Colombia accuses Chavez of "crimes against humanity"

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Colombia accuses Chavez of "crimes against humanity"
Aug 7, 2010, 6:33 GMT

Bogota - A politically connected Bogota lawyer said he has filed an international suit charging Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez with 'crimes against humanity' for alleged support of Colombian guerrillas.

Jaime Granados, personal attorney for outgoing President Alvaro Uribe, filed the claim with the International Criminal Court at The Hague, alleging evidence of guerrilla camps in Venezuelan territory.

Granados claimed that Uribe, an arch-foe of Chavez, was not behind the lawsuit, but would be called as a witness.

He said he filed the case on behalf of victims of guerrilla attacks near the common border. Granados said he had also denounced Venezuela to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.


Read more: http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/americas/news/article_1576069.php/Colombia-accuses-Chavez-of-crimes-against-humanity

[boppers]

1. *blink*

*blink*

:wow:

I'm no friend of Chavez, but this is, well, pretty audacious.

[Chulanowa]

2. Hopefully everyone in the hague at the time burst into uncontrollable laughter

Really, Colombia? Really? You're a country that murders its homeless, and you're going to try to say shit?

[Sallow]

3. Hopefully everyone in the hague at the time burst into uncontrollable laughter

You gotta love a country that murders kids in sewers making this kind of noise.

[The Magistrate]

4. Indeed, Sir, This Is Comedy Of An Extraordinary Order

[eridani]

5. And murders union organizers and reporters as well? n/t

[ck4829]

6. That's funny coming from the country that invented "false positives"

[Judi Lynn]

7. That's the most evil act in the history of the world, I am CERTAIN. False positives.

http://latamthought.org.nyud.net:8090/wp-content/falsos_positivos.gif

http://1.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_57ukALmOphk/SYM0NrKhwpI/AAAAAAAAA1U/NXPWjMjgKTA/s400/19d6428jovenes_270p.jpg http://www.semana.com.nyud.net:8090/photos/generales/ImgArticulo_T1_56822_2008929_153713.jpg

http://www.eltiempo.com.nyud.net:8090/colombia/justicia/IMAGEN/IMAGEN-5110495-1.gif

http://1.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_HFhYwAF9Oi8/S73nLwkCHAI/AAAAAAAAAHg/VMpJdEDoLkU/S570/No_Falsos_Positivos.jpg http://elcampanazo.files.wordpress.com.nyud.net:8090/2009/04/contra-los-falsos-positivos.jpg



Families of false positives get death threats, and sometimes follow-throughs.

http://www.semana.com.nyud.net:8090/photos/%5C1395%5CImgArticulo_T1_59310_2009124_174910.jpg

Seven soldiers sentenced to 30 years in jail for 'falso positivo' .
Thursday, 16 April 2009 12:43 Kirsten Begg

The Antioquia Criminal Court sentenced seven soldiers to 30 years in jail for their participation in the murder of a farmer as a 'falso positivo'.

The 'falsos positivos' scandal revealed that members of the security forces had been killing innocent civilians to make the war against illegal armed groups seem more effective.

Those sentenced had reported an encounter with FARC guerrillas on 12 January 2006 in San José de Apartadó in Antioquia. They stated that they had found the supposed guerrillla armed with a granade and several guns.

The Prosecutor General found that there had been no confrontation and that the accused soldiers accounts of the encounter were contradictory.

