Colombian Congress weakened by paramilitary scandal (Bush ally)

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters

Colombian Congress weakened by paramilitary scandal
Tue May 6, 2008 2:27pm EDT
By Hugh Bronstein

BOGOTA, May 6 (Reuters) - Colombia's Congress is in crisis as scores of lawmakers are investigated for suspected collusion with right-wing death squads in a scandal creeping closer to conservative President Alvaro Uribe.

More than 60 of the country's 268 legislators are under investigation for suspected illegal dealings with drug-running paramilitaries organized as private militias in the 1980s to help landowners beat back Marxist guerrillas.

About 30 lawmakers are in prison awaiting trial and the accusations include using paramilitary thugs to intimidate voters into supporting their candidacies.

More investigations are expected, heightening worries that Congress is headed toward paralysis.
(snip)

"You have to ask what has happened to allow people to commit crimes while hiding behind the faith that voters have put in the president," said Luis Carlos Restrepo, Colombia's peace commissioner and a close ally of the president.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/americasCrisis/idUSN06493694

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Luis Carlos Restrepo
"close ally of the president"

[Selatius]

1. I hope their government falls in the next congressional elections. Bunch of jack-booted thugs. nt

[harmonicon]

2. I think the idea that there even is a government is just absurd

There are obviously two governments: the US recognized government, and the FARC, and they're both full of crooks and scum bags. I don't know what point there would be in trying to clean up just one of their governments without first making peace.

[maradonapassion]

3. Bush is an a-hole, but Uribe is very respectable

His dad was tortured by the FARC.

[Peace Patriot]

4. How does his dad being tortured by the FARC make Uribe "respectable?"

Such an experience, if true, could as well produce a psychotic child bent on murderous revenge, and, frankly--given Uribe's close ties to the Medellin Cartel and Pablo Escobar, and his close ties with the Bush Cartel, which has larded $5.5. BILLION of our tax money in military aid on his rightwing government, and given Colombia's miserable human rights record under Uribe, one of the worst human rights records on earth, with the slaughter of thousands of union leaders, small peasant farmers, political leftists, human rights workers and journalists by rightwing paramilitaries with very close ties to Uribe--"psychotic child bent on murderous revenge" fits this factual record far better than "respectable" citizen.

Also, I've grown to be highly skeptical of the Colombian government's anti-FARC propaganda, and its echoes in our corporate news monopolies, and most particularly anything alleged by Alvaro Uribe or his cohorts. You would have to produce a highly trustworthy and objective source on FARC torture of Uribe's father, and on FARC's alleged murder of his father, for me to believe that it actually happened. There are many reports of Colombian military and paramilitary murders of innocent people and dressing their corpses up as FARC guerillas, or costuming themselves as FARC guerrillas and committing atrocites. And for all we know, Uribe's father's death was a drug hit--a murder committed by a rival drug lord--and then dressed up as a FARC crime.

Uribe recently colluded with the Bush Junta--using Bush/U.S. high tech surveillance and ten 500 lb. Bush/U.S. "smart bombs" (and likely Bush/U.S. aircraft and personnel)--to sabotage regional efforts to obtain the release of FARC hostages and negotiate a political settlement of Colombia's 40+ year civil war, by a bombing and incursion against Ecuador, which very nearly started a war between Colombia and Ecuador/Venezuela. A war in the Andes region was likely one of the goals. Bushites like war. It's all they know how to do. It's a war profiteer gravy train, and a means of destabilizing countries and stealing their oil and other resources. Uribe has acted as a Bush Junta tool in these and other events. He is anything but "respectable" in my opinion. He is a "little Bush" and has himself come under investigation, recently, for attendance at a meeting where rightwing paramilitary murders were planned. A cousin of his was just arrested and charged with such crimes. Dozens of his closest political allies are under investigation. I think it is only a matter of time before Uribe is fully exposed and ousted--and prosecuted and jailed--for running one of the dirtiest governments in the hemisphere, rival to our own.

"Respectable"? Yeah, right--the way mafia dons launder their money, and insulate themselves for their worst crimes by using subordinates, and thus become "respectable." "Respectable" - while those acting on your behalf chainsaw union leaders and throw their body parts into mass graves, slit children's throats because their parents are suspected of being leftists, and freely torture and murder anyone who dares to oppose your rule. "Respectable" like Bush and Cheney--with their torture dungeons at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and in eastern Europe, for domination of the Middle East. When all the mass graves in Colombia are finally discovered and dug up, I think we will see the full measure of Uribe's "respectability." Enough is known already to indict him as one of the worst leaders on earth.