Ingrid Betancourt - Oct 23, 2007 no cativeiro, muito debilitada e às portas da morte, nas mãos das FARC, segundo fotografia que correu e comoveu o mundo. Sabem quem é Uribe, quem o sustenta e o que faz aos seus opositores, sejam eles quem forem?
Mauricio Duenas AFP ¦ Ingrid Betancourt (c) entre ses deux enfants Melanie (g) et Lorenzo (d), le 3 juillet 2008 à l'aéroport de Bogota(Cheia de saúde, diz Nicolas Sarkozy - ver abaixo TAKE TWO - VN)
7 DE JULHO DE 2008 - 13h27
Elaine Tavares: Ingrid, as Farc e os Estados Unidos
Os Estados Unidos, ainda mergulhados numa crise sem fim no Iraque, não abrem mão do que acredita ser seu direito de intervir na vida dos países latino-americanos. Agora, num típico arranjo aos moldes da CIA, acaba de ajudar o governo de Álvaro Uribe a libertar Ingrid Betancourt, seqüestrada desde há anos pelas Farc.
Por Elaine Tavares, para a Agência Carta Maior
O anúncio da libertação da ex-candidata presidencial, juntamente com outros reféns estadunidenses, beira aos efeitos especiais de filmes como Rambo e Duro de Matar. Como sempre, é o mito do herói americano sendo reforçado. Mas, é bom lembrar que são figuras "míticas" como Rambo ou o personagem de Bruce Williams as responsáveis por rios de sangue como os provocados na queda de Salvador Allende, nas ditaduras argentina, brasileira e haitiana ou nos milhares de golpes de Estado que já aconteceram nesta "nuestra América", sempre capitaneados pelos interesses econômicos dos Estados Unidos.
Na Colômbia não é diferente. Desde que o país entrou na era republicana, pós-independência, o pendor de sua elite pela vassalagem vem se registrando a graus elevados. Seu primeiro presidente, Santander, quando o país ainda chamava-se Nova Granada, praticou o primeiro gesto ao trair Bolívar e aliar-ser aos interesses da Inglaterra. Desde então, em sucessivos governos democráticos ou autoritários, o povo colombiano não tem encontrado guarida para suas demandas. Não foi à toa que surgiram as FARC e outros grupos revolucionários que têm como objetivo a criação de uma Colômbia democrático/popular, na qual todos possam ter uma vida digna. Porque, afinal, até hoje, a Colômbia não logrou sua verdadeira independência.
Desde 1948, depois do assassinato de Jorge Gaitán, um político que era capaz de ouvir o povo, o país foi mergulhado numa rede de violência que parece não ter fim. Mas, é bom que se diga: os maiores incentivadores deste estado de coisas são os governos que insistem em não incorporar as demandas populares à vida nacional. Assim, não bastasse já o caldo de terror provocado pelas insanas lutas entre os liberais e conservadores, que tem suas origens no traidor Santander, o povo colombiano precisa enfrentar a sanha opressora do império estadunidense que não quer ver na ponta noroeste da América do Sul mais um país fora de sua folha de pagamento. Daí a cortina de fumaça que espalha com sua famosa "guerra contra as drogas".
Por que combater as drogas
No livro Drogas, Terrorismo e Insurgência, o escritor equatoriano Manuel Salgado Tamayo, conta a origem desta "cruzada" estadunidense, o que mostra bem quais são os interesses que estão por trás de toda a "bondade" que aparece no discurso que conclama a luta contra as drogas. Tamayo conta que até o início do século 20 drogas como o ópio e a cocaína eram bastante utilizadas com fins medicinais. A cocaína, por exemplo, estava até na Coca Cola e era vendida legalmente como tônico revigorante. Foi por volta de 1903 que as autoridades começaram a associar as drogas às lutas das chamadas classes subalternas. Como não havia argumentos para reprimir a luta dos negros no sul dos EUA, que insistiam em lutar por coisas "absurdas" como direitos iguais aos dos brancos, chegou-se a conclusão de que eram os tônicos à base de cocaína que tornavam os negros muito rebeldes.