http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/3631-seven-soldiers-sentenced-to-30-years-in-jail-for-falso-positivo.html

~~~~~
Google translation from a Colombian newsmagazine, La Semana:

The ' dossier 'secret of false positives

WEEK reveals the report which dismissed 27 army officers for false-positive and had been kept secret since October. The problem is deeper than you think.
Last October , when President Alvaro Uribe met the internal investigation that he had made the Ministry of Defence on false positives, became pale and collapsed in a chair in his office. It was not for nothing. Details on each of the deaths were rugged and developers. "I have asked for results, not crimes, "he said at the time , and made the decision to dismiss 27 military , many of them of high rank. The 70-page report he had in his hands documents in detail at least 17 possible cases of killings by battalions and brigades that were almost ruined.

The first case, and one of the investigators described in greater detail, is that of Mr. Aycardo Antonio Ortiz , a 67 year old farmer living in a humble wooden house in a village of Yondó , Antioquia, and who on 8 troops last July Calibío Battalion , Brigade XIV, had been reported as a guerrilla killed in combat. The military said the man was carrying a .38-caliber revolver , a hand grenade , one radio, two meters of safety fuse and camouflage trousers . Items displayed in almost all cases of false positives on a recurring basis and that some cynically call " legalization kit . "

The version given by the then commander of the battalion , Lt. Col. Wilson Ramírez Cedeño, is that a demobilized had given them the information that belonged to the FARC Aycardo , where he used the alias of ' Bat ', and when they tried to surround her house were attacked with gunfire from inside , so that the soldiers responded. They installed a machine gun and began a battle that killed the suspected guerrillas. Ramirez also said that the area had found a camp and a mined area .

The committee , in reviewing documents and technical evidence from the field , we noted that the victim was a well known local farmer , who never was mentioned by the demobilized military operations that the order was signed the same day that the murder occurred , possibly after its occurrence , and never had intelligence reports that talk about alias' Bat '. To make matters worse , there was never fired machine guns at the house or mine fields, and camps .

Aycardo Ortiz 's case showed how the degradation may have arrived for the son of the victim was a peasant soldier who had been part of the battalion who killed his father and , paradoxically , had information of a number of " legalization "of people killed and presented as combat casualties. The soldier told an international human rights how the system of false positives in that unit and became one of the key prosecution witnesses in the investigation .

Aycardo addition to the case of Ortiz, there are five other cases in the same area, attributed to the same battalion. A combatant lives in Yondó and serving as an Army informant also told the investigators how the captain Javier Alarcón , who was intelligence chief of the battalion, got a .38 revolver long, orthopedic grip , to legalize the deaths of two young people were found dead near a pond .

Another episode involves scandalous Bomboná Battalion , which operates in the Magdalena Medio Antioquia. This is the chilling testimony of a young informant from this battalion in Puerto Berrio , who says that in January 2008 the soldier Amilkar Hernandez asked a friend and I got to leave for a mission in the town of Vegachi . The young man went to the house of his friend Alexander Johny Barbosa , whom everyone called him the ' Turtle ' because he was slow and somewhat lazy. He doubted much in leaving home , but finally accepted the invitation and were all in separate bikes. Amilkar and young informant slept that night in the battalion , but the ' Turtle ' never came. The next day found dead and was presented as a guerrilla killed in combat. According to the young reporter , which now also bears witness to justice, brought Amilkar indigent soldier from Medellin to kill them and pass them off as combat casualties.

The commission investigating 46 suspicious transaction verified this battalion occurred in the past two years . They all had irregularities such as lack of intelligence that would know the purpose of the operation , and clarity about who ordered the task. But most revealing is that there is a pattern of behavior. In six reported an identical episodes N. N. killed in action to which he seized a revolver or pistol, while the soldiers who gave low say they have spent 650 rounds of rifle , eight hand grenades and four mortar shells. The researchers question the existence of these battles and believe that there are indications that were used as a pretext to legalize some soldiers ammunition are stolen and resold on the black market , both the guerrillas and criminal gangs .

Not only are responsible for these battalions were dismissed. Also Colonel Barrera , commander of the XIV Brigade , for lack of control over the military units of this brigade was such that although these were cases of persistent , never did a review of what was happening. When the soldiers killed Aycardo Ortiz , the whole village against the army mutinied in a fact that was known throughout the region. But Barber did not investigate the incident.

The disheveled also cost him the general output Roberto Pico Hernandez , chief of Division VII , who was the immediate superior of Colonel Barrera. Because in war administrative errors or a lack of supervision becomes a serious risk to human lives.

Something similar happened to General Jose Joaquin Cortes , who commanded the Second Division, where they played the 30th Brigade under the command of Gen. Paulino Coronado, and 15 flying squad , led by Colonel Rubén Darío Castro, acting in the province of Ocaña. Just where they appeared as killed in combat the 11 boys who had disappeared in Soacha. The most serious is that the Division did not inspect the brigades in the last two years not once , despite persistent allegations of killings had knocked out all of them.

