Alleged “Wahhabists” Fire-On U.S. embassy in Sarajevo–One was wearing suicide vest.

Shooting at the U.S. embassy in Sarajevo (Wahha…, posted with vodpod

[At 21 seconds the gunman is shot by a sniper.]

Wahhabis attacked in Sarajevo: One was a dangerous explosives

Dalje.com

Although it appeared the information that the man who was shot at 15:45 of the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo killed, it has not yet been officially confirmed.

How to transfer Bosnian media, a man dressed in camouflage uniform, the building was fired from Kalashnikov with a tram stop, and then fled, but in the end he shot in his right thigh by a sniper shot. According to some reports, it was only slightly injured and taken to a hospital.

This is a 23-year Mevlida Jašarević from Novi Pazar in Serbia a year ago was detained because of suspicious behavior during the arrival of foreign ambassadors in Sarajevo.

Police sources say the Jašarević a total of three attackers, and the other two are under control.

“Revenge of the Americans for crimes against Muslims in Afghanistan and Palestine”

In the shootout and two policemen were injured, while civil servants and diplomats remained unharmed. Both officers got out of life danger.

On the ground was sent to several police patrols, including special forces.Marindvor village, where the embassy is located, blocked, and the villagers started a panic.

The police investigation lasted for hours, but already from the behavior of the attacker to conclude the reason for the attack. In fact, before he was overwhelmed Jašarević to shout “Allah Akbar” (God is great), shouting that this was revenge Americans for crimes against Muslims in Afghanistan and Palestine.

The whole incident could have had much more serious consequences, because the embassy building in downtown Sarajevo, close to several colleges, schools and malls. At a time when Jašarević started shooting for the U.S. Embassy in the vicinity was at least twenty people.

One of the witnesses, Smail Zilic, at the time of the attack emerged from a nearby shopping center, which is only thirty feet from the attacker.

Kosice: This is an attack on the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina

- It’s like in American movies. Passers-by have fled. I was very close to him, I hid behind the car and begged God to not only turn to me and a girl who found her way here. It is within five minutes at least three shots fired towards the embassy. Then he ran the streets and fired another burst.Struck two officers from the insurance, and then settled down and shouted that does not want to kill fellow Muslims, but Americans. He stopped shooting and calmly šetkao the street, a few passers-by begged him to allow them to extract the wounded policemen, they finally allowed, reiterating that he does not want to shoot at fellow Muslims – visibly excited told us Zilic.

Police quickly cordoned off the wider area around the American Embassy, ​​and the attacker after being injured was taken to the hospital. According to unofficial information, the police in Sarajevo arrested several members of the movement, probably because of suspected ties to Jasarevic. The building of the U.S. Embassy was surrounded by high walls and realistically there was little possibility that the attacker hit anyone in the diplomatic complex.

Unofficial information says that Jašarević member of the radical Islamic movement vehabita, and that from Serbia often visited the place Maoca near Brcko, which is valid for the center of the Wahhabi community in BiH.

Bosnian officials have condemned the incident, and the BiH Presidency Chairman Zeljko Komsic said: “This is an attack on the state of BiH.”

 

Colombian president calls for legalisation of marijuana

Juan Manuel Santos, the Colombian president, has called for the global legalisation of marijuana to help combat the trafficking of harder drugs and related violence.

When asked if making marijuana legal could offer a way forward, President Juan Manuel Santos said it could and that he would support it  Photo: EPA/Felipe Ariza

By Robin Yapp, Sao Paulo

Mr Santos added his voice to a growing list of influential figures in Latin America demanding a rethink of the policies that have been used for decades to fight the drugs trade.

He said legalising softer drugs such as marijuana worldwide could help improve international efforts to deal with harder drugs such as cocaine and heroin.

“The world needs to discuss new approaches … we are basically still thinking within the same framework as we have done for the last 40 years,” he said.

Asked if making marijuana legal could offer a way forward, Mr Santos said it could and that he would support it “provided everyone does it at the same time”. But he emphasised that other countries needed to take the lead, saying the issue was “a matter of national security” for Colombia, whereas “in other countries this is mainly a health and crime issue”.

“Drug trafficking is what finances the violence and the irregular groups in our country. I would be crucified if I took the first step,” he said in an interview with Metro, the global free daily newspaper chain.

His comments are the latest sign that Latin American nations scarred by violence associated with the trafficking of drugs to the US and Europe want to pressure global leaders to tackle the issue afresh.

Last month Felipe Calderón, the Mexican president, used a speech in New York to warn the US that as the world’s “largest consumer of drugs” it may have to consider legalisation “to reduce the astronomical earnings of criminal organisations”.

In June a report by politicians and former world leaders said that the global war on drugs has fuelled organised crime and recommended an end to the criminalisation of drug users and the legalisation of some banned substances.

Ernesto Zedillo, Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Cesar Gaviria, former presidents of Mexico, Brazil and Colombia respectively, were among the 19-member commission that drew up the report.

Hazardous Hydrofracking In America

By Stephen Lendman

Hydraulic fracking involves using pressurized fluids to fracture rock layers to release oil, gas, coal seam gas, or other substances.

 

Earthworks says the process provides easier access to deposits and lets oil or gas “travel more easily from the rock pores,” where it’s trapped, “to the production well.”

 

Fractures are created by pumping mixtures of water, proppants (sand or ceramic beads) and chemicals into rock or coal formations.

 

“Acidizing involves pumping acid (usually hydrochloric acid) into the formation.” It dissolves rock so pores open for easier flows. Fracking and acidizing are often done together. Studies show from 20 – 40% of fracking fluids remain underground.

 

Fracking fluids contain hazardous toxic chemicals, known to cause cancer and other diseases. They include diesel fuel, containing benzene, ethylbenzene, toluene, xylene, naphthalene and other chemicals.

 

They also include polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, methanol, formaldehyde, ethylene glycol, glycol ethers, hydrochloric acid, and sodium hydroxide.

