Photos in Colombia's "Magic Laptop" Undermine Claim of Chavez-FARC Connection

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Alternet

Photos in Colombia's "Magic Laptop" Undermine Claim of Chavez-FARC Connection
By Daniel Denvir, NACLA. Posted May 31, 2008.

The pix suggest an intelligence agency -- either Colombia's or that of an "allied" government -- operating in Ecuador.

A series of photos allegedly found on the laptops of Raúl Reyes, the FARC leader killed when the Colombian government bombed and raided a FARC encampment across the Ecuadoran border, appear to have actually been taken by Colombian intelligence agents--or by allied police or intelligence agents--in Quito, Ecuador. The photos were supplied to the Bogotá daily El Tiempo by an anonymous Colombian intelligence source Monday, March 3, just two days after the raid on the encampment.

Credible doubts about the provenance of the photos are potentially explosive, suggesting that a piece of evidence that the Colombian government claimed originated from the FARC laptops actually came from another source, and also because they indicate the presence of Colombian intelligence in Quito. In the attack's aftermath, Ecuadoran president Rafael Correa initiated a major shakeup of the country's armed forces following allegations of significant CIA and other foreign-intelligence penetration.

The photos, taken down about a week after they were uploaded, briefly formed part of a broad and systematic media campaign on the part of the Colombian government to link the Ecuadoran and Venezuelan governments to the FARC. The campaign has been waged through a combination of public denunciations and anonymous leaks to news outlets in Colombia, the United States, and Spain.



Surveillance photo of the Continental Bolivarian
Coordinating Committee (CCB) in Quito a week
before the bombing of the FARC camp. (Photo
from ElTiempo.com)

The photos were taken inside and outside of Quito's Casa de Cultura arts and convention center during the international conference of the Continental Bolivarian Coordinating Committee (CCB) the week before the attack. The CCB is a small left-wing organization with ties to the FARC and chapters throughout Latin America.



Photo from inside the CCB conference. The three
bearded men from left to right: Walter Wendelin,
Askapena representative; Iñaki Gil, Batasuna's
representative to Latin America; and Carlos
Casanueva, member of the Partido Comunista de
Chile's Central Committee and a CCB leader.
(Photo from ElTiempo.com)



Read more: http://www.alternet.org/audits/86642/

[SpiralHawk]

1. More lies from the republicon homelander cronies

As usual. If they are claiming anything at all, it is most likely a lie...

Jeez Almighty -- what a plague they are upon the planet.

[Peace Patriot]

2. The head of Interpol LIED about the reliability of those computers, as discussed

in Interpol's own report, and every crapass corporate toady 'news' monopoly in the western world repeated that lie--that the Colombian military did not alter those computers. All the Interpol report said was that the Colombian government had not altered the computers in the period AFTER they notified Interpol that they wanted the computers analysed--and Interpol furthermore had absolutely nothing to say about the CONTENTS of the computer files, and hired non-Spanish speaking analysts to insure that they couldn't understand the contents (--Interpol no doubt covering its ass). But here's what the report said about the two days the computers were in Colombia's custody:

Interpol Notes Improper Initial Handling of FARC Laptops
By Constanza Vieira

"Using their forensic tools, they (the Interpol experts) found a total of 48,055 files for which the timestamps indicated that they had either been created, accessed, modified or deleted as a result of the direct access to the eight seized exhibits by Colombian authorities between the time of their seizure on 1 March 2008 and 3 March 2008 at 11:45 a.m."

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42391

They further said that this "improper intitial handling" made these computers useless as evidence in a court of law. But that is okay by Bush, Uribe and Exxon Mobil--they only wanted them for headlines and leaks anyway!

Oil War II: South America--coming down the pipe. The war profiteering corporate 'news' monopolies don't lie like this for no reason.

And after you absorb that--the egregious, bald-faced lies about this in our corporate media, and what their motive likely is--you might want some laughs (the best medicine):
http://www.borev.net/2008/05/wait_did_they_assign_this_thin.html

[bulloney]

6. ...and every corporate toady 'news' monopoly in the western world repeated that lie...

Did you really think Scott McClellan's revelations on the U.S. media were an isolated incident?

Our media gerbils have been carrying the water for this administration on virtually anything pertaining to potentially waging war against other countries.

[DCKit]

3. But who on earth would be so evil as that?

I just can't believe it.

:sarcasm:

[Mika]

4. Was/is this part of "Plan Colombia"?

-

[Judi Lynn]

7. Photos you posted reminds one of Colombian schoolchildren's paintings of the aerial spraying effects

A Kid's Eye View of Aerial Spraying in
Colombia, Ecuador


http://laniel.free.fr/INDEXES/GraphicsIndex/Dessins/Dessins.html

[meghandavid]

5. Interesting...

Wow, very interesting.

[peacetalksforall]

8. Partnership Columbia United States of America. Why?

The economic hit men succeeded in Columbia?
The Columbian government is more maleable than neighboring countries?
Drug moving partnerships?
Sales of arms?
Ecuador would be a perk and another earth resource for the corporations?
U.S. politicos acting on behalf of corporations want Venezuela first and foremost? They need to concoct an ally inorder to create propaganda for a new coup attempt?

[Zorro]

9. So what's the point of the article?

Is it that FARC wouldn't be dumb enough to take pictures of its allies and download them to a computer?

That it's impossible for the pictures to have ended up on Reyes' computer a week after they were taken?

That the photos supposedly provided by an "anonymous Colombian intelligence source" didn't come from one of the FARC laptops because ???

This hardly qualifies as "evidence" that the FARC laptops are bogus, except to those predisposed to believe that the Colombian government generated 48,000+ phony documents.

[Judi Lynn]

10. Why would they follow them around and take photos of them? They already know them.

It would never occur to someone to follow people he knows, and take photos of him. You only really have time to do things which make sense, after all.

[AlphaCentauri]

11. well, the pictures don't look like somebody is posing saying cheese

that was a hidden camera, why the FARC would use a hidden camera?