The committee reviewed the documents that supported the operations that killed 11 boys. Although almost all of them were reported as members of criminal gangs , the researchers were surprised to find that the intelligence sections of these brigades had no information about these bands, or their charts. Just generic data . The officers could not answer for the name or alias of any member of these groups , nor their location or mode of action. It is inexplicable that operations were planned without a clear objective. The soldiers went without knowing where they were going , who you going to fight , when the operation would be or why, and yet returning to N. N. dead swelled operational results that were later praised by their superiors.

In fact , the prosecution has two military and protected witnesses have told in detail how things worked in Ocaña. One of them explained that there was a privileged group of soldiers who kept money in their pockets , never were sent to patrol the jungle areas and were the henchmen of some officers of the Mobile Brigade XV. According to these witnesses, this little group was in charge of planning a false positive, something that became commonplace in the garrison. After the removal of the military in Ocana had tried everything to cover up irregularities. In the Santander Battalion , attached to the 30th Brigade , the Comptroller found that the books were altered where there are earmarked expenses used to pay informers and rewards. Next week will see a full report which is documenting nine specific findings on irregularities of this nature and to further complicate the situation of the officers dismissed. So serious is the situation in the Mobile Brigade 15 unit, the military high command decided to end it, sending troops to other regions and create a new mobile brigade , the number 23, which is responsible for restoring the confidence of the population in the armed forces in the area hit .

We must clarify that the commission of the Ministry of Defense did a criminal investigation. This was a transitory group , led by General Carlos Arturo Suarez , to know what really happened . What they found is that the disheveled and neglect of many commanders provided them with the task to the criminals. And although many active and retired officers have tried to convince President Alvaro Uribe that he hastened to remove the 27 soldiers, and have made him doubt if perhaps committed an injustice to many so-called heroes of the motherland , the report shows deeper problems than the simple omission of a handful of officers.

A crime against humanity which may have been able to commit, is added the obvious corruption at many levels. For example , the report is clear that there is a broken vein in the loss of ammunition. It is obvious that in this way is feeding a black market which benefits , ironically , the armed groups fighting the army .

On the other hand , the report shows that the desire for results has meant that senior officers are not interested in finding out how to get low . There was very little control and always dismissed the allegations of executions , arguing that war was "legal" by the guerrillas against the military. A good example of this neglect is his treatment Sergeant Alexander Rodriguez, who last year denounced the killings in court that he was making the Mobile Brigade XV of which he was part . Three days after filing its complaint , the then Army Commander Gen. Mario Montoya, left the institution, while the Brigade Commander , Col. Santiago Herrera , appointed him his personal assistant . In less than a year Montoya also had to remove his trusted by the case of young Soacha. Maybe if at the time had listened to Sergeant Rodriguez would have avoided many deaths.

The trouble is that although the report focuses on the cases described above , the problem occurs in many more brigades. Last week, 10 officers were dismissed La Popa Battalion in Valledupar , where a new mission General Suarez showed a similar picture. And the decision of the minister Juan Manuel Santos and Gen. Freddy Padilla de Leon is getting to the bottom of the problem and end this heinous practice . Already implemented corrective measures. In 2008 there were 40 complaints of false positives. A much lower figure than in previous years, but too high for a country that prides itself on being a democracy and the rule of law.

Many military officials resent this tendency to dismiss the military before the Prosecutor finds his criminal liability , let alone in public. Last December, retired officers warned the President that the army was demoralized and even its members were not fighting for fear of ending up in jail . That's not so true. According to army sources , have actually gone down operations and downs, but this is precisely that the FARC is weakened and changes of command in almost all units.

But in addition to administrative problems and lack of control, there are other issues that merit review by the Armed Forces . Many military dismissed were considered the best in the Army. And that raises moral questions . Many of these men have been blurring the boundaries between good and evil. Something that usually occur in irregular and protracted conflicts , where the risk of degrading as a human being is constant.

There is also a big question on the consolidation of democratic security. It is striking that almost all false positive cases are filed in areas where there is virtually no guerrillas. Six years ago the country had armed groups everywhere. Today a large portion of land is free of them. The soldiers themselves say that 19 FARC fronts disappeared and the approaching "end of the end. " Nor is there clarity on the scale with criminal gangs. But the battalions that are in practically liberated areas measuring success are followed by their fighting. Maybe that's why many have had the macabre idea of creating these false positives. It is worth asking , as did recently the academic José Fernando Isaza in his column in El Espectador , if the time has come , in many areas, to further strengthen the police to the army.

The report also gives rise to two dilemmas that the armed forces must be resolved any time soon. How to combine a strategy of post- conflict with the living areas and medium released from guerrilla and paramilitary groups. And how to build an ethic of human rights without the initiative to freeze the war.

In any case , the document makes clear that the government to dismiss the military made a decision according to the seriousness of the facts. So far in the military ranks had been thought that administrative errors were just errors , but the evidence shows that may soon become the Achilles heel to win the war because they go against the spirit of the state's legitimacy . This, regardless of the determination by the Office, which in the coming days will decide which of these officers acted like criminals.

http://www.semana.com/wf_ImprimirArticulo.aspx?IdArt=120025

~~~~~
Life in the military must be so easy when you sneak up on unarmed people who aren't expecting you to kill them! Nothing to it.

[Doctor_J]

8. Wow. I hadn't heard of this

And the US wants to make friends with Uribe instead of Hugo.

:wtf:

[Chulanowa]

14. Of course you haven't, because the US has been supporting this since the 70's.

Just as we supported Pinochet, just as we supported the military government of Brazil and the Fascists of Argentina.

[EFerrari]

20. And genocide in Guatemala, death squads in El Salvador

and lately the murderous coupsters in Honduras. The same week Garcia's military massacred uppity Indians for protesting mining on their land, our government increased military aid to Peru. The first attempt on Evo Morales's life of 2009 was financed with money tracked to the white separatists in Santa Cruz who got it from USAID.

And so it goes.

[tex-wyo-dem]

26. Yes...and read Perkins "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" and...

The big picture comes into focus with vibrant Technicolor.

[EFerrari]

18. Obama and Clinton call Colombia our "best friends" in the region.

[rabs]

9. alvarito's last temper tantrum against Hugo Chavez

Check the timing:

Friday afternoon: Chavez announces he is sending Foreign Minister Maduro to represent Venezuela at today's inauguration of JM Santos, despite the recent rupture in diplomatic relations.

Friday evening: uribito's attorney announces he will file compaints against Chavez at the International Criminal Court and at the OAS' Human Rights Commission.

Two conclusions:

1. Hugo Chavez is clearly presenting Santos with an opportunity to resume diplomatic and commercial ties with Venezuela. (Colombian exports to Venezuela in the past two years have plunged from $6 bbbillion yearly to $1-1.5 bbbillion during uribito's last year in office).

2. An apoplectic uribito, on his last day in office, tries to sabotage Chavez's diplomatic opening (and Santos' obvious receptivity to it) with his ridiculous claims to the ICC and the OAS.

He will fail.

[Ricochet21]

23. I agree

I agree

[bherrera]

10. Hostility between the two nations is big nonsense

It is evident they are natural trading partners, because Venezuela needs the Colombian's products, and Colombia needs the Venezuelan's cash and oil products. They should do an investigation of these guerrilla camps Venezuela is supposed to have, and it should be done by a neutral party with the proper forensic and investigative powers. They can also interview former FARC guerrillas in Colombia, and gather information. If it is shown the FARC indeed are hiding in Venezuela, then there should be a movement to isolate these guerrillas, and then Colombia can move to a non-violent form of politics. These FARC guerrillas are mostly gangsters associated with the drug trade, and they are not good.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ronnie624]

12. "impervious to anyu suggestion"

Suggestion isn't enough to convince a rational person of much. Some evidence would help, however.

[EFerrari]

17. Group slur, check. n/t

[sabrina 1]

21. Impervious to allegations

coming from the same sources that killed innocent civilians and then claimed they were FARC fighters.

Face it, next to Dear Leader Uribe, Chavez looks pretty good. Except of course to the far-right in this country, and sadly our government whose old, brutal, cold-war policies in South America remain unchanged, although a little harder to implement now that thankfully, so many of those countries have tossed out their U.S. backed dictators and taken control of their own destinies. Developments that should have the support of every Progressive Democrat around the globe.

[boppers]

24. "next to Dear Leader Uribe, Chavez looks pretty good"

You do realize that that's not much of a compliment?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

22. Hey, would you mind making another of those insults as a reply to this post?

I like to see "(0 Replies)" in the "My Posts" page.

[EFerrari]

16. Venezuela has every right to be upset with the murders in Colombia

who slaughter their own people and as a consequence, drive thousands of refugees over the border into Venezuela. There are millions of internally displaced people in Colombia -- it is #2 on the planet.

That and the fact that right wing, government backed paramilitaries have been caught in Venezuela, not FARC. As usual, Uribe is trying to distract from his own crimes against humanity by stirring up trouble with his neighbors. That is his M.O.

[Peace Patriot]

13. Lula da Silva said that "this is personal." So I think we have to take that seriously.

He is in a strong position to know. Personal between Uribe and Chavez. However, Lulu might just be emphasizing this aspect of the matter in order to make it more solvable within the Latin American venue (i.e., preventing the U.S. from escalating the situation).

One candidate event for how it got "personal" might be the hostage negotiations that Uribe asked Chavez to undertake, back in 2007-2008, after Uribe met with Chavez for four hours to apologize for the assassination plot against Chavez that had been hatched within the Colombian military. Uribe's subsequent behavior was extraordinarily treacherous, but, more than this, it appeared that Uribe was being jerked around, just like a puppet on a string, by the Bush Junta (and there is even evidence that Donald Rumsfeld was involved, though he had been ousted from the Pentagon in late 2006). If my read on those events is correct, Chavez not only has a legit personal grievance against Uribe, he may know things about Uribe that are very damning. Uribe could be throwing all this flak up not only because he is filthily corrupt and under investigation (and some 70 of his closest political associates, including family members, are under investigation or in jail), and not only because more death squad scandals, like La Macarena, are threatening to break open, but also because Chavez may know MORE about all these things--about Uribe and his crimes and his treachery, AND about the Bush Junta and its operatives (for instance, this Bush Junta ambassador to Colombia who is still in place, Wm Brownfield)--than is already known or suspected. Uribe may be trying to buy continued U.S. protection by throwing all this shit around as distraction both from his own crimes and those of his puppetmasters and from the connection between the two.

The La Macarena massacre didn't happen in a vacuum, for instance. It happened within the context of a USAID/Pentagon "pacification" program in the La Macarena region of Colombia. The disclosure some time ago (a blip in the 'news') that Blackwater was operating in Colombia, the disclosure of the "total diplomatic immunity" provision of the secretly negotiated U.S./Colombia military agreement ("total diplomatic immunity" for all U.S. soldiers and U.S military 'contractors' in Colombia), and the disclosure of the La Macarena massacre may not be disconnected pieces of information, but may instead be pointing to far worse U.S. activities in Colombia than we know about already ($7 BILLION U.S. funding of the Colombian military, which has one of the worst human rights records on earth). If the Bush Junta was itself COMMITTING widespread torture, and was slaughtering a hundred thousand innocent people in Iraq, to steal their oil--things we know about them--what might they have been DOING--not just encouraging--in Colombia?

Uribe may be under some kind of obligation to keep a lid on U.S. crimes in Colombia, in addition to trying to save his own skin. And Chavez may be more than a personal nemesis, a victim of treachery and a regional political opponent of Uribe. Venezuela has a quite good intelligence agency, now working in close accord with other Latin American countries, in a quite new spirit of cooperation among these countries. He may know things that he has been holding back. The CIA may have gotten wind of what he knows, and has extracted this last service from Uribe--blaming Venezuela for border instability that, clearly, Colombia has created; blaming the victim, Venezuela, which has had to deal with a quarter of a million refugees from Colombia's military and its death squads--in an effort to prevent Venezuela from disclosing what it knows, and to distract attention from those disclosures, should Venezuela decide to use its intelligence information.

This service (of Uribe to his puppetmasters) may have many-pronged purposes--for instance, piling on the anti-Chavez psyops (for the upcoming legislative elections in Venezuela--trying to threaten and frighten Venezuelan voters). It may have the worst purpose of all, trying to set up a U.S. proxy war against Venezuela. And Lulu may be trying to contain a situation that the Pentagon is trying to escalate into a war, by describing it as "personal." These are some of the key pieces of the CONTEXT for Uribe's behavior (making this accusation at the OAS in his last week in office, and his lawyer now making it at the Hague). But one key piece of the context is rather a great unknown--almost an "elephant in the room"--and that is Santos.

Everyone seems to assume that Santos has peaceful intent, or at least would welcome overtures of peace--both as to ending Colombia's 40+ year civil war and as to broken relations with Venezuela. Santos was Uribe's Defense Minister at the height of the military's murders of civilians. He is, in my view, a "little Donald Rumsfeld." Uribe may be "erratic" (as The Economist described him, without explanation). Santos is not "erratic." He will never apologize. He is a thoroughgoing militarist. When Uribe apologized to Ecuador for the U.S./Colombia bombing/raid on Ecuador (to blow the FARC hostage release negotiator to smithereens), and promised that Colombia would never do such a thing again, Santos stated, publicly, that he would not hesitate to do it again. Santos is furthermore the conduit to the Colombian military of $7 BILLION in U.S. military aid. He is the personage who sat before U.S. Senate committees and got fawned over by our war profiteer 'representatives.' He is the one who DELIVERED the "body count" numbers to his paymasters.