Além disso, as mulheres estadunidenses passaram a fazer sexo com os chineses imigrantes e isso, diziam as autoridades, só podia ser por conta do uso do ópio. Pois, afinal, que outro motivo levaria uma mulher branca, de boa família, a se deitar com um chinês? E também havia os mexicanos que começavam a ficar muito violentos. O motivo parecia óbvio: era o uso da marijuana. Nada a ver com as condições desumanas a que estavam submetidos os imigrantes ditos ilegais. E foi com base nestas premissas que começaram a ser criadas leis de criminalização destas drogas específicas. O álcool e o tabaco, por movimentarem uma indústria gigantesca e serem também consumidos pela classe dominante não sofreram muitas restrições.
Agora, na Colômbia, a história segue se repetindo. As lutas levadas adiante pelas Farc e outros grupos revolucionários no país não têm absolutamente nada a ver com a cocaína. Estes movimentos nasceram lá no início da década de 50, fruto da instabilidade e da violência gerados pelo próprio Estado. E mais, estes grupos têm a ousadia de reivindicarem idéias "muito ultrapassadas" como o socialismo, a participação popular, a reforma agrária enfim, um outro tipo de organização da vida.
O cultivo da coca, que para algumas famílias é a única possibilidade que sobra no meio de uma guerra sem fim, não tem a finalidade de drogar o mundo. Todo o processo de refino e transformação em droga fica a cargo de outras gentes, com outros sotaques, que movimentam rios de dinheiro os quais nunca são vistos pelos pobres camponeses colombianos acossados entre o estado, os paramilitares, os traficantes e a miséria.
Mas é justamente a cocaína o motivo que leva o governo colombiano a se associar com o governo dos Estados Unidos para "salvar" o mundo. O Plano Colômbia, nascido em 1998, durante a campanha presidencial de Andrés Pastrana, que visava uma negociação para a paz política acabou, pelas mãos de Bill Clinton, virando uma cruzada antidrogas, como se toda a problemática colombiana se resumisse a isso. Na verdade, o plano, arrumado pelos estadunidenses e sequer apreciado pelo congresso colombiano, só tinha uma preocupação: destruir o foco socialista que representavam as Farc e a ELN.
Os últimos fatos
Não é sem razão que a mídia cortesã insiste em divulgar aos quatro cantos a tese de que Farc e narcotráfico são a mesma coisa. É como o argumento de que os negros ficavam rebeldes por conta da cocaína, que os chineses seduziam as brancas por conta do ópio e os mexicanos ficavam violentos por causa da marijuana. Os motivos da guerra contra os pobres sempre são outros, ficam escondidos, e a grande massa vai absorvendo as mentiras. Não foi à toa que Hugo Chávez conclamou as Farc para que libertassem alguns reféns. Calejado nas artimanhas do império ele já deveria ter intuído que a CIA estava muito próxima de lograr uma vitória contra a guerrilha. Pois aí está.
Agora, o governo colombiano vai despejar no mundo, via mídia estadunidense, que é ele quem está "limpando" a Colômbia, que as Farc estão derrotadas, que não há mais a liderança de Marulanda, que tudo está fragilizado com mais esta vitória governamental. Logo, destruídas as FARC, o povo haverá de ter novamente a paz sonhada. De novo, as mentiras cobrem tudo com seu manto azul.
Jamais contarão ao mundo que as Farc e o ELN só nasceram por conta da violência do Estado contra as gentes, e que só seguem lutando porque esta violência segue crescendo. Para se ter uma idéia, o mal fadado plano Colômbia tem desalojado milhões de famílias ao longo destes anos, almas que vagam pelo território colombiano sem lugar, sem casa, sem terra, sem nada. O mesmo plano de libertação é o responsável pelas fumigações que destroem a terra, as plantações e a possibilidade de uma vida melhor para os camponeses.
A cortina de fumaça da libertação da ex-senadora vai alimentar a mídia por dias. Já falam até de eleições e de que ela pode vir a ser a sucessora de Uribe na presidência. Mais uma gerente do império. Nada mais do que "negócios". Enquanto isso, as gentes colombianas seguirão sendo a bucha de canhão de uma guerra que não querem. O tráfico de drogas é uma grande indústria, mais uma das grandes transnacionais que sugam a vida das gentes de Abya Yala, e ele permanecerá intocado enquanto o povo unido não enfrentar o verdadeiro monstro: o sistema capitalista e sua lógica de exploração e destruição. Esse é o inimigo a enfrentar porque, afinal, nós, os pobres, os negros, os chineses, os mexicanos e todos os demais "subalternos", não ficamos rebeldes por conta da cocaína, do ópio ou da marijuana. Nós ficamos rebeldes porque sabemos que uma outra sociedade pode ser construída, com solidariedade, com justiça e riquezas repartidas.
