Paramilitaries Continue Rampage in Colombia: the Case of El Bagre, Antioquia
Paramilitaries Continue Rampage in Colombia: the Case of El Bagre, Antioquia
July 13, 2016
by Dan Kovalik
The peasant residents of El Bagre, Colombia, in the Department of Antioquia, have been brutalized this year by the paramilitary group known as the Autodefensas Gatinastas, a successor group to the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (“AUC”) – the paramilitary umbrella group which was designated as a “terrorist organization” by the U.S. State Department, and which feigned a demobilization back in 2006.
Thus, according to reports coming out of Colombia, at least 17 peasants have been brutally murdered in the first half of this year by the paramilitaries. As Contagio Radio explains, these victims were “killed, dismembered, [and] thrown into rivers or buried in mass graves.” As a result of these assaults, peasants have set up a humanitarian refuge within El Bagre for the now hundreds of peasants displaced by this violence. I first learned of the this crisis from messages on the Twitter account of former Colombian Senator, Piedad Cordoba, who has been one of the lone voices calling for international attention to the situation in El Bagre, Antioquia.
The Department of Antioquia is ground zero for paramilitarism in Colombia, and its former Governor, and later Colombia’s President, Alvaro Uribe, one of the key intellectual authors of the paramilitaries. As one AUC leader explained, Uribe “was our commander . . . . He never fired a gun; but he led, he contributed, he was our man at the top. . . . The massacres, the disappearances, the creation of an [AUC] group: he is responsible.” Indeed, for years there have been credible allegations that Uribe was responsible for the formation of an AUC bloc while governor of Antioquia department from 1995 to 1997, and that he used the AUC to coerce millions of voters into electing him President in 2002.
But again, this is not news to the U.S. government which has been quite aware of Uribe’s paramilitary ties for years. Thus, as Colombia Reports points out:
In 2004, a declassified US Intelligence Report, originally written in 1991, stated that Uribe had “worked for the Medellin Cartel,” run by notorious drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, who the report described as a “close personal friend.”
cont'd
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/13/paramilitaries-continue-rampage-in-colombia-the-case-of-el-bagre-antioquia/
Good Reads:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016163437