 

Small amounts of benzene alone can contaminate millions of gallons of groundwater used for human consumption. According to the EPA, 10 of 11 US coalbed methane (CBM) basins are located at least partially in areas of underground sources of drinking water (USDW).

 

EPA also determined that nine or more harmful to human health fracking chemicals are used in normal operations. “These chemicals may be injected (in) concentrations anywhere from 4 to almost 13,000 times” above acceptable amounts.

 

According to hydrodynamics expert John Bredehoeft:

 

“At greatest risk of contamination are the coalbed aquifers currently used as sources of drinking water.”

 

“(C)ontamination associated with hydrofracturing (can) threaten the usefulness of aquifers for future use.”

 

At issue also is obtaining information on specific fracking chemicals used. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), oil and gas companies won’t release what they call “proprietary information.”

 

Current regulations exempt oil and gas drilling from major environmental laws, including the Safe Drinking Water Act, Clean Air Act, and Clean Water Act.

 

On March 3, 2011, New York Times writer Ian Urbina headlined, “Pressure Limits Effort to Police Drilling for Gas,”saying:

 

In 1987, congressional lawmakers weren’t told about hazardous wastes from oil and gas drilling in an EPA report. Author Carla Greathouse discussed them, but they were excluded.

 

“It was like science didn’t matter,” she said. “The industry was going to get what it wanted, and we were not supposed to stand in the way.”

 

Her experience wasn’t isolated. “More than a quarter-century of efforts by some lawmakers and regulators to force the federal government to police the industry better have been thwarted, as EPA studies have been repeatedly narrowed in scope and important findings have been removed.”

 

Pressure is applied to cut red tape to help energy companies reduce dependency on foreign imports. Natural gas drilling companies are exempted from at least parts of seven sweeping environmental laws, regulating clean air and water.

 

In 2004, EPA studied hydrofracking, discovering hazardous contamination of one or more acquifers. However, a sanitized report said the process “poses little or not threat to drinking water.”

 

Afterwards, “EPA whisleblower (Weston Wilson) said the agency had been strongly influenced by industry and political pressure.”

 

“It was shameful,” he said, explaining that “five of the seven members of the study’s peer review panel were current or former employees of the oil and gas industry.”

 

Yet the study became “the basis for this industry getting yet another exemption from federal law when it should have resulted in greater regulation….”

 

In 2010, the EPA began studying hydrofracking’s environmental impact. However, responding to industry pressure, its scope is limited and final results won’t be published until 2014.

 

Initial plans called for considering toxic fume dangers released during drilling, the impact of drilling waste on food and water, and risks of radioactive waste.

 

Yet final study plans removed them. Earlier ones also called for studying landfill runoff contamination risks where drilling waste is dumped. This was also excluded despite EPA officials acknowledging that sewage treatment plants can’t properly treat drilling waste before it’s discharged in waterways near or supplying drinking water.

 

Moreover, regional studies underway or planned will be cancelled, further narrowing the possibility of full and accurate reports of hydrofracking’s harm to human health.

 

EPA scientists said high-level administration pressure thwarted efforts to institute more rigorous enforcement even though some in Congress want it. Recipients of industry campaign contributions (bribes), of course, strongly oppose any regulations.

 

The Times quoted White House energy and climate director Carol Browner as 1997 Clinton administration EPA head telling 60 Minutes:

 

“Whatever comes out of the ground, you don’t have to test it. You don’t have to understand what’s in it. You can dump it anywhere.”

 

Discussing oil and gas industry toxic waste exemptions, she added that “Congress should revisit this loophole.” At the same time, her history shows strong industry support. For example, in 1995, she helped ensure hydrofracking was excluded from parts of the Safe Drinking Water Act.

 

Today, widespread natural gas drilling “is forcing the EPA to wrestle with questions of jurisdiction over individual states and how to police the industry despite extensive exemptions from federal law.”

 

Contamination is a serious problem. “The stakes are particularly high in Pennsylvania, where gas drilling is expanding quickly, and where EPA officials say drilling waste is being discharged with inadequate treatment into rivers” providing drinking water for 16 million people.

 

At issue, of course, is why is this allowed to go on when human health risks are so high. Moreover, federal laws are ignored. For example, ones affecting sewage treatment plants say operators have to know what’s in waste they’re receiving and must assure it’s safe before discharging it in waterways.

 

However, in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, EPA lawyers say rules are broken. One unnamed official said:

 

“Treatment plants are not allowed under federal law to process mystery liquids, regardless of what the state tells them. Mystery liquids are exactly what this drilling waste is, since their ingredient toxins aren’t known.”

 

“The bottom line is that under the Clean Water Act, dilution is not the solution to pollution. Sewage treatment plants are legally obligated to treat, not dilute, the waste.”

 

Yet plants “are breaking the law. Everyone is looking the other way,” so people in Pennsylvania and elsewhere are ingesting hazardous toxins authorities aren’t preventing from ending up in drinking water.

 

Moreover, when federal regulations are lax, enforcement is left up to states that fall short by bowing to industry pressure.

 

According to Earthworks, it’s “unconscionable that EPA is allowing (hazardous) substances” to contaminate drinking water across America. It’s as bad that too few people understand the risk and aren’t raising hell to stop it.

 

Against them are powerful industry giants muscling through Congress and regulatory agencies like EPA whatever they wish. They’re doing it for planned Marcellus Shale development. It extends over eastern US states, including New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, West Virginia and others.

 

They want no hydrofracking restrictions impeding gas drilling, no matter the cost to human health. Extracting it from shale deposits holds potential to give America the world’s largest supply. It’s believed Marcellus Shale alone has enough gas to sustain US needs for 14 or more years, maybe longer depending on how much is found.

 

Moreover, Utica Shale Appalachian Basin deposits are believed to be larger. Obama’s “energy independence” goal and subservience to industry wishes drive Washington’s cooperation. With significant revenue potential, local officials do the same.

 

As a result, regulatory restraints are abandoned despite known fracking hazards, including reckless use of toxic chemicals and their disposal.

