Colombia's former president target in 'international assassination plot'

[Judi Lynn]

by Stephen Gill May 7, 2018

Colombia’s former president Alvaro Uribe claimed Monday that he has been warned about an international conspiracy to assassinate him.

The former president and current senator is the latest of multiple prominent politicians who claim to be the target of illegal armed groups.

“I was contacted by the Interior Minister in the name of the President of the Republic, he asked me to speak with the director of the National Intelligence Agency. Colonel Juan Carlos Rico, the director of this agency, gave me information about a possible attack against me, in which local and foreign criminals would be involved,” claimed Uribe.

Conservative former President Andres Pastrana, and ally of Uribe, told Blu Radio that Cuban and Venezuelan officials were involved in the alleged plot.

More:
https://colombiareports.com/colombias-former-president-target-of-international-assassination-plot/



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[Judi Lynn]

1. The Secret History of Colombia's Paramilitaries and the U.S. War on Drugs

After decades of atrocities, the warlords were finally being held to account. Then the Americans stepped in.

By Deborah Sontag

Sept. 10, 2016Leer en español
CALABAZO, Colombia — Skinny but imposing with aviator glasses, a bushy mustache and a toothy smile, Julio Henríquez Santamaría was leading a community meeting in this sylvan hamlet when he was abducted by paramilitary thugs, thrown into the back of a Toyota pickup and disappeared forever on Feb. 4, 2001.

Ahead of his time, Mr. Henríquez had been organizing farmers to substitute legal crops like cacao for coca, which the current Colombian government, on the verge of ending a civil war fueled by the narcotics trade, is promoting as an antidrug strategy.

But Hernán Giraldo Serna, or his men, didn’t like it, or him.

From his early days as a small-time marijuana farmer, Mr. Giraldo had grown into El Patrón, a narcotics kingpin and paramilitary commander whose anti-insurgent mission had devolved into a murderous criminal enterprise controlling much of Colombia’s mountain-draped northern coast.

. . .

It happened in a dead-of-night extradition that stunned Colombia, where the men stood accused of atrocities in a transitional justice process that was abruptly interrupted. In the whoosh of a jet, and at the behest of the Colombian president, Álvaro Uribe, the United States-led war on drugs seized priority over Colombia’s efforts to confront crimes against humanity that had scarred a generation.

More:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/11/world/americas/colombia-cocaine-human-rights.html

[Judi Lynn]

2. Useful information, usually unknown, in the US.

Uribe started his political career in his home department of Antioquia. He has held office in the Empresas Públicas de Medellín and in the Ministry of Labor and was the director of the Special Administrative Unit of Civil Aeronautics (1980–1982). He was named Mayor of Medellín in October 1982 by Belisario Betancur. However, he was discharged of his function in February 1983, five months after his appointment, by Président Betancur for his alleged collaboration with drug traffickers.[1] He was Senator between 1986 and 1994 and finally Governor of Antioquia between 1995 and 1997 before he was elected President of Colombia in 2002. Following his 2002 election, Uribe led successful campaigns against the FARC and the ELN. On 13 January 2009 the United States awarded President Uribe the Presidential Medal of Freedom. However, the war was accompanied by large-scale exactions: thousands of civilians were killed by the Colombian army (see "False positives" scandal) with almost total impunity, according to the United Nations.[2] and millions of people have been victims of forced displacement.[3]

In an official document of the Defense Intelligence Agency, dated 1991, Álvaro Uribe appears at number 82 of a list containing the names of the most important drug dealers in Colombia. Uribe is described there as a collaborator of the Medellín Cartel and intimate friend of Pablo Escobar; he is also accused of possessing financial interests in companies engaged in drug trafficking and would have assisted the cartel with regard to extradition laws.

More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Álvaro_Uribe