.
in Vermelho
.
TAKE TWO (VN)
02/07/2008 (19:12) | COMENTÁRIOS (0)
Betancourt está em boa condição de saúde, diz Sarkozy
.
Segundo o presidente francês, o chanceler Bernard Kouchner, o filho, a filha e a irmã de Betancourt partirão da França ainda hoje rumo à Colômbia. Ao lado de Sarkozy, Lorenzo Delloye-Betancourt, filho da ex-candidata presidencial, disse que o resgate de sua mãe depois de seis anos de cativeiro "é a melhor notícia de minha vida". Betancourt tem dupla nacionalidade - colombiana e francesa - e o presidente Sarkozy havia abraçado a causa de sua libertação.
Além de Betancourt, o governo colombiano anunciou que outros 14 seqüestrados também foram soltos na operação. Entre eles estão três norte-americanos, Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes e Keith Stansell. Eles trabalhavam para o exército colombiano e foram capturados quando o avião no qual viajavam fez um pouso de emergência em um território controlado pelos guerrilheiros. O ministro afirmou que os outros 11 reféns libertados são soldados e policiais colombianos.
http://www.atarde.com.br/mundo/noticia.jsf?id=909511
,
.
.
May 24, 2004
President Uribe’s Hidden Past
Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe is, by his own admission, a man of the right. Unlike most recent Colombian presidents, Uribe is from the land-owning class. He inherited huge swathes of cattle ranching land from his father Alberto Uribe, who was subject to an extradition warrant to face drug trafficking charges in the United States until he was killed in 1983, allegedly by leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas. Alvaro Uribe grew up with the children of Fabio Ochoa, three of who became leading players in Pablo Escobar’s Medellín cocaine cartel.
In 1995, Uribe became governor of the Antioquia department, of which Medellín is the capital. The region became the testing ground for the institutionalization of paramilitary forces that he has now made a key plank of his presidency. Government-sponsored peasant associations called Convivir’s were “special private security and vigilance services, designed to group the civilian population alongside the Armed Forces.”
Security forces and paramilitary groups enjoyed immunity from prosecution under Governor Uribe, and they used this immunity to launch a campaign of terror in Antioquia. Thousands of people were murdered, “disappeared,” detained and driven out of the region. In the town of San Jose de Apartadó for example, three of the Convivir leaders were well-known paramilitaries and had been trained by the Colombian Army’s 17th Brigade. In 1998, representatives of more than 200 Convivir associations announced that they would unite with the paramilitary organization, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), under its murderous leader Carlos Castaño.
When Uribe launched his campaign for president, the candidate’s paramilitary connections appeared to deter many journalists from examining the ties between drug gangs and the Uribe family. An exception was Noticias Uno, a current affairs program on the TV station Canal Uno. In April 2002, the program ran a series on alleged links between Uribe and the Medellín drug cartel. After the reports aired, unidentified men began calling the news station, threatening to kill the show’s producer Ignacio Gómez, director Daniel Coronell, and Coronell’s 3-year-old daughter, who was flown out of the country soon thereafter. Gómez was also forced to flee Colombia and is currently living in exile.
Noticias Uno told the story of how in 1997, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) seized 50,000 kilos of potassium permanganate from a ship docked in San Francisco. Potassium permanganate is a chemical used in the production of cocaine. The cargo was on its way to Colombia to be delivered to a company called GMP Chemical Products. The owner of GMP was Pedro Moreno Villa GMP, Uribe’s presidential campaign manager. The chemicals seized were sufficient to produce $15 billion worth of cocaine. The DEA confirmed that GMP was Colombia’s biggest importer of potassium permanganate between 1994 and 1998, when Uribe was governor of Medellin and Moreno Villa was his chief of staff.
As the Presidential race intensified, journalists became increasingly concerned that media bosses were threatening their editorial independence. Two powerful business groups with ties to the political establishment own RCN and Caracol, the biggest television and radio networks in Colombia. Journalists’ concerns were further heightened when Uribe picked a member of the Santos family, which owns the country’s most influential daily newspaper, to be his vice-president.
