Judi Lynn
Judi Lynn's JournalImminent release of Colombia far-right militia leaders draws concern
Source: Associated Press
Imminent release of Colombia far-right militia leaders draws concern
By Libardo Cardona, The Associated Press
March 7, 2014 1:23 AM
BOGOTA - One veteran of Colombia's disbanded far-right militias admitted to ordering or taking part in at least 3,000 killings, mostly targeting leftists, and incinerating many of the corpses to destroy evidence.
Another ordered a hit on a prominent intellectual who had been unjustly accused of backing insurgents and whose laptop held evidence that helped convict Colombia's then-national spy chief in the killing.
Those two men and about 400 other right-wing paramilitaries are due to walk free this year after serving eight-year sentences for crimes that normally carry more than triple the prison terms. The first is expected to be released within days.
Their lenient sentences were enshrined in a 2005 "Justice and Peace" law that provided a legal framework for the militias' supposed dismantling under a peace deal with the government of then-President Alvaro Uribe.
Read more: http://www.canada.com/news/Imminent+release+Colombia+farright+militia+leaders+draws+concern/9589367/story.html
Manufacturing Contempt for Venezuela
Manufacturing Contempt for Venezuela
Written by Cyril Mychalejko
Tuesday, 04 March 2014 22:55
A profile of the Venezuelan opposition’s systematic misinformation campaign and social media’s contribution to it.
these allegations and images which have gone viral globally, and even used by media outlets, is that they are fabrications; many of the most viral photos allegedly from Venezuela have actually depicted images from places such as Syria, Chile, Brazil - and even a US-based porn site.
“Initial, inaccurate information will be retweeted more than any subsequent correction,” wrote Craig Silverman, journalist and founder of the blog Regret the Error, for the Poynter Institute in a post in 2010. Silverman’s insight reveals the dangers, often ignored, about the use of Twitter and social media as a news source, as well as a tool for liberation and uprisings.
However, the way social media is being used, or some might say abused, in Venezuela is not the result of a few “bad apples” or some mischievous students taking part in opposition protests. In fact, this propaganda technique is being used by high profile opposition figures, while training anti-chavista Venezuelans to use social media has been a project of Washington for some time now.
According to Caracas-based journalist and attorney Eva Golinger, the US spent “nearly $15 million annually by 2007...directed towards youth and student groups [in Venezuela], including training in the use of social networks to mobilize political activism. Student leaders were sent to the US for workshops and conferences on Internet activism and media networking. They were formed in tactics to promote regime change via street riots and strategic use of media to portray the government as repressive.”
More:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/venezuela-archives-35/4728-manufacturing-contempt-for-venezuela
Venezuela says 2 mayors face charges of failing to maintain order
Venezuela says 2 mayors face charges of failing to maintain order
By MERY MOGOLLON AND CHRIS KRAUL
Los Angeles Times
March 5, 2014
CARACAS, Venezuela — In signs of a crackdown on protests that have paralyzed parts of Venezuela for three weeks, President Nicolas Maduro's government said Thursday that two mayors faced charges of neglecting their duties, and it issued an arrest warrant for a university rector.
The government actions came as two more people were killed in violence related to protests against the Maduro administration over crime, food shortages, a weak economy and human rights. The dead were identified as a member of the National Guard and a member of the pro-government militant groups known as colectivos.
The two died during a clash in the Los Ruices barrio when government supporters tried to remove a barricade erected by protesters. The member of the militant groups was identified as Jose Gregorio Amaris Castillo, 25. The National Guard member's name was not immediately released.
The clashes followed a tense two-hour standoff between residents of apartment buildings and the armed colectivos. Residents threw bottles at the militants to keep them from clearing the debris that blocked streets. As of Thursday afternoon, disturbances were still being reported in the area.
Diosdado Cabello, president of the National Assembly, said the two victims were killed by a rooftop sniper and that those responsible would be brought to justice.
More:
http://www.adn.com/2014/03/05/3361200/venezuela-says-2-mayors-face-charges.html#storylink=cpy
Ex-guerilla closes in on El Salvador election win
Ex-guerilla closes in on El Salvador election win
By Nelson Renteria
SAN SALVADOR Thu Mar 6, 2014 8:01pm GMT
(Reuters) - A former Marxist guerrilla leader looks poised to win El Salvador's presidential election runoff on Sunday as voters embrace his ruling party's social programs despite opposition allegations that he plans to veer the country to the radical left.