I know that it LOOKS LIKE Uribe has gone off the deep end--is flailing around, making these wild charges, as a personal vendetta. Santos has not said a word about it, that I know of. And the U.S. has merely mumbled something about the need for an investigation (of Venezuela). But it is not reasonable to presume that someone (Uribe) who has been such a U.S. puppet, all this time, is suddenly NOT a U.S. puppet now, and that Uribe and his Defense Minister Santos, who worked together on implementing Pentagon/Bushwhack policy in Colombia, are not on the same page now. Uribe may have personal reasons for making these charges, but that does not mean that the use of Uribe to make these charges is not part of a Pentagon/U.S. war profiteer plan.

And if that is the case, what may be happening is that Santos is just biding his time. When the moment is ripe, he will order another Ecuador-like provocation--Colombian pursuit of FARC guerillas over the Venezuelan border--and Chavez will have no options left except to shoot back. And if any of those 1,500 U.S. soldiers and U.S. military 'contractors' in Colombia are involved--or an incident is faked up, to make it look that way (a la the "Gulf of Tonkin")--Oil War II will have begun.

I DO think that this is what's on Lula da Silva's mind, and that of other Latin American leaders. They may think that there are bargaining points--incentives to Santos--to prevent this from happening. And they may be angling for TIME--time to strengthen their all-Latin American (no U.S.) political/economic organization, UNASUR; time to strengthen their own military forces (--it was Brazil, after all, that proposed a common defense within the context of UNASUR, and it was Lulu who said that the U.S. reconstitution of the 4th Fleet in the Caribbean was a threat to Brazil's oil). These leaders are not stupid. They know that it was Santos--Santos!--who tried to weaken and sabotage UNASUR's commitment to a common defense. They know it was Defense Minister Santos who oversaw the bombing/raid on Ecuador. They know that it is Santos' stance never to apologize for breaking international law. And I think they know that they have a much bigger problem with non-"erratic" Santos than they ever did with "erratic" Uribe.

[IndianaGreen]

15. 'personal attorney for outgoing President Alvaro Uribe?' A Venezuelan Orly Taitz!

The lawyer for the former head of a death squad! How Orwellian!

[Odin2005]

19. LOL, what kind of BS projection is this?

[tex-wyo-dem]

25. I swear, every neo-con in the world must use the same PR firm...

Just state the most batshit crazy, insane, over-the-top things you can think of to catapult the propoganda and projection and hope it sticks. It's the exact same formula the rethugs use over and over again in this country.

[w4rma]

27. Maybe they do. I wonder who they are and who their connections are. (nt)

[sabrina 1]

28. Rachel did a whole show on them.

What is Burston/Marsteller? And why should we be concerned?

WPP a company originally called Wire and Plastic Products, famously used to make supermarket trolleys. Today it owns hundreds of firms engaged in deceptive spin and putting corporate wishes into action. Among the largest and most well known are Burson-Marsteller and Hill and Knowlton, both famous for their deceptive campaigns on behalf of the world’s worst corporations, torturers and dictators.

Scroll down to see Rachel Maddow's report on this PR Firm. You might be surprised to see who worked for them, who is on their board. It is an eye-opener actually.

[Judi Lynn]

29. Ex-president of Colombia files suit against Chávez over guerrilla support

Source: Irish Times

The Irish Times - Monday, August 9, 2010
Ex-president of Colombia files suit against Chávez over guerrilla support

TOM HENNIGAN in São Paulo

EFFORTS BY South American leaders to end the latest diplomatic crisis between Colombia and Venezuela have been complicated by a filing in the International Criminal Court against Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez for his support of Colombian guerrillas.

A lawyer acting for Álvaro Uribe, who handed over Colombia’s presidency to Juan Manuel Santos on Saturday, said he entered the petition on behalf of the victims of Colombia’s civil war on Mr Uribe’s last full day in office.

Last month Mr Uribe presented evidence which he said proved that the Venezuelan authorities allowed senior members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or Farc, as well as a smaller Colombian guerrilla group, to operate freely on their territory.

Mr Chávez dismissed the allegations and broke off remaining diplomatic ties with Bogotá, long strained by a series of quarrels with the right-wing Mr Uribe, with whom he has deep ideological differences.

In addition to the personal suit against Mr Chávez at the court in The Hague, Mr Uribe’s lawyer said he had also filed a complaint against the government in Caracas with the Organisation of American States.

Read more: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/0809/1224276416762.html

[bemildred]

30. What a fool. nt

[Tempest]

31. A perfect example of chutzpah. n/t

[Wilms]

32. .

[Judi Lynn]

34. Such a fine image! It's perfect. n/t

[provis99]

33. a bloodthirsty war criminal is filing a suit in the ICC?

What a strange, Bizarro world we live in.