Despite his links to paramilitaries and drug cartels, Uribe won the presidency. But to call Uribe’s victory a landslide—as many in and outside Colombia did—is a gross distortion of the facts. Uribe received 53 percent of the official vote, but only 25 percent of the electorate voted. Many urban and middle class Colombians, who have been largely sheltered from the civil war, were thoroughly disillusioned by the peace process of outgoing-President Andrés Pastrana, and backed hardliner Uribe. But the election was hardly a fair one.
Though Uribe has vowed that his “democratic security” platform will bring peace and security to all Colombians, statistics from the Trade Union School in Medellín show continued threats to trade unionists and human rights activists. The number of trade unionists killed in 2003 declined to a “mere” 90, suggesting that the paramilitaries were being reigned in a little. But the number of death threats issued were 20 percent higher, and death threats to trade unionists’ families were up by 30 percent. Police raids, mass detentions and forced “disappearances” are also all higher than the previous year.
Uribe is clamping down on the opposition, while sidling yet closer to the Republican White House in Washington. Uribe was the only South American leader to back President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq. At the time, he even went so far as to invite the United States to invade Colombia. Uribe hopes to double the size of the Colombian Armed Forces, and has asked the United States for more helicopters and greater involvement in areas such as intelligence gathering. Many in the Bush administration are keen to see the United States expand its multi-billion dollar military investment in “Plan Colombia.” U.S. Army Lt. Gen. James T. Hill, for example, recently told a Senate committee, “It would be a terrible loss if democracy failed in Colombia. You need to let me get on the ground.”
But before that happens, the United States is pushing for Uribe to reign in his illegal paramilitary allies. The peasant militias and million-strong informers’ network that Uribe has launched are evidence of the way in which the paramilitary strategy is being institutionalized. Under the “state of unrest” that Uribe decreed upon assuming the presidency, the police and army were granted the right to detain citizens on the slightest suspicion of supporting the guerrillas, without evidence or legal counsel, and to enter people’s homes without a warrant.
As Bush and Uribe have both said time and again, in the “war on terror” there can be no neutrals. President Uribe has branded those NGOs that do claim to occupy a non-partisan position on the armed conflict “political agitators in the service of terrorism, cowards who wrap themselves in the banner of human rights.” Only pro-government, anti-guerrilla NGOs are being left untouched.
Uribe’s strategy is to bring the war out into the open, to declare social organizations illegal, and to use the army and police against them directly, while holding “negotiations” with the paramilitaries. Given the murderous tactics that Uribe is prepared to resort to, it is easy to understand why trade unionists and human rights defenders are inclined to feel despondent. It also makes the unquestioning support being offered Uribe by the U.S. and British governments all the more immoral.
Tom Feiling is a campaign officer for the UK-based Justice for Colombia.
The views expressed in this article are that of the author
and may not reflect the views of Colombia Journal.
Copyright © 2000-2008 Colombia Journal. All rights reserved.
Álvaro Uribe
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(...).
Controversies
Alleged links to drug trafficking
2004
In August 2, 2004, the National Security Archive (NSA) published a declassified 1991 intelligence report from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which contained a list of several individuals identified as "Colombian narco-traffickers". The document states that it is "not finally evaluated" intelligence information. The source for the report and the reporting officer's comments were not declassified.[36]
The report listed then-Senator Álvaro Uribe as a "close personal friend of Pablo Escobar" and described him as "dedicated to collaboration with the Medellín [drug] cartel at high government levels". It also stated that Uribe had "attacked all forms of the extradition treaty" and that his father had been murdered because of a "connection with the narcotic traffickers".[36]
In response, the Colombian Presidency made an official statement rejecting several of the accusations in the report, adding that the same information had been part of previous allegations during Uribe's 2002 presidential campaign.[36] It argued that Senator Uribe's position on the extradition treaty was available in the congressional archives for 1989 and had been reiterated in 2002 interviews: to postpone a proposed popular referendum on the matter until after the 1990 parliamentary and presidential elections, to prevent drug traffickers from influencing the results of the vote.[36]
The official communique also stated that Uribe's father had been killed by FARC in 1983 during a kidnapping attempt and that in 1991 Senator Uribe was studying at Harvard University in the United States, as the Colombian Congress had been suspended during the sessions of the Constituent Assembly.[36] The statement concluded by saying that Uribe had extradited more than 170 individuals to several countries around the world and that the President opposed any modification to current extradition mechanisms.[36]
