Jorge 40
Uribe is Bush's best buddy in South America. Unfortunately, Uribe’s party members have been dropping like flies in the wake of the capture of Jorge 40’s laptop for having big time connections to right wing paramilitary groups in Columbia who are listed in the US as terrorists and are essentially a militant wing of Uribe’s party. Uribe received praise for demilitarizing the death squads, but the laptop contained evidence that was entirely a farce.
In 2004, a rift opened up between the members of the AUC and all the leaders who opposed the AUCs disturbingly close ties to narcotraffickers were assassinated.
Bush is a hypocrite for giving tons of money to a country whose right wing terrorists are heavily intertwined with the former drug czar Uribe’s ruling party.
The computer, seized by investigators, contains details of 558 murders ordered by northern Colombian paramilitary chief Rodrigo Tovar, alias Jorge 40, who is now in custody.In addition, a US company, Drummond Co. Inc. is about to stand trial in the US for making a payoff to Jorge 40 in return for the murder of two coal mine union bosses.
It is a trove of evidence showing long-suspected links between paramilitaries and authorities reaching as high as Congress. And it casts doubt on the process by which more than 30,000 paramilitaries, including Jorge 40, have turned in their guns over the last three years in exchange for reduced jail terms and other benefits.
The paramilitary demobilization is hailed as a main achievement by President Alvaro Uribe, re-elected in May for his U.S.-backed efforts at ending this Andean country's 4-decade-old guerrilla war.
But the computer files show how Jorge 40 tricked the government into believing he was dismantling his nefarious empire while in fact trying to expand it, according to police reports leaked to the media in recent weeks. They include details of cocaine smuggling routes as well as names of "friendly" police and allies in the Senate and lower house of Congress.
"This is the first hard evidence of something we all knew about but found hard to prove," said political commentator Ricardo Avila.
"The big question is if Jorge 40 is going to tell everything when he appears before a judge. If he doesn't, he might lose his demobilization benefits. If he does, his words would have enormous political implications," Avila said.
At least 10 percent of all local government, health and public service contracts in the northern provinces of Atlantico, Magdalena and Bolivar wound up in Jorge 40's pockets, the computer files reveal.
The files include the date and place of 558 murders, most of which have gone uninvestigated.
The victims, named in the files and believed to have ended up in secret mass graves, include merchants who were late in making extortion payments, union members and people suspected of sympathizing with Marxist insurgents.
A feared paramilitary boss has been charged with ordering the killings of two union leaders at a coal mine owned by Drummond Co. Inc., an Alabama company being tried in a U.S. court for alleged complicity in the deaths.I hope this company is tried for aiding terrorists because that's exactly what they are doing.
Rodrigo Tovar Pupo, better known as "Jorge 40," is accused of ordering hit men to kill the two men, the federal prosecutor's office said in a statement Thursday.
Former Colombian federal intelligence official Rafael Garcia has said he witnessed the president of Drummond's Colombian subsidiary deliver a briefcase full of money to paramilitaries led by Tovar to pay for the killings.
Drummond officials deny any involvement in the killings or ties to the far-right militias, and the Birmingham, Alabama-based company is not facing criminal charges in Colombia, though the investigation is continuing.
A trial of Drummond for alleged involvement in the killings of Victor Orcosia and Valmore Locarno and a third worker is set to begin July 9 in a U.S. federal court in Birmingham.
In 2004, a rift opened up between the members of the AUC and all the leaders who opposed the AUCs disturbingly close ties to narcotraffickers were assassinated.
Paramilitary leader Carlos Mauricio Garcia alias "Doble Cero" or "Rodrigo", who since the 1980s had been a close associate of Castaño within the AUC, was found dead on May 30, 2004. He had strongly objected to what he considered an improperly close relationship between the AUC and drug traffickers, and was also opposed to the group's talks with the government. "Double Zero" had fallen into disgrace in recent years, leading to the formation of his own independent "Bloque Metro", which operated in the Antioquia area until it was exterminated by rival paramilitary commanders from the AUC mainstream.This comes to no surprise to me, seeing as many of the drug czars of South America are on the Army payroll for intelligence reasons. More than likely it was US money that was used to kill the few remaining members of the AUC opposed to narcotrafficking. Indeed, CATO offers us this:
Separately, in events which remain clouded and confusing, former AUC supreme leader Carlos Castaño, who had become relatively isolated from the organization, apparently suffered an attempt on his life on April 16, 2004, presumably at the hands of either his own bodyguards, those of rival paramilitary troops, or perhaps even other entities altogether. Acting AUC commanders claim to believe that there was an accidental exchange of gunfire between his bodyguards and a separate group of paramilitary fighters, but that he may still be alive and possibly in hiding.
Other independent sources within the group and among its dissident factions claim that he and his men were captured and tortured before being executed and then buried by order of other AUC top leaders, who have become increasingly close to narcotraffickers and their trade. Colombian investigators found a makeshift grave and an unidentified body near the supposed area of the events. Those same sources allege that the bodies of Castaño and his other companions were dug up and taken to other locations before the investigators could arrive.
Washington has placed great confidence in the willingness of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to wage a vigorous war on drugs. But a 1991 assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency concluded that Uribe was in league with drug trafficking organizations. Indeed, the DIA concluded that Uribe himself was one of the top 100 drug traffickers.
Bush is a hypocrite for giving tons of money to a country whose right wing terrorists are heavily intertwined with the former drug czar Uribe’s ruling party.
FlyOnTheWall:
Wow. That was unexpected. Thanks. (I don't do gatorade, though.)...
Colin Henshaw
welder4
2Hotel9