 

In a race to capitalize on industry potential, states are brazenly supporting energy company interests at the expense of their residents. Pennsylvania, in fact, became hydrofracking’s wild west. New wells under development doubled from 2009 to 2010 at the cost of contaminated drinking water increasing at an alarming rate.

 

Hundreds of millions of gallons of toxic waste fluids are dumped into rivers and streams annually. No regulations prohibit it. Wastewater treatment plants can’t flush out toxins let alone dangerous radioactive materials contaminating areas forever.

 

In addition, recycling methods don’t work because with each use, waste fluids become more contaminated, compounding the problem of ultimate disposal.

 

Moreover, the longer unsustainable practices continue, the harder it will be to find workable solutions. Planned Marcellus Shale development alone calls for at least 50,000 new wells in the next two decades, up from 6,400 permitted now.

 

At this pace, contaminated drinking water will cause epidemic illness levels affecting tens of millions of people across vast areas where hydrofracking occurs. Corrupted politicians in bed with oil and gas interests allow it, abandoning public safety.

 

For example, C. Alan Walker heads Pennsylvania’s Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED), given regulatory-free authority to expedite job creation. His mandate says by any means, including by hazardous hydrofracking drilling.

 

Similar measures are freeing gas drillers throughout the region and elsewhere. Nationwide, business, not public needs, are served. In potentially rich energy areas, caution and environmental laws are trashed to give drillers free reign.

 

Energy giants only want profits. Bought off politicians cooperate. Public health and environmental concerns are abandoned. Vast parts of America now are contaminated.

 

Imagine how much worse they’ll be as hydrofracking drills thousands more wells.

 

Today’s nightmare may be expanded beyond remediation, at least in our lifetimes unless public rage stops it. Corrupt politicians won’t do it.

 

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

 

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

 

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

Another Violent Pig–This One In Oakland

Oakland Police Throw Grenade Into Crowd That Is…, posted with vodpod

Pentagon trained troops led by officer accused in Colombian massacre

View Larger Map

[The map above shows location of the “ Barrancón Special Forces School” American training facility, where the lead troops who supervised the Mapiripan massacre acquired their deadly skills.  Colombian Green Berets were trained there by Navy Seals and their American counterparts at the top secret center.  The Colombian Special Forces then trained the paramilitary death squads, who were responsible for the lion's share of the dead and the disappeared.   Zoom-in on the Google map image and you will see the right side of Barrancon Island disappear, as the left side remains the same.  I have it on good authority, from a former Delta team member who was there, that American trainers often accompanied their death squad trainees on their immoral hunts.  Many of the paramilitaries who benefited from US training fought on the side of the Medellin Cartel and Pablo Escobar against the FARC guerrillas and the Cali Cartel.] 

Pentagon officials, under pressure to investigate alleged links between elite U.S. military trainers and Colombian forces implicated in a 1997 civilian massacre, have confirmed that they trained soldiers commanded by the officer accused of masterminding the attack.

With a $1.6 billion counternarcotics aid package for Colombia making its way through the U.S. Congress, there is increased scrutiny over whether U.S. military assistance has been or could be turned against Colombian civilians in that country’s decades-long civil war.

In November 1997, Congress enacted the “Leahy amendment,” prohibiting assistance to any foreign military unit if there is “credible evidence that such unit has committed gross violations of human rights.”

Four months earlier, 49 residents of Mapiripán, a village in the coca-growing region of southeastern Colombia, were killed over a five-day period by suspected paramilitary forces allegedly operating under the direction of Colombian Army Col. Lino Sánchez and Carlos Castaño, leader of Colombia’s right-wing paramilitary forces. Colombian prosecutors have formally accused Sánchez and Castaño of being the “intellectual authors” of the massacre.

Sánchez and two other Colombian army officers are in prison, awaiting trial on charges in connection with the massacre. Castaño, Colombia’s most notorious rightist paramilitary leader accused of numerous civilian atrocities and drug trafficking, remains at large.

A Pentagon official, speaking on condition that he not be identified, confirmed that Sánchez was commander of the 2nd Mobile Brigade, which received training by U.S. Special Forces at a river base about 80 kilometers from Mapiripán. The Defense Department has said it is investigating further to determine whether Sánchez himself was trained by U.S. Special Forces.

The Bogotá daily El Espectador reported on Feb. 27 that Sánchez’s 2nd Mobile Brigade received U.S. Special Forces training in June 1997 while he was planning the Mapiripán massacre. The newspaper said the goal of the attack was to turn over control of the guerrilla-held Mapiripán, in a region that produces about 30 percent of the worlds coca, to paramilitary forces, which have ties to the Colombian army.

A report by Colombia’s Counternarcotics Police Intelligence Office, cited by the newspaper, said Sánchez first engineered a plan on June 21 to introduce paramilitary forces into the region, using U.S. spraying of coca crops as a cover, in order to “teach the guerrillas a lesson.”

The El Espectador investigation was based on a review of 4,500 pages of Colombian government documents on the Mapiripán massacre by reporter Ignacio Gómez, who is also a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. It has prompted inquiries on Capitol Hill, where Congress is debating an aid package that would train and equip Colombian army counternarcotics battalions and provide money for more than 60 helicopters for army and police forces.

Human rights groups are worried that the military aid might be used against Colombian civilians. Robert E. White, former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador and Paraguay and president of the Center for International Policy, warned in a Feb. 8 commentary in The Washington Post that the aid package “puts us in league with a Colombian military that has longstanding ties to the drug-dealing, barbaric paramilitaries that commit more than 75 percent of the human rights violations” in Colombia.

“Obviously our people do not teach torture. They do not teach massacres. They teach human rights in every single class,” Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations Brian Sheridan told the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations two days after the El Espectador report. “As to the massacre, or alleged massacre and its proximity to or juxtapositioning to the training activity, that is something that we will have to look at very carefully.”

In a Dec. 22, 1999, letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., a member of the Senates Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee and author of the Leahy amendment, Sheridan listed nine training exercises between U.S. and Colombian soldiers between June and August 1997. Specifically, he said, U.S. soldiers from the 7th Special Forces Group, based at Fort Bragg, N.C., trained Colombian troops at the Barrancón river base from May 14 to June 23, 1997. Barrancón, an island in the Guaviare River, is a U.S. Special Forces training site that is a 10-minute drive from a Colombian army base and airfield at San José del Guaviare, from which U.S. government and contract personnel conduct counternarcotics operations. According to El Espectador , the paramilitaries were allowed to land at that airbase in mid-July en route to Mapiripán.

Sheridan said the “Green Berets” finished their training of Colombian troops at “the Barrancón Special Forces School” on June 23, 1997. Pentagon officials say they do not know whether Sánchez’s 2nd Mobile Brigade participated in that training, and Clyde Howard, an official in Sheridan’s office, said the Pentagon was under no obligation to investigate because the Leahy amendment was not law at the time of the massacre.

Sheridan confirmed that Sánchez’s 2nd Mobile Brigade received “riverine interdiction and land warfare” training one month after the massacre from Aug. 18 to Sept. 18, 1997.

U.S. Special Forces from Fort Bragg were in Colombia from May 22 to July 22, 1997, according to a 1998 Defense Department report. But Sheridan’s office said only the two exercises specified in the Leahy letter involved training at Barrancón.

“There are discrepancies about what our military trainers were doing at Barrancón, and whether they were there at the time of the Mapiripán massacre nearby. These discrepancies need to be clarified,” Leahy said in a statement to Gómez.

Documents reviewed by El Espectador indicate that American military personnel were at Barrancón for a graduation ceremony for U.S.-trained Colombian forces on July 20-22, 1997. A prosecutor from Colombia’s Attorney Generals office, who investigated the Mapiripán massacre two days after it ended, was denied a helicopter to reach the village on July 22 because it was being used to transport military personnel based at the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá, the documents show.

U.S. officials have acknowledged seeing unusual military activity in and around the San José airfield near Barrancón before the massacre. Barbara Larkin, the State Department’s

assistant secretary for legislative affairs, said in a March 30, 1998, letter to Leahy that Colombian army troops from the 2nd Mobile Brigade and the 7th Brigade were present in the area at the time. The State Department told Leahy “that U.S. personnel involved in counternarcotics programs at San Jose [del Guaviare] remember seeing an unusual number of Army personnel at the airport on the day in question.”

The investigation by the Colombian federal prosecutors office showed that on July 12, two civilian airplanes, an Antonov and a DC-3, landed at the San José del Guaviare airfield near Barrancón, where Sánchez had an office, El Espectador reported. The planes carried 15 paramilitary operatives loyal to Castaño, armed with machetes and knives, several tons of supplies, and leaflets addressed “To the People of the Guaviare,” warning them to cease their cooperation with the guerrillas.

The Castaño paramilitaries were joined by others, and the force totaled about 100 men by the time it reached Mapiripán, about a two-hour drive to the northeast. El Espectador , citing the prosecutors report, said two paramilitary soldiers also crossed the Guaviare River in stolen boats past a Colombian marine infantry base checkpoint attached to the Barrancón facility. U.S. Navy Seabees built the marine base in 1994, and the U.S. Navy continues to train Colombian forces there. The boats then met up with the rest of the paramilitary force across the river from Mapiripán. At no time did Colombian civilian or military authorities challenge the paramilitary forces, the newspaper said, even though such groups are illegal in Colombia.

At dawn on July 15, 1997, the paramilitary forces surrounded Mapiripán, and their siege of terror and torture lasted until July 20, when the International Committee of the Red Cross dispatched a plane to the village. Today, Mapiripán is a virtual ghost town.

ICIJ researcher Rupa Patel contributed to this report.

Protesting U.S.-Sponsored Terrorism in Colombia

By Garry Leech

Thousands of protesters plan to converge on Washington D.C. from April 19-22 to protest the escalating U.S. involvement in Colombia, including the training of Colombian troops at the U.S. army’s notorious School of the Americas (SOA) in Fort Benning, Georgia. According to School of the Americas Watch (SOAW), a non-profit group seeking to shut down the school, the U.S. army has trained more than 10,000 Colombian troops at the SOA and many of its graduates have been linked to right-wing paramilitary death squads responsible for a huge majority of Colombia’s human rights abuses.

  The Bush White House has spent much of the past seven months waging a war against international terrorism that, according to President Bush, “will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.” In his post-September 11 speech to Congress, the president also issued his now infamous ultimatum, “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”

By February 2002, it had become evident that Washington had no intention of finding, stopping and defeating all terrorist groups it believed to have global reach. Furthermore, the Bush White House has clearly responded to its own ultimatum by deciding that it is “with the terrorists.” At least, this appears to be the case in Colombia where the Bush administration is expanding its war on terrorism by arming and training a military closely allied to a right-wing paramilitary group that is on the U.S. State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

In February 2002, the Bush administration requested $98 million in aid to create, arm and train a Colombian army brigade whose primary purpose would be to protect the risky business investments of a U.S. corporation in Colombia. Specifically, its mission would be to defend the Caño Limón oil pipeline used by Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum from leftist guerrilla attacks.

Last month, President Bush requested that Congress lift all conditions restricting current and future U.S. military aid to counternarcotics operations. The White House is using its war on terrorism to justify Washington’s military escalation in Colombia. The State Department’s Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Francis X. Taylor, recently labeled the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), “the most dangerous international terrorist group based in this hemisphere.”

Secretary of State Colin Powell, U.S. ambassador to Colombia Anne Patterson, Senator Bob Graham of Florida and many others have jumped on the link-the-FARC-to-international-terrorism bandwagon. Washington is using the FARC’s involvement in the drug trade to justify its labeling of the rebel group as an international terrorist organization instead of just a domestic revolutionary movement.

Meanwhile, there has been nary a peep from Washington regarding waging war against Colombia’s largest and most feared paramilitary group, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), who are not only more involved than the FARC in the international drug trade, but are also state-sponsored terrorists responsible for more than 70 percent of the country’s human rights abuses. For years, the AUC have been recipients of direct or indirect support from the governments of Colombia and the United States, ranging from logistical assistance and training to arms supplies and the direct participation of U.S.-trained Colombian soldiers in massacres perpetrated by the paramilitaries.