The NSA acknowledged that the information in the report was "only as good as its source" and that it was "difficult to verify the accuracy of the information" because of the details which remained classified.[37][36] The NSA added that the report was different from average field intelligence as some degree of evaluation had already taken place "via interfaces with other agencies", that the source believed the statements to be true without qualifications, that the report included detailed information suggesting it would be employed for multiple uses, that much of the other information in the report was accurate and verifiable, and that significant effort had been spent on compiling the information.[36]
Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Chris Conway stated that the report was raw, uncorroborated information from one source and that "no conclusions can be drawn from it".[38] Robert Zimmerman, U.S. Department of State deputy spokesman, rejected the allegations against Uribe and stated that his record was that of "a strong opponent of drug trafficking".[39] Zimmerman added that "we have no credible information that substantiates or corroborates the allegations in an unevaluated 1991 report".[40]
2007
In 2007 Virginia Vallejo, media personality and former lover of Pablo Escobar, released her book "Amando a Pablo, odiando an Escobar", where she accused several politicians of being involved with drug traffickers. She stated that Escobar "idolized" Uribe and that he had obtained "dozens of licenses for landing strips and hundreds of aircraft and helicopters on which the drug trafficking infrastructure was built" while Uribe served as Director of Civil Aviation (1980-1982).[41][42]
President Uribe denied Vallejo's allegations. He said he wasn't a friend of Escobar even when it was "fashionable", that he had no business or political dealings with him and that he never knew Virginia Vallejo. Uribe stated that Vallejo claimed to have seen him wearing "seminarist" glasses back in 1983, responding that he started wearing glasses only after 1990. [43] Uribe argued that he had been "waiting for 20 years" for anyone to present photographs of any alleged meetings between him and Escobar.[44][45] In an October 16, 2007 statement, the Director of Civil Aviation in Colombia said that former Director Uribe had implemented stronger regulations for the operation and licensing of aircraft, companies and landing strips, citing decree 2.303 of 1981 which introduced as a requirement a certificate from the National Council on Narcotics, which would be provided after consulting DAS, F-2, Customs, the Inspector General and Army Brigades. The statement mentioned that Director Uribe had already been investigated by the Inspector General of Colombia at his own request, leading to no formal charges.[46]
President Uribe accused El Nuevo Herald's correspondent in Colombia, Gonzalo Guillén, of being behind Virginia Vallejo's book, describing him as someone who had "dedicated his journalistic career to infamy and lies". The journalist denied any involvement, arguing that he had only interviewed Vallejo once, for a July 2006 article. Guillén said that Uribe had been angered after his earlier publication of another book, "The Confidants of Pablo Escobar", which contained claims about the Uribe family's ties to organized crime. BBC News reported that Guillén, who said he had received 24 death threats during three days, left Colombia after Uribe's declarations. [47] [48] [49]
Daniel Coronell, journalist and Revista Semana columnist, wrote an October 2007 opinion column mentioning the June 15th 1983 edition of Medellín's El Mundo newspaper, which had reported that Colombia's Civil Aviation provided a special permit to a helicopter belonging to Pablo Escobar, described as a landowner by the paper, which was used by Álvaro Uribe Velez to travel to the area where his father Alberto Uribe Sierra had been murdered by the FARC. Coronell also wrote that the June 16th edition of El Colombiano contained an invitation to Alberto Uribe's funeral from Escobar's "Medellín sin tugurios" foundation. During a heated radio debate with Coronell, President Uribe argued that the helicopter had been assigned to him by Colombia's Civil Aviation authority, that he did not know it belonged to Pablo Escobar during the crisis and would have otherwise refused to board it, and that he returned to Medellín with his father's body by land. He also reiterated that he had no links to Escobar. [50][51]
On December 9, 2007 Gerardo Reyes of El Nuevo Herald published a story about the 1984 assassination of Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla and the seizure of a helicopter found during the earlier raid of the Tranquilandia drug lab complex. According to the article, Cecilia Lara Bonilla, Rodrigo's sister, had made a sworn statement in July 1984, indicating that the slain minister thought the anti-drug operation had compromised important politicians throughout the country and that the seized helicopter belonged to Alberto Uribe Sierra, Álvaro Uribe's father. Police Colonel Jaime Ramírez Gómez, in another declaration, had stated that Lara Bonilla feared retaliation from the owners of the helicopter and the airplanes seized in Tranquilandia, without specifying any names at the time. In a telephone conversation with El Nuevo Herald, Cecilia Lara Bonilla stated that she stood by her earlier declarations and said she believed her brother "did have many doubts about Uribