía (Fantasy Island)…[39]
There were also 30 scholarships awarded so that students could train further in Israel, just as Castaño had done: “According to what these instructors said, they were going to send the best 30 students for further schooling in a special course that would be taught in Israel.”[40] Thirty paramilitaries being sent to Israel would have clearly required the permission of the Israeli Defense Forces – the Israeli government. It is hard to imagine anything else for a country continually at war.
And there was a Nicaraguan Contra connection: “TEDDY, the Israeli interpreter told our source that they should shorten and speed up the course because they had promised to train the Nicaraguan Contras in Honduras and Costa Rica.”[41] Anyone who thinks that these were simple “for hire” mercenaries would do well to analyze this quote. At the time, only with express US government approval – particularly that of the State Department and CIA – could one get into the contra camps located in Honduras or Costa Rica, let alone a group of men bearing arms. These Israelis were clearly trusted at the highest levels of both the Israeli and US governments.
During this time, and even up until the present, the Colombian state has not shown itself to be a monolith. Even today, in spite of all of the US influence, one still finds government ministries that refuse to go along with the official line crafted by the US State Department and filtered through the presidency or some other ministry.[42] This explains why part of the Colombian state -justice and police – were so clearly disturbed by the paramilitaries’ advances that in 1990 police units raided a Castaño property and exhumed 24 decomposed corpses, some showing signs of torture.[43]
And there were other troubles too: competition was growing between the Medellín and Cali drug cartels. According to a DEA Intelligence Report from 1993, “By 1990, for reasons that are still unclear, the Autodefensas del Magdalena Medio and the Medellín Cartel emerged as bitter foes.”[44] Former ally, Medellín cartel drug-kingpin Pablo Escobar was now being hunted by the Colombian state, aided by US intelligence agencies and the DEA.[45] The Castaño brothers helped the Colombians and the U.S. in the hunt for Escobar, which resulted in Escobar’s death. Carlos had lines of communication open to the actual police squad that killed Escobar, as he knew “the brother of the famous police colonel, Hugo Martínez Poveda, commander of the Search Team that killed Pablo Escobar” from time both of them had spent in Israel.[46]
After Escobar was out of the picture, the Castaño brothers consolidated and unified the paramilitaries under the name “Auto-Defensas Unidas de Colombia” (Unified Self-Defense Forces of Colombia), known by its Spanish acronym AUC:
“From these death squads grew the Peasant Paramilitary Force of Cordoba and Urabá (ACCU), the oldest and largest of the AUC’s confederation of privately funded armies across the country. This was a result of Carlos Castaño’s new leadership: He transformed a regional protection force into a national political movement..”[47]
The effect was dramatic. The paramilitaries grew in size from a few thousand to nine thousand or more, and as Time magazine reported in 2000: “Fear of AUC vengeance is one reason at least 1 million peasants fled their homes during the past decade.”[48] Like the Nicaraguan contras, the Salvadoran and Guatemalan death squads, the paramilitaries were known for using excessive violence to terrorize the population, and on at least one occasion paramilitary units used chainsaws to torture and kill their victims.[49]
But there were also losses for the paramilitaries. In 1994, Carlos’s elder brother Fidel or “Rambo” as he was known – then the paramilitaries’ leader – was – according to Carlos — killed in a chance combat with FARC guerrillas in northern Colombia.[50] However there exists some doubt as to whether he is really dead. The State Department apparently believes that he may still be alive and a recent article rumours him to be living in Israel.[51] Whatever the truth may be, Carlos took over the top paramilitary position at that point, and the movement grew even more, even acquiring a rudimentary air force, something that CIA black propaganda was always trying to pin on the guerrillas,[52] so it could induce the mainstream press to argue for more military aid to bolster the Colombian government.
In reality, the insurgents didn’t have an air force, but the paramilitaries did and still do. By the late 1990′s, the paramilitaries had acquired several helicopters, along with maintenance mechanics and pilot training.[53] Helicopters are extremely costly to purchase and maintain, but are very useful in this type of war, as Carlos was soon to find out. According to his autobiography, his life was saved during the Christmas holidays of 1998 when a large FARC contingent attacked his base-camp in a surprise assault. It was the Israeli-trained pilot and[54] paramilitary commander Salvatore Mancuso[55] who rescued him in a paramilitary helicopter.[56]
Castaño has often met in secret with government officials, but by 2000 the meetings were being openly reported. On November 6, 2000, he met with Colombia’s Interior Minister Humberto de la Calle of then-President Andrés Pastrana’s Government. As a result of the meeting, Castaño released two of seven legislators that his paramilitaries were holding captive.[57] Indeed, at the time of this writing, Castaño and Mancuso are in discussion with the new Colombian government.[58], [59]
As the movement expanded, continuing to absorb other paramilitary organizations, it needed arms, and probably had several sources for them, one of which came to light last May. It should come as no surprise to the reader that the suppliers were Israelis. Israeli arms dealers have long had a presence in next-door Panama and especially in Guatemala (see side bar). While some of the details of this particular deal have been contested and are still sketchy, one thing is clear: by a series of misrepresentations, GIRSA, an Israeli company associated with the IDF and based in Guatemala was able to buy 3,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles and 2.5 million rounds of ammunition that were then handed over to the paramilitaries in Colombia.[60] This may remind us of what Carlos Castaño said about his course in Israel – when he received “lectures on how the world arms business operates, and how to buy arms,”[61] – probably complete with the connections to do so.
This arms deal featured tier upon tier of deniability and smokescreens. Although Colombian police uncovered the deal, no one has been indicted over it. The only players who appear to have known what was going on were the Israelis and the paramilitaries. The Nicaraguan police who sold the arms thought they were trading them for Israeli mini-Uzis and Jericho pistols. The US State Department, which had recently placed the Colombian paramilitaries on its “terrorist” list claims though spokesperson Wes Carrington that the department was under the impression that the fully automatic assault rifles were going to collectors in the US![62] Somehow that bait doesn’t go down easily.
The Uribe – Castaño Connection
Colombia’s President Álvaro Uribe Vélez, like Castaño, also lost his narcotrafficking father to the FARC, [63] but in the case of Uribe, the father died fighting on his ranch that was attacked by the insurgents.[64] And there are other similarities, too: like Castaño, the Uribe family has had close ties to the cocaine trade, even renting out a helicopter to the business.[65] In fact, Uribe’s father was once indicted for his role in the famous Tranquilandia cocaine-processing lab, after it was taken out by a combined DEA-Colombian police operation [66]. During the 1980′s (check dates) Uribe was head of Civil Aviation (Aerocivil) in Colombia and controlled all of the aviation licensing throughout the country at a time when small planes did most of the drugrunning.[67] When Uribe was governor of Antioquía department in the mid-1990s, he helped set up a paramilitary force called Convivir,[68] in which paramilitary boss Salvatore Mancuso is rumored to have served.[69]
Legitimizing the paramilitaries
During the last Colombian presidential elections, a “cleansed” Uribe was voted into power supported by the US State Department. Many of the plans for his government are based upon a US-generated Rand Corporation study. A major part of both the Rand study and Uribe’s plan involve the creation of a large civil defense/government informer force that will be beholden to the Colombian state. The Rand report, like all things Plan Colombia, was first written in the United States. It bases a new Colombian Civil Defense counterinsurgency structure on the Peruvian “Ronda” system — which acted under Army supervision and was greatly responsible for reducing the size of the Shining Path guerrillas as well as committing a multitude of human rights abuses. Apparently, Uribe’s idea is that Castaño’s paramilitaries first have a ceasefire against the army – which is in itself a falsity since the AUC always worked alongside the army – then the paramilitaries would become legal entities of the Colombian state under a different name. Thus Castaño’s paramilitaries will become legitimized and continue the counterinsurgent war with the direct assistance of the United States, their bloody hands washed in State Department PR.
At that point, Israel will no longer be needed in Colombia. And indeed, it would prefer to be forgotten, as there is no doubt that it shares some blame for the many years of ongoing bloodbath in Colombia, which kills as many as 20 people a day[70] – some 70% or more of which is attributed to the paramilitaries, totaling tens of thousands over the last decade.[71] Most of those murdered are killed for merely being suspected of sympathies to the insurgency, not for being actual combatants. Unfortunately, we can expect the training of Phalange-like paramilitary groups to continue throughout the world, as the Israeli state gleefully continues to undertake operations that are deemed too distasteful for its US counterparts.
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ENDNOTES [1] Mi Confesión: Carlos Castaño Revela sus Secretos, as told to Mauricio Aranguren Molina, Editorial La Oveja Negra Ltda, Bogotá Colombia. First edition, December 2001. Also available on the AUC website:
http://colombia-libre.org/colombialibre/miconfesion.htm
[2] Mauricio Aranguren (ibid) page 107
[3] Dead Man’s Bluff, Stephen Dudley, The Washington Post, Sunday, November 24, 2002
[4] Mauricio Aranguren, page 88
[5] Colombia’s Other Army: Growing Paramilitary Force Wields Power With Brutality, Scott Wilson, Washington Post, March 12, 2001
[6] Dead Man’s Bluff, Stephen Dudley, The Washington Post, Sunday, November 24, 2002
[7] Mauricio Aranguren, page 107
[8] Dead Man’s Bluff, Stephen Dudley, The Washington Post, Sunday, November 24, 2002
[9] Colombia’s Growing Paramilitary Force, Jeremy McDermott, BBC News January 7, 2002
[10] Personal communication, Charlie Roberts, Colombia Human Rights Commission, 11/02/02
[11] The present period is similar to another period in recent Colombian history called “La Violencia”, or one could simply view it a continuation of that period. “La Violencia” is the name given for the 1945-1965 period of violence between the “Liberals” and “Conservatives” that started shortly after the assassination of Liberal leader Jorge Elecier Gaitan (see Paul Wolf’s excellent websitehttp://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/gaitan/gaitan.htm <http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/gaitan/gaitan.htm> ). During that conflict, the more progressive Liberals formed guerrilla bands, and the Conservatives, backed by the State, the Church, and to some degree the United States, fought these insurgents with both a regular army and the police, which, at that time, essentially acted as death squads, often massacring entire communities. La Violencia was ended through negotiations in 1965, although its root causes were left unsolved, which is why the conflict persists today.
[12] Mauricio Aranguren, page 109
[13] Mauricio Aranguren, page 107
[14] Mauricio Aranguren, page 109
[15] Mauricio Aranguren, page 109
[16] Mauricio Aranguren, page 109
[17] Mauricio Aranguren, page 109
[18] Mauricio Aranguren, page 110
[19] Mauricio Aranguren, page 110
[20] Mauricio Aranguren, page 111
[21] All paramilitary groups in Colombia were made illegal in 1989.
[22] Untitled 1989 Colombian Police (DAS) Intelligence “Secret” document
[23] Untitled 1989 Colombian Police (DAS) Intelligence “Secret” document, pages 11 and 12
[24] Mauricio Aranguren, page 87
[25] DEA Intelligence Report 1993, obtained through the Freedom of information Act. DEA Request Number 01-12152-F
[26] Insurgent Involvement in the Colombian Drug Trade: Drug Intelligence report, DEA Intelligence Division, June 1994, obtained through the Freedom of information Act. DEA Request Number 01-1257-F
[27] There are some, yet unproven indications of greater insurgent involvement in the trade since the time of that report.
[28] Untitled 1989 Colombian Police (DAS) Intelligence “Secret” document
[29] Untitled 1989 Colombian Police (DAS) Intelligence “Secret” document, page 9
[30] “La 50″ according to Castaño, Mauricio Aranguren, page 99
[31] Untitled 1989 Colombian Police (DAS) Intelligence “Secret” document, page 12
[32] Untitled 1989 Colombian Police (DAS) Intelligence “Secret” document, page 13
[33] It should be noted that the paramilitaries were extremely successful in assassinating civilian members of the legal Unión Patriotica political party (UP). And indeed, this bears great similarity to the present Israeli government practice of selective assassination as a political toll. In the case of the UP, it was the only political party on this hemisphere that has actually been decimated – about 90% of its leadership was exterminated by the paramilitaries and sometimes directly by the Colombian army.
[34] Untitled 1989 Colombian Police (DAS) Intelligence “Secret” document, page 13
[35] Untitled 1989 Colombian Police (DAS) Intelligence “Secret” document, pages 14-17
[36] Mauricio Aranguren, page 99
[37] Mauricio Aranguren, page 99
[38] Untitled 1989 Colombian Police (DAS) Intelligence “Secret” document, page 20
[39] Untitled 1989 Colombian Police (DAS) Intelligence “Secret” document, page 19
[40] Untitled 1989 Colombian Police (DAS) Intelligence “Secret” document, page 19
[41] Untitled 1989 Colombian Police (DAS) Intelligence “Secret” document, pages 20-21
[42] See, for instance, the Colombian Ministry of Environment or the Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office positions relating to the aerial fumigation issue. These ministries have continually and very publicly argued with the presidency, the army and the police, among others (http://usfumigation.org <http://usfumigation.org/> ).
[43] King of the Jungle, Tim McGirk, Time magazine, November 19, 2000
[44] DEA Intelligence Report 1993, obtained through the Freedom of information Act. DEA Request Number 01-12152-F
[45] Killing Pablo: The Life and Death of Pablo Escobar, Mark Bowden, Philadelphia Inquirer, November 2001 Website (free version):http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/special_packages/killing_pablo/
[46] Mauricio Aranguren, page 110
[47] Colombia’s Other Army: Growing Paramilitary Force Wields Power With Brutality, Scott Wilson, Washington Post. March 12, 2001
[48] King of the Jungle, Tim McGirk, Time magazine, Nov 19, 2000
[49] Inter-American Court on Human Rights, Organization of American States: “303. The paramilitary groups in Colombia have employed horrifying techniques of torture, including the use of chainsaws and other techniques to dismember their victims. For example, on February 21, 1996, in the community of Las Cañas, in the municipality of Turbo, Department of Antioquia, members of the ACCU paramilitary group tortured and then killed Edilma Ocampo and her daughter Stella Gil. The paramilitaries, some of whom wore hoods, arrived at the home of the victims at 10:30 a.m. Stella’s three children were present at the time. The paramilitary members tied the hands of the victims and told them that they would receive a special treatment, since they were guerrillas. The two women were taken out of the house approximately 100 meters and were beaten and decapitated in front of the three children. The victimizers then opened the stomachs of the victims, from the waist to the neck. They then placed Stella’s dead body on top of Edilma’s body and threatened the other residents of the community to leave the area or suffer the consequences. These actions obviously constitute acts of physical torture against those who are killed as well as psychological torture against those who are forced to witness these events and who are threatened with similar consequences.”http://www.cidh.oas.org/countryrep/Colom99en/chapter.4f.htm
[50] Mauricio Aranguren, page 21
[51] Dead Man’s Bluff, Stephen Dudley, The Washington Post, Sunday, November 24, 2002
[52] Sharon Stevenson, personal communication, March, 2000
[53] Mauricio Aranguren, foto pages
[54] La Conexión Mancuso-Marulanda, Cromos No. 4358, August 13, 2001
http://www.cromos.com/4358/actualidad4-1.htm
[55] Mancuso is Sicilian-born, holding dual Italian/Colombian citizenship. La Conexión Mancuso-Marulanda, Cromos No. 4358, August 13, 2001http://www.cromos.com/4358/actualidad4-1.htm
[56] Mauricio Aranguren, page 243
[57] Castaño meets Interior Minister, International Risk Circular, protection Concepts Corporation, November 7, 2000
http://www.psinternational.ca/sampleirc.doc
[58] Negociación secreta Revista SEMANA, Bogotá – 25 de Nov-1 de Dic, 2002
[59] Colombia’s Paramilitaries Agree to Cease – Fire REUTERS Nov 24, 2002
[60] Nicaraguan Official Told U.S. Diplomat of Arms Deal That Later Went Bad, Filadelfo Alemán, AP, Monday, May 6, 2002
[61] Mauricio Aranguren, page 109
[62] Israeli Arms Dealers Differ Over Responsibility for Shipment to Colombian Paramilitaries, Juan Zamorano, AP, May 7, 2002.
[63] ¿Quién es Álvaro Uribe Vélez? Rebelión website, April 10, 2002 http://www.rebelion.org/plancolombia/uribe100402.htm
[64] http://www.geocities.com/manesvil/uribe.htm
[65] Biografía no autorizada de Älvaro Uribe Vélez (El Señor de las Sombras), Joseph Contreras & Fernando Garavito, Editorial Oveja Negra, Bogotá, Colombia, 2002
[66] Ignacio Gomez, upon receiving Investigative Journalism Award 2002 from the Committee to protect Journalists. © 2000-2002. International Center for Journalists. <http://www.libertad-prensa.org/copyright.html> http://www.libertad-prensa.org/nacho.html Por el trabajo de los antecedentes que relacionan a Alvaro Uribe Vélez con el Cartel de Medellín. Es una investigación que se hizo en cinco partes. Una de ellas tenía que ver con la coincidencia cuando Pablo Escobar era miembro del Congreso y tenía muchísima actividad política o proselitista en los barrios pobres de Medellín, y por entonces Alvaro Uribe era el alcalde de Medellín y hacía programas muy paralelos a los de Pablo Escobar. Después Alvaro Uribe fue director de la Aeronáutica Civil. Antes de él, desde 1954 hasta 1981, el Estado había concedido 2.339 licencias, y durante los 18 meses que él ejerció, concedió 2.242 licencias, muy poco menos que en los 35 años anteriores, con el agravante que muchísimas de esas licencias, como 200, quedaron en manos del Cartel de Medellín. Y una de ellas, al menos una de ellas, quedó en manos de su papá, quien fue asesinado un tiempo después por las FARC. Cuando el helicóptero era objeto de la herencia, fue encontrado en un laboratorio famosísimo de Pablo Escobar llamado Tranquilandia. El helicóptero pertenecía a Uribe y su hermano. Además había una estrecha relación entre el papá de Uribe y el clan de los Ochoa, que era una familia muy importante en el Cartel de Medellín. Y la último fue cuando Pablo Escobar escapó de la cárcel y trató de hacer un nuevo acuerdo con el gobierno, y el encargado de llegar a ese acuerdo fue Alvaro Uribe Vélez. De todo esto nosotros teníamos cinco historias. Nosotros sólo alcanzamos publicar una, que es la relacionada con el helicóptero. Y el día que la publicamos el presidente se puso demasiado bravo, me insultó a mi por la radio, y comenzaron a presentarse llamadas misteriosas amenazando de muerte a la hija de dos años de Daniel Coronell, director de Noticias Uno, el programa donde trabajo yo ahora. Y se presentaron diversas presiones dentro de los otros socios del canal para que yo fuera expulsado. Entonces la serie se suspendió, no se emitió.
[67] Biografía no autorizada de Älvaro Uribe Vélez (El Señor de las Sombras), Joseph Contreras & Fernando Garavito, Editorial Oveja Negra, Bogotá, Colombia, 2002
[68] Colombian Labyrinth: The Synergy of Drugs and Insurgency and Its Implications for Regional Stability
Angel Rabasa, Peter Chalk RAND, 2001 http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1339/MR1339.ch5.pdf
[69] Colombia: Paramilitares legalizados, Rebelión website, Sept 9, 2002 http://www.rebelion.org/plancolombia/sodepaz090902.htm
[70] Personal communication, Charlie Roberts, Colombia Human Rights Commission, 11/02/02
[71] Comisión Colombiana de Juristas as cited in Colombia Update Vol 13. No1 Colombia Human Rights Network, fall 2001. According to the Comisión’s report on 1997, 67% of assassinations were attributed to the paramilitaries; 20% to the guerrillas; and 3% to state agents – for the cases where the perpetrators were known. According to their March 2001 Report, “87.21 entail state responsibility”. It should be noted that the Comisión considers the paramilitaries to be under the “state responsibility” rubric because of their thinly-disguised ties to the Colombian Army.
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Cantona wants a ‘real revolution’