Washington’s FARC bashers rarely mention that many of Colombia’s illegal right-wing paramilitary death squads were formed in the 1980s by either the Colombian military or drug traffickers or both. AUC commander Carlos Castaño was an associate of Medellín Cartel leader Pablo Escobar in 1981 when the Colombian army trained him for paramilitary duty in Puerto Berrío in the department of Antioquia.

Human Rights Watch has repeatedly linked U.S.-trained Colombian army officers to paramilitary groups and the massacres they have perpetrated. Many of these troops received training at the U.S. army’s School of the Americas, originally located in the Panama Canal Zone, but moved to Fort Benning, Georgia, in 1984. According to Human Rights Watch, Colombian officers “were students at the school at the time its curriculum included training manuals recommending that soldiers use bribery, blackmail, threats, and torture against insurgents.”

The School of the Americas evolved during the Cold War as a means of combating Latin American revolutionaries, especially those influenced by the Cuban Revolution. In order to combat these leftist insurgencies, the U.S. army trained (and continues to train) Latin American soldiers in counterinsurgency techniques. In other words, it teaches soldiers how to fight against internal, not external enemies.

Some of Latin America’s most notorious dictators are SOA graduates, including Manuel Noriega of Panama, Leopoldo Galtieri and Roberto Viola of Argentina, and Hugo Banzer Suarez of Bolivia. The SOA was also instrumental in training the brutal Guatemalan military that was condemned by the United Nations for committing genocide against Guatemala’s indigenous population during a forty-year civil war that killed more than 200,000 Mayan Indians. At the same time, during the civil war in neighboring El Salvador, former SOA students were involved in countless human rights abuses including the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero and the massacre of some 900 civilians in El Mozote.

School of the Americas Watch was established in response to U.S. taxpayer dollars being used to fund a Salvadoran army that was massacring thousands of innocent civilians during the 1980s. It claims that U.S. aid and training supports Latin American militaries that slaughter anyone they claim to be subversives, a classification that often includes unionists, human rights workers, religious leaders, civic groups, and thousands of impoverished peasants who just happen to live in conflict areas.

  In response to SOAW’s lobbying of Congress for the passage of a bill calling for the closure of the School of the Americas, the Pentagon renamed the school last year. It’s new label, the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, is nothing more than a cynical attempt to improve the school’s dismal public image. Meanwhile, the institution’s mission remains the same: to train Latin American soldiers, not to defend their country against foreign aggressors, but to wage domestic warfare against “suspected” subversives.

Not surprisingly, Colombian officers and soldiers are currently among the School’s leading recipients of training. According to SOAW, two million Colombians have been killed or displaced by SOA graduates who used violence that targeted the civilian population. The number of Colombian SOA graduates who have been linked to human rights abuses by human rights organizations, the Colombian government and the U.S. State Department is staggering.

Below is a list of some of the most notorious army officers among the more than 150 Colombian SOA graduates who have been linked to human rights abuses and paramilitary death squads during the 1980s and 1990s:

• General Farouk Yanine Diaz, involved in 1988 massacre of 20 banana workers in Uraba and the expansion of paramilitary death squads.
• Colonel Jesus Maria Clavijo, currently under investigation for collusion with paramilitary forces in 160 social cleansing murders from 1995-1998.
• General Jaime Ernesto Canal Alban, established and supplied weapons and intelligence to a paramilitary group known as the Calima Front, which is responsible for more than 2,000 forced disappearances and at least 40 executions since 1999.
• General Carlos Ospina Ovalle, accused of maintaining extensive ties to paramilitary groups and whose troops massacred at least 11 people and burned down 47 homes in El Aro in 1998.
• Lieutenant Pedro Nei Acosta Gaivis, ordered the 1990 massacre of 11 peasants, then had his men dress the corpses to look like rebels and dismissed the killings as an armed confrontation between the army and guerrillas.
• Major Carlos Enrique Martínez Orozco, implicated in the 1988 massacre of 18 miners in Antioquia. Martínez Orozco was subsequently promoted.
• Major Luis Fernando Madrid Barón, implicated in the activities of a paramilitary group that killed 149 people from 1987 to 1990. Also accused of being the intellectual author of many of the assassinations.
• General Mario Montoya Uribe, has a history of ties to paramilitary violence and is believed to be the military official responsible for Plan Colombia.
• Lieutenant Carlos Acosta, accused of executing a group of federal prosecutors and dumping their bodies in a river. According to his brother, “He used to say that a soldier in Colombia has to fight not only guerrillas, but also the human rights groups and prosecutors.”

On the morning of April 22, four days of protest will culminate with a march from the Washington Monument to the U.S. Capitol where thousands of protesters will call on Congress to end U.S. military aid to Colombia, stop the aerial spraying of illicit crops, and close the School of the Americas.

The United States has a long history of supporting state-sponsored terrorism in Latin America, which the Bush White House intends to continue. For those of us unwilling to tolerate the use of our taxpayer dollars to support state-sponsored terrorism in Colombia, the time has come to issue our own ultimatum to lawmakers in Washington: Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.

For more information about the protest, visit Colombia Mobilization

For more information about SOAW, visit School of the Americas Watch

This article originally appeared in Colombia Report, an online journal that was published by the Information Network of the Americas (INOTA).

“Plan Afghanistan”–Wolfowitz Wants Us To Do To Afghanistan What We Have Done To Colombia

[The Establishment rag, Foreign Policy, has an op-ed piece from that old snake, Paul Wolfowitz and a writer named O'Hanlon, called Plan Afghanistan.  The piece has no merits that I can see, so I will not post it here, balthough it does serve to highlight our plans for creating civil war in Afghanistan, by turning Afghans into human-hunters of the Taliban, their prey.   The creation of death squad networks within Afghanistan, like the paramilitary mass-murderers who took Colombia to the edge of the abyss, is nothing short of pure evil, but we should expect nothing less from Wolf, the father of the Iraq dismemberment.  The MAS and Los Pepes professional killers (SEE: Pact with the Devil ;  Colombian Paramilitaries and the United States), who were trained by US Green Berets and Navy Seals, slaughtered entire villages, all under the watchful eye of their Colombian military and US Special Forces trainers. 

