BOREV: Plan Colombia is even more of a gruesome bloody clusterfuck than ever (no joke)

[magbana]

The URL for the investigative report discussed in post below is: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090615/ballve/single

"Breaking: Plan Colombia Is Even More of a Gruesome Bloody Clusterfuck Than Ever

eeeek.jpgYou already know Plan Colombia as a $75 million annual tax boondoggle, a brutal military campaign against poor brown people, and a hilariously inept anti-drug program that's kept cocaine production at record highs, but did you know that there is a "Dark Side" to this brilliant slice of Clinton-era strategery as well? It's true!

A jaw-dropping new investigative report from Teo Ballvé turns up a metric shit-ton of evidence that Plan Colombia has been funneling millions of dollars directly to drug traffickers and paramilitaries, who in turn use it for their "legitimate" business interests: biofuel production on land that they've stolen from campesinos! It's a win-win situation, for evildoers!

Correction: That should read "$500 million annual tax boondoggle." The numbers, they make my head explode.
Tags:

* Evil
* Plan Colombia
* Teo Ballvé
* The Nation"
http://www.borev.net/2009/05/breaking_plan_colombia_is_even.html

[magbana]

1. I just finished reading the article -- OMG!! USAID is definitely up

to their armpits in alligators and ARD, Inc. is right there with them. There is no way that USAID and ARD would "look the other way" for nothing. Bribes to both USAID and ARD must be up the ying yang.

Makes you wanna holler.

[Bacchus39]

2. has Borev investigated the Bojayá massacre?

Bojayá massacre

The Bojayá massacre (Spanish: La Masacre de Bojayá) was a massacre that occurred on May 2, 2002 in the Colombian town of Bojayá (with its urban centre also referred to as Bellavista), in Chocó department. FARC guerrillas seized the town in an attempt to take control of the Atrato River region from AUC paramilitaries, in the process killing approximately 119 civilians in an apparently indiscriminate attack with an improvised homemade mortar assembled with gas cylinders parts (known in Spanish as pipeta or Cilindro bomba).

Details of the attack
According to the official UN investigation report, in the morning of May 2nd the AUC paramilitaries had established positions around the church, using the buildings and the cement wall around the church yard for protection. The FARC took up positions to the north (in Barrio Pueblo Nuevo), and began launching gas cylinder bombs (pipetas) toward the paramilitary positions, with two landing nearby but the third going through the roof of the church and exploding on the altar.

The explosion caused approximately 119 dead and 98 wounded, though the UN was not able to verify exact numbers. A large number of the dead and wounded were children.<2>

The UN investigation found the FARC in violation of several principles of international humanitarian law, including an indiscriminate attack causing unnecessary civilian casualties, failure to distinguish between civilian and combatant, failure to take efforts to protect civilians from avoidable harm, and attacks against cultural property. Prohibitions against these acts are found in Common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and Articles 4, 13, and 16 of Additional Protocol II. The UN also considered the FARC responsible for the forced displacement generated as a consequence of the attack on the church, placing the act in violation of Article 17 of Protocol II. <2>

The UN also found the AUC in violation of various aspects of international humanitarian law, including using civilians as human shields, failing to protect civilians from the effects of their military operations, and for causing massive forced displacement of civilian populations in the region due to their acts, threats and combat operations in the area. Given reports of theft by the AUC of goods, equipment and vehicles belonging to local residents, the UN also found the AUC guilty of pillage (a violation of Article 17 of Protocol II).<2>

The UNHCHR also found that the Colombian government failed to act in order to prevent the massive human suffering resulting from the events in Bojaya - suffering that was predicted and of which the government was explicitly warned beforehand.<2>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bojay%C3%A1_massacre




one bit of good news from this tragedy, no reports of labor unionists killed. thank God!!!

[magbana]

3. I think some communication between you and BOREV would be sweet . . .

here's his email - [e-mail]

[roody]

4. Here is the Witness for Peace report on the Bojaya massacre.

http://witnessforpeace.live.radicaldesigns.org/article.php?id=208

[Bacchus39]

6. yeah, I saw that link yesterday. The government is taking more proactive action against the rebels

and paras lately. hopefully that takes care of the Witness for Peace's concerns. nevertheless, it was the FARC bomb that killed those people.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Here's info. on a massacre which involved Uribe directly. Heard of this long ago:

17 November 2008
'Uribe Ordered El Aro Massacre'

A former paramilitary boss says the current Colombian President ordered a 1997 massacre
Another says the army supplied the logistics

Francisco Enrique Villalba, a former paramilitary boss in Antioquia claimed before the Comisión de Acusaciones de la Cámara that it was the President of the Republic who had ordered the massacre of ‘El Aro’ in 1997.

“The order was given for eight kidnap victims… he explained the kidnapping of Mario, Uribe’s cousin… the President personally gave me the order at that time in the year ’97 to commit that massacre,” claimed the now detained boss of the AUC .

But Villalba Hernández said that the President decorated him, without providing details of how the award had been given.

The prisoner presented himself this Wednesday (12 November) before the Comisión to testify in the prosecution by this legislative body of the known massacre.

Francisco Enrique Villalba Hernández is the only one detained for that violent episode, where he himself confessed to having been the head of a group of 22 armed robbers who perpetrated the massacre of El Aro and later that of La Balsita.

He first appeared on 15 February and maintained that he handed himself over to the CTI in February 1998 to inform of those planning the killings of Eduardo Umaña, Jesús María Valle and Jaime Garzón .

He claimed that Santiago Uribe was known to the organisation because he supported an AUC bloc in Santa Rosa de Osos at a time when his brother was governor of Antioquia. In his declaration he provided details about the supposed plan to assassinate Jesús María Valle.

He returned on 15 May to broaden his declaration and gave details about the massacre of El Aro, speaking of the supposed meetings between Carlos Castaño, Salvatore Mancuso and the Uribe brothers.

The last time he made it was on 12 June and maintained that there were recordings and photographs of the meetings among the AUC, government functionaries, soldiers and policemen.

Francisco Enrique Villalba Hernández is condemned to 33 years and four months in prison for the El Aro massacres and 37 for the massacre of La Balsita.

Update: Mancuso said from a U.S. prison that Castaño had told him that “the logistics” for the El Aro massacre was supplied by the then commander of the Fourth Army Brigade, General Ospina… now in retirement. He said his organisation “worked in tandem” with the police and the army… if 10,000 bullets were reported used against the guerrillas, it was because only a thousand were used and 9,000 given to the paramilitaries.

Mancuso said he met the former secretary of the Antioquia government, Pedro Juan Moreno, several times between 1995 and 1997 when Uribe was governor. Moreno died in an air accident in February 2006.

{Abridged}
Source: El Espectador

http://nuestrosricos.blogspot.com/2008/11/uribe-ordered-el-aro-massacre.html