Polls show Salvador Sanchez Ceren, a top leader of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) rebel army during the country's 1980-92 civil war, with about 55 percent support ahead of the runoff vote, enough to secure his party a second consecutive term.
His opponent Norman Quijano, the conservative former mayor of the capital, San Salvador, trails with about 45 percent amid waning support for his right-wing Arena party. Quijano has warned the ex-rebel will move El Salvador to the radical left and bow to the influence of Latin America's leading U.S. antagonist, socialist-led Venezuela.
Sanchez Ceren, an affable but media-shy 69-year-old, denies those claims and has courted the vote of moderate conservatives who have broken with Arena.He is also promising to expand social programs, such as free school supplies and pensions for the elderly, that have won support among the poor.
"We will dedicate all our energy, all the experience we have accumulated fighting for the people for so long, and we will put it all to work to deepen these changes," Sanchez Ceren said on Sunday at a rally before thousands of supporters waving red flags.
More:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/03/06/uk-elsalvador-election-idUKBREA2523M20140306?rpc=401&feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&rpc=401
Colombian army colonel charged with complicity in massacre
Colombian army colonel charged with complicity in massacre
Mar 6, 2014 posted by Charlane Robinson
A Unit of the Prosecutor’s Office at Cali’s High Court has made an indictment against a Colombian army Colonel for his alleged involvement in the murder of 24 people, local media reported on Thursday.
The High Court reopened the investigation of Jorge Alberto Amor Paez, former commander of the Palace Battalion — which was posted in the municipality of Buga in the southern Colombia state of Valle del Cauca — for his alleged involvement in the massacre of 24 local people by the AUC right-wing paramilitary group in 2001.
The investigation by the Prosecutor General’s office alleges that the Colonel bypassed protection procedures and surveillance of his jurisdiction, allowing the infiltration of 30 heavily armed paramilitary members into the nearby townships of La Habana and Alaska, who then conducted the massacre of 24 local people.
On 10 October 2001, the former commander allegedly knowingly failed to act upon information provided to the battalion, which allowed the entry of the armed AUC into townships and committing the murders.
More:
http://colombiareports.co/24-people-slaughtered-watch-army-colonel/
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U.S.- trained Colombian Military Intelligence Officer Complicit in Massacre of Peasants: Report
May 27, 2009 ·
The warrent was issued by the specialized human rights prosecutor in the city of Calí, Juan Carlos Oliveros Corrales and confirmed Lieutenant Colonel (Jorge Alberto) Amor Páez’s participation in the massacre of 24 peasant farmers.
Some background: on October 10, 2001, members belonging to right-wing paramilitary group the Calima Bloc arrived in the rural community of Tres Esquinas, selected eight unarmed people from the community and proceeded to murder them.
They then went to the communities of Alaska and La Habana, which are located within the municipality of Buga, department of Valle de Cauca, ordered men, women and children from their homes and forced them to go to an area near the Alaska Agricultural and Livestock School.
The paramilitary members ordered the men and children to form a line and minutes later began to shoot them indiscriminately. There were 16 victims, among them several children.
He is clearly a senior official figure.
Uribe himself has faced numerous allegations of close ties to paramilitary groups. In 2007 former US Vice President Al Gore cancelled his participation in a pro-environment event Uribe was to attend in Miami due to the continuing allegations against the controversial Colombian president.
More:
http://jamblichus.wordpress.com/2009/05/27/u-s-trained-colombian-military-intelligence-officer-arrested-over-paramilitary-massacre-of-peasants/
300 complaints over fraud in Colombia’s upcoming congress election
300 complaints over fraud in Colombia’s upcoming congress election
Mar 5, 2014 posted by Camilo Mejia Giraldo
Colombian NGO Electoral Observation Mission (MOE) said Tuesday it has received more than 300 complaints on electoral crimes and irregularities occurring in the country over the past 5 months. A total of 316 reports were submitted by Colombians from October 17 last year to March 3 through the “Pilas con el Voto” program, which allows people to highlight crimes and irregularities such as vote buying, registration fraud, and political extortion.
~snip~
Political extortion
The reports of “Political Intervention”, which climbed from 17 in January to 54 in February, refer to political or public entities that pressure their employees to support a particular party or candidate. MOE judicial adviser Daniela Sierra told Colombia Reports that “this kind of pressure by the employer can be applied by threatening employees and other contractors with employment termination.”
Vote Buying
In a similar fashion, reports of “Voter Corruption” rose from 11 in January to 51 in February and detailed specific vote buying schemes that ranged from $15 to $100 per vote in a number of states throughout the country.
In the municipality of Soledad in the northern state of Atlantico, there were reports that $75 were being offered for each vote for an undisclosed candidate.
Reports also stated that in the adjacent state of Bolivar voters were also being offered around $75 per vote, 50% of which would be paid when voters would register and the other 50% when the vote was verified.
More:
http://colombiareports.co/electoral-observer-receives-300-complaints-since-october/
8 Colombia soldiers arrested in deepening ‘false positives’ scandal
8 Colombia soldiers arrested in deepening ‘false positives’ scandal
Mar 5, 2014 posted by Mimi Yagoub
~snip~
Eight Colombian military personnel were arrested Wednesday for the alleged extrajudicial killing of two civilians, in what is the latest episode in the ongoing “false positives” saga. The killings took place in 2006, the height of a notorious military practice in which soldiers murdered civilians and disguised their bodies as rebel combatants in exchange for bonuses and paid vacations.
In 2013, a report by the Prosecutor General’s Office stated that of the 4,373 people implicated in extrajudicial killings, 1,948 had been charged, while 230 mostly low-ranking military personnel had been sentenced to prison.
False positives
The practice of disguising the execution of civilians by security forces as combat kills is a phenomenon that reached its peak in Colombia during the presidency of Alvaro Uribe, which lasted from 2002 to 2010.
During Uribe’s two terms as Colombian president, the number of extrajudicial killings by the Armed Forces rose 154%, according to a 2013 report by the Universities of Sabana and Externado. The rate increased from 0.11 per 100,000 inhabitants between 1990 and 1999 to 0.28 between 2000 and 2009. It was revealed that it was common for soldiers to kill civilians, dress them as guerrilla fighters and present their bodies as combat kills, reportedly in return for bonuses and paid vacations.
More:
http://colombiareports.co/8-colombia-soldiers-arrested-unending-false-positives-scandal/
Blessing in Disguise: Ukraine May Be the Last Straw–if It Doesn’t Kill Us All
Blessing in Disguise: Ukraine May Be the Last Straw–if It Doesn’t Kill Us All
Could the rest of the world finally be tiring of endless US wars?
by Daniel Patrick Welch / March 3rd, 2014
Waterloo. Stalingrad. Egomaniacal imperialists think they can conquer the world. But they can’t–at least not forever. So maybe I’ve been looking at this all wrong. Well, not *all* wrong, but from too dark a place. Until now it has been tempting to see the US and its imperial death merchants as being on a roll, a sort of superhuman circus performer who can somehow juggle chainsaws without cutting his own balls off. Look at them go! Full Spectrum Dominance Death Star firing on all cylinders–we can overthrow governments in Syria, Venezuela, and Ukraine at the same time, without breaking a sweat. After all, we didn’t see them sweat much when they took out Guatemala, Chile, Iran, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Libya, Congo, Dominican Republic… well, you get the picture. Instead of feeling meek and overwhelmed, it may be instructive to see them failing and flailing on all three current fronts. The schoolyard bully may be running out of punches. In the same way those speaking in public are advised to calm their nerves by imagining their audience naked, maybe it would behoove us to think of empire not as an invincible machine, like Skynet, but rather more like Pinky and the Brain, a devious but hapless duo whose exploits are doomed to fail: Same thing we do every night, Pinky–try to take over the WORLD!
This is not to underplay the massive forces arrayed against humanity, nor the insane willingness of the women and men with their itchy fingers on the trigger to rain death upon the peoples of the world as casually as if they were ordering a sandwich. And perhaps it would be wiser to wait on this assessment. At this writing rumors are flying that NATO and its US overlords are planning a desperate, Blackwater-like attack on Donetsk, to provoke the Russians into a wider war, an insane and needless escalation. They are capable of anything. But no matter what happens in the next days or weeks, the writing is on the wall.
I mean look at them flail, beating their chests, nostrils flaring, teeth bared, yet with perfectly coiffed hair hiding perfectly empty rhetoric and even emptier threats. Despite how scary these men are, and notwithstanding the horror they are capable of unleashing, it is a very good thing that their hypocrisy and their true agenda are laid bare. To the people outside the bubble of the west, they look for all the world like the lunatic zealots they are, bent on world domination with only the most thinly disguised motives. Increasingly, it is to be hoped, those of us inside the bubble who have been speaking out will be seen to have been telling the truth, canaries in a coal mine, as it were.
But for the rest of the world, the jig is up. No one with any sense buys the newest color revolution scheme, and they need not be swayed by timeworn, photoshopped images of people power. From this moment on there will be no daylight whatsoever between Russia and China on issues of any strategic importance, with the others in the BRICS coalition and across the Global South glad for this protection. Their very survival is at stake, and they know it. In response to US and EU threats to impose financial punishment on Russia, China has indicated that, it may need to call in U.S. debt obligations, and from now on may require gold instead of the Fed’s “debt tenders” or worthless dollars based on nothing but trust and the US government’s own say-so. Other reports seem to suggest that China has convinced Turkey not to allow NATO ships through the Bosphorous. Sometimes what a bully needs is just to be punched in the face–hard–once and for all, before the rest of his terrified victims gang up and close in for the kill.
More:
http://dissidentvoice.org/2014/03/blessing-in-disguise-ukraine-may-be-the-last-straw-if-it-doesnt-kill-us-all/
In Venezuela the poor celebrate and the rich protest. Why?
In Venezuela the poor celebrate and the rich protest. Why?
By Arturo Rosales writes from Caracas. Axis of Logic
Tuesday, Mar 4, 2014
The Colombian novelist William Ospina observed that throughout the world the rich celebrate and the poor protest. On the other hand, in the “strange country” called Venezuela, the poor celebrate and the rich protest. Why?
The traditionally privileged sectors of Venezuelan society have tried to rise up against those who have won democratic elections – in fourteen years the Bolivarians have triumphed in 18 out of 19 electoral processes and the opposition has either refused to accept the results or accept them begrudgingly except for one national referendum they won in December 2007 and isolated victories in local and regional elections.
In the December 8th municipal elections the Bolivarians won 76% of mayoralties (256 out of 337 – 240 by candidates on the ticket of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela PSUV) and for this reason it has not been a surprise that recent disturbances by paid agent provocateurs have been concentrated in 18 municipalities controlled by opposition mayors and dominated by the middle classes. The disturbances have been declining from 18 foci to 8 and now 6 municipalities after the “uprising” started on February 12th.
The disturbances have been localized and the idea that this has been a “popular uprising” by the Venezuelan people against the Maduro government is just media fantasy, manipulation or outright lies by the international media. This media represents the interests of the bourgeoisie desperate to regain power in Venezuela and control the biggest oil reserves on the planet so as to sell them off to the highest bidder – probably the US multinationals - at a knock-down price.
More:
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_66441.shtml
Venezuela is not Ukraine
Venezuela is not Ukraine
Venezuela's struggle is widely misrepresented in western media. This is a classic conflict between right and left, rich and poor
Mark Weisbrot
theguardian.com, Tuesday 4 March 2014 11.45 EST
The current protests in Venezuela are reminiscent of another historical moment when street protests were used by right-wing politicians as part of an attempt to overthrow the elected government. From December of 2002 through February 2003, there was strike of mostly white-collar workers at the national oil industry, along with some business owners. The US media made it look like most of the country was on strike against the government, when, in fact, it was less than one percent of the labor force.
The spread of cell phone videos and social media in the past decade has made it more difficult to misrepresent things that can be easily captured on camera. But Venezuela is still grossly distorted in the major media. The New York Times had to run a correction last week for an article that began with a statement about "The only television station that regularly broadcast voices critical of the government …" As it turns out, all of the private TV stations "regularly broadcast voices critical of the government". And private media has more than 90% of the TV-viewing audience in Venezuela. A study by the Carter Center of the presidential election campaign period last April showed a 57 to 34% advantage in TV coverage for President Maduro over challenger Henrique Capriles in the April election, but that advantage is greatly reduced or eliminated when audience shares are taken into account.
Although there are abuses of power and problems with the rule of law in Venezuela – as there are throughout the hemisphere – it is far from the authoritarian state that most consumers of western media are led to believe. Opposition leaders currently aim to topple the democratically elected government – their stated goal – by portraying it as a repressive dictatorship that is cracking down on peaceful protest. This is a standard "regime change" strategy, which often includes violent demonstrations in order to provoke state violence.
The latest official numbers have eight confirmed deaths of opposition protesters, but no evidence that these were a result of efforts by the government to crush dissent. At least two pro-government people have also been killed, and two people on motorcycles were killed (one beheaded) by wires allegedly set up by protesters. Eleven of the 55 people currently detained for alleged crimes during protests are security officers.
More:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/04/venezuela-protests-not-ukraine-class-sturggle
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