Colombia is suffering from this legacy still, in its ongoing efforts to reconcile its democratic institutions with its bloody past, most notably with its attempts to demobilize the paramilitary death squads we created (SEE:  The Dark Side of Plan Colombia ;  Protesting U.S.-Sponsored Terrorism in Colombia  ;  Pentagon Trained Troops Led by Officer Accused In Colombian Massacre ).  Wolfowitz and his pal Elliot Abrahms were also key players in the Reagan Administration at the beginning of this nightmare plan for Colombia.  Plan Colombia grew out of our experiences with the Contra death squads in El Salvador--you know the guys who liked to murder nuns?  It is truly amazing that no one has cut the head off these snakes yet.  Listening to the neocons is like listening to the devil himself.  The sad part of this whole non-story is that Wolfowitz is not proposing a change in direction in Afghanistan, just describing the scenario that has been already been set in motion in that unfortunate nation.  Haven't we done enough to Afghanistan already, over the past thirty-plus years?  After all the curse of the Afghan mujahedeen (otherwise known as "al-Qaeda") is how Afghanistan's modern troubles really began, as well as the real beginning of the GWOT (global war on terror).]

Plan Afghanistan

Why the Colombia model — even if it means drug war and armed rebellion — is the best chance for U.S. success in Central Asia.

BY PAUL WOLFOWITZ , MICHAEL O’HANLON

Plan Colombia-Cashing In on the Drug War Failure

Plan Colombia: Cashing in on the Drug War Failu…, posted with vodpod

Kyrgyzstan vote shaped by interregional rivalry

LEILA SARALAYEVAPETER LEONARD

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan (AP) — The presidential election in Kyrgyzstan this weekend will be unusually free and democratic by Central Asian standards, but fears are mounting it could fuel ethnic tensions and regional divide.
Sunday’s vote in the economically struggling ex-Soviet nation follows the April 2010 violent ouster of former leader Kurmanbek Bakiyev and ethnic violence in which rampaging mobs killed hundreds of minority ethnic Uzbeks in the country’s south.

Kyrgyzstan, an impoverished nation of around 5 million people on China‘s western fringes, is home to both U.S. and Russian military air bases, making its fortunes subject of lively international interest.

Over the two decades since the country gained independence, elections have been purely formal exercises designed to lend a threadbare veil of legitimacy to the ruling elite. Bakiyev and his predecessor, mathematician Askar Akayev, only left office after being literally chased out of it by angry mobs.

President Roza Otunbayeva, a seasoned diplomat who served as ambassador in Washington and London and has been running the country as interim leader since 2010, will step down to make way for the election winner.

None of the three top contenders is likely to garner more than 50 percent of votes in the Oct. 30 election, setting stage for a runoff between the two top vote-getters.

The 55-year-old front-runner Almazbek Atambayev, a wealthy businessman who stepped down as prime minister in September to take part in the election campaign, hopes his efforts to restore economic stability over the past year will aid his chances. Raising pitifully low state salaries and pensions has certainly helped cast him as the welfare candidate.

Atambayev made his fortune in the early 1990s after setting up a printing house churning out Russian translations of Mario Puzo‘s Godfather series, as well as more controversial fare like Anthony Burgesses‘ Clockwork Orange and the works of Marquis de Sade.

Kyrgyzstan’s economic fortunes are inextricably linked with Russia, where around 500,000 Kyrgyz migrant workers reside, and Atambayev has worked hard to deepen those ties.

Recognizing the antipathy engendered by the presence of the U.S. air base, Atambayev has pledged it will be closed by 2014, when the current lease runs out.

For all this, however, Atambayev is to many, first and foremost, distinguished for being from the north — a fact that may prove decisive in an election that threatens to exacerbate regional antagonisms.

“There’s a kind of negative connotation to these elections since they are very decisive. There’s definitely the question of south and north present here,” said Shirin Aitmatova, a parliamentary deputy with the left-leaning Ata-Meken party.

Indeed, the greatest challenge to Atambayev will come from two staunchly southern politicians — 44-year old ex-Emergency Services minister Kamchibek Tashiyev and former parliament speaker and top security official Adakhan Madumarov, 46.

Tashiyev’s nationalist Ata-Zhurt party stunned observers last year by easily winning the largest share of votes in parliamentary elections. That resounding success came on the back of soaring nationalist sentiments that prevailed in the wake of interethnic clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbek communities in the south that left at least 470 people dead in June 2010 and drove several hundred thousand people from their homes, mostly Uzbeks.

Once in parliament, trained boxer Tashiyev proved a poor team-player and largely gained prominence for his violent physical assaults on fellow party members. Despite his relative lack of campaign financing, he is expected to make a respectable showing.

Ominously, he has warned that an unfavorable result will lead to a robust challenge. In Kyrgyzstan, this often means unruly crowds hitting the streets.

The southern vote will be split between Tashiyev and Madumarov, who has vowed to overturn recent constitutional reforms giving more power to parliament and restore a strong presidency.

Comments made by Madumarov during a televised presidential debate this month, when he spoke about the need to “cut off the tongues and legs” of journalists smearing his reputation, suggest his presidency would mark a rollback to a more authoritarian model of governance.

Even so, Madumarov may hope, despite his strong links to the ousted Bakiyev regime, that he can project a vision of firmness and legality.

“I will never steal from the government’s coffers and I will never appoint someone to high office just because we come from the same region, they are my brother, or because they paid me money,” he told students at the Kyrgyz Agrarian Institute this week.

Kyrgyz Will Elect New President On Sunday

Elections Not Expected to Solve Kyrgyzstan’s Woes

By Andrey Volkov
Epoch Times Staff

Kyrgyzstan’s prime minister and presidential candidate Almazbek Atambayev smiles as he holds kamcha, a traditional riding whip and symbol of power, during his meeting with local residents in Akzhar, a district on the outskirts Bishkek, on Oct. 27. (Vyacheslav Oseledko/AFP/Getty Images )

Kyrgyzstan, and all its problems, comes into the international spotlight again with presidential elections on Sunday.

Despite elections, little is expected to change given the country’s inability to tackle systemic corruption and critical human rights issues since a coup toppled the government last year.

A September poll showed front-runner, Prime Minister Almazbek Atambayev, winning 65 percent of voters’ support compared to his rivals who have less than 30 percent support.

Although Kyrgyzstan remains more democratic than its authoritarian Central Asian neighbors, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, the nation faces critical problems including a weak government and ineffective state institutions, says Marek Matusiak, an expert with the Warsaw-based Center for Eastern Studies.The country is perceived as one of the most corrupt in the world, according to Transparency International’s 2008 Corruption Perception Index.

Even if Atambayev wins the presidency, he is expected to be an ineffective leader due to his reliance on a fragile governing system in the impoverished country of 5 million people.

Matusiak said the status quo will likely continue after the election. He does not believe Atambayev will be able to strengthen the government.

“If he assumes the president’s office, I don’t think there will be many changes. He has not shown himself so far and I don’t believe that he will be able to do that as president,” said Matusiak.

Reasons for Weakness

The weakness of the central government manifests in having limited control in parts of the country, particularly in the southern region, which had violent ethnic clashes last year between the Uzbeks, a minority concentrated in the south, and the Kyrgyz. Weakness also shows in the country’s inability to carry out fair trials in numerous cases related to those conflicts and widespread torture in detention centers.

Kyrgyzstan’s political power is also undermined by a “battle between personalities,” according to a report by Johan Engvall, an expert with the Stockholm-based Institute for Security and Development Policy.

Engvall argues that since Kyrgyzstan broke from the Soviet Union in 1991, the country has been governed by leaders who represent family or specific community interests with little to no political competitionbased ideological interests. Former overthrown Presidents Askar Akayev and Kurmanbek Bakyev also fit this bill, he contends.

“Given the absence of a common national interest, the Kyrgyz political elite is susceptible to manipulation by outside forces,” he said in the report.

As evidence, he points to the many visits Kyrgyz party leaders paid to Moscow for consultations after winning seats in Parliament in 2010 October elections. Leaders of the opposition to deposed President Bakyev did the same prior to the coup in April 2010.

Atambayev is widely believed to lean toward Russian interests after making many visits to Moscow over the last year. He is also a northerner and does not have as much support in the south. Atambayev told the United States he will close access to the Manas air base in 2014 and he has shown strong support for joining the Kremlin-led Custom Union, which includes Kazakhstan and Belarus.

Despite strong divisions in political power, there are also some concerns that the next president could concentrate power into his own hands and undermine Parliament in practice and perhaps in law, said Svante Cornell, an expert with the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program.

“The problems in the country’s south have not been addressed; quite to the contrary, the nationalistic and anti-Uzbek stance of most Kyrgyz political actors also do not bode well for the country’s future, and especially its ability to develop,” Cornell said in an e-mail interview.

Torture Cases

Since the coup last year and transition to a parliamentary republic, Kyrgyz interim authorities have mishandled dozens of the trials dealing with the ethnic conflicts and have been heavily criticized by human rights organizations.

Use of torture is widely used to gain confessions in custody in the cases of accused ethnic Uzbek people, groups allege. The case of Azimjan Askarov, an ethnic Uzbek and human rights defender from the southern town of Bazar-Korgon, is one example of the government’s failure.

Askarov was detained on June 15, 2010, in his hometown when a policeman was killed during the ethnic clashes. He was put into the same police station where the killed police officer had served and Askarov was subsequently tortured. He gave detailed public testimonies of his torture and provided evidence andpictures to support his claims.

However, authorities have been unable to prosecute those responsible. “This case raises particular doubts about the will and the ability of the government to address the brutal torture,” said Maria Lisitsyna, an expert with New-York-based Open Society Foundations.

“The ability of the authorities to ensure individual prosecutions in torture cases would be the first indicators that the country is serious about its human rights obligations,” she points out.

Withdrawing but not Capitulating

by Jochen Hippler

Ten years after the overthrow of the Taliban, the US and NATO have fallen into a hardly tenable situation because they support an illegitimate government that is discredited 

[This article published 10/7/2011 is translated from the German on the Internet, http://www.freitag.de/datenbank/freitag/2011/40/abziehen-aber-nicht-kapitulieren/print.
Jochen Hippler is a political scientist. More articles on Afghanistan can be found at http://www.jochenhippler.de.]

For over 30 years war has raged at Hindukusch – with the participation of the US, Germany and other NATO states in the last decade. In North America and Western Europe, there were widespread expectations that the intervention of October 2001 would lead to the overthrow of the Taliban and to stable, peaceful and democratic conditions. Measured by these expectations, NATO has lost the war. Ten years after the western entrance into war, the land at Hindukusch is neither peaceful nor stable. Claims to democracy are discretely abandoned.

Since the beginning of 2010, the US and NATO have followed a new strategy and the situation has intensified. The report of the UN Secretary General says there were 39 percent more attacks in 2011 than in 2010. There can be no talk of stabilization of the country. Quite the contrary, the rebels have recently shown they can massively attack the government and its foreign allies in the capital Kabul.

ONLY SURVIVING

That the Hamid Karzai government aggravates the conflict and is not a bearer of hope may be even more important than the deteriorating security situation. The Karzai government is responsible for the election forgeries, torture, corruption and war criminals and warlords at important levers of power. To many Afghans today, the Taliban almost seems the lesser evil. The strategic dilemma of the NATO presence is that it depends on the support of the Afghan executive. Since the Afghan executive is hated and becomes the problem instead of the solution, the western military presence loses its political basis. In other words, NATO supports an illegitimate government and falls into a situation that is hardly stable.

The western alliance cannot defeat the rebels militarily on account of the power relations. NATO has lost the war politically since its political project is discredited. Its superior strategic strength is meaningless. The Taliban only needs to survive to be victorious militarily and to win the war. They demonstrated this ability over against the strongest military power of the world. Under these circumstances, the US and NATO understand they can no longer decide the war. However a withdrawal is not allowed since that would make the defeat obvious. From the perspective of the West, finding a way in which a retreat would not seem like admission of a debacle is vital.

Two options are in the forefront: the “reconciliation” and “reintegration” of the Taliban on one side and a negotiated solution to end the war on the other side. Both ways are hardly promising. In Afghanistan, “reconciliation and reintegration” are terms of public relations that do not mean conciliation with the rebels. With this policy, many of the rebels – particularly simple fighters and middling cadres – are dissuaded from rebellion through material incentives and other ways and won over to the side of the government. This was more a deserter- than a reconciliation program. It may be tactically useful but is not a permanent solution. Some farmers’ sons would gladly be renegade Talibs if this promised material advantages. The Taliban lay8ing down their arms could later rejoin the rebels. Material incentives only have minimal effects as long as the government is discredited and the war in the eyes of the population cannot be won.

CHRONIC LOSS OF POWER

Belated attempts to make peace through negotiations were not very promising. The Taliban and other insurgents assume they will win the war and only need patience to wait for the retreat of foreign troops. Unlike NATO, they can cope with even greater losses. Time works for them. The Taliban will certainly show readiness for dialogue regionally and nationally. But they do not believe concluding a peace treaty is one of the conditions of the government or of the foreign actors.

Conversations and negotiations could facilitate withdrawal of the foreign troops. However sharing power with Hamid Karzai seems hardly attractive to the warriors of God. This was obvious before the murder of chief negotiator and ex-president Rabbani and was clarified once and for all after the attack. The Afghan government can realize advantages through conversations – demonstrating to its population that it is an independent actor and not a marionette of the West. It could increase its possibilities in relation to the NATO countries. However from the government’s view, sharing power with the Taliban accomplished through negotiations would start the process of chronic loss of power with an uncertain outcome that hardly interests anyone.

All in all, the US and its allies have maneuvered into a cul-de-sac from which they can hardly find their way out. When those governing in Kabul were still credible in 2005 and the insurgents were weak, a negotiated solution was refused. Today the presuppositions for a military victory of NATO and for the political weakening of the Taliban do not exist. The presuppositions for a negotiated peace exist.

http://rethinkafghanistan.com

http://www.warcrimestimes.org

Proposal for regional set-up irks Pakistan

By Baqir Sajjad Syed

Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar will lead Pakistan’s delegation at the Istanbul Conference on Afghanistan that will follow a Pakistan-Afghanistan-Turkey summit to be held a day earlier. —File Photo

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has expressed reservations over the proposed draft of the declaration of the upcoming Istanbul Conference on Afghanistan, which may complicate international efforts for evolving a consensus on the document.

The conference slated for Nov 2 is expected to discuss transition in Afghanistan, reconciliation with Afghan insurgent groups and regional economic cooperation.

Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar will lead Pakistan’s delegation at the conference that will follow a Pakistan-Afghanistan-Turkey summit to be held a day earlier. The summit will be attended by President Asif Ali Zardari, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Turkish President Abdullah Gul.

Two preparatory sessions held in Oslo and Kabul for achieving an agreement on the desired outcome of the Istanbul Conference could not bridge the differences.

The issues were reported to have been raised also with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her visit to the country last week.

“It is important that unity of purpose and region’s support for Afghanistan must be ensured through consensus decision making,” Foreign Office spokesperson Tehmina Janjua said about the conference at her weekly media briefing here on Thursday.

The most critical difference revolves around a proposal for setting up a ‘regional structure’ on Afghanistan and the neighbouring region, a Pakistani diplomat said.

The regional group is proposed to include over a dozen countries in Afghanistan’s immediate and broader neighbourhood in addition to the United States

Pakistan believes that existing mechanisms are adequate to hold consultations on Afghanistan and any attempt to impose a ‘super-structure’ or ‘an additional architecture’ can be counter-productive, particularly in view of some complex regional dynamics, more specifically the Indo-Pakistan rivalry.

“The existing regional organisations and arrangements may also be urged to prioritise support in their respective domains for achieving the afore-stated objectives of a stable, peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan in a stable, peaceful and prosperous region,” the spokesperson said.

Pakistan has long opposed the setting up of a contact group on Afghanistan and had pre-empted a similar move last year during the London Conference on Afghanistan.

Officials said the current draft was more about confidence-building measures, whereas Pakistan wanted it to reflect the broader principles for cooperation.

It wants states attending the conference to affirm their commitment to Afghanistan’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, unity, inviolability of borders and non-interference and non-intervention in the country’s internal affairs. Besides, it will like the conference to pledge support for eliminating terrorism as well as production and trafficking of narcotics.

“We believe the Istanbul Conference should manifest in tangible terms its support for Afghanistan on the basis of established principles of inter-state conduct enshrined in the UN Charter and the international law as well as material, financial and technical support for socio-economic development,” Ms Janjua said.

The Foreign Office is hopeful that its concerns will be addressed.

“I have referred at the start of today’s briefing to some commitments, some principles, which we would like to be reflected in the Istanbul document. As yet, we understand that this is not the final document. It is a work in progress,” the spokesperson said.

CLINTON VISIT: “We evaluate Secretary of State Clinton’s visit positively. The visit was useful and constructive. It allowed an opportunity for in-depth discussions. It was clear during the discussions that there is broad convergence of views between the two countries at the strategic level. Both countries agreed to have a work plan in order to translate these convergences into desired results,” Ms Janjua said.

Syed Irfan Raza adds: The spokesperson said President Zardari would visit Turkey from Monday and Pakistan would raise at the trilateral summit the issue of attacks by militants from Afghanistan.

“Pakistan attaches importance to the various trilateral, quadrilateral and other processes relating to Afghanistan and will continue to contribute constructively to all endeavours and initiatives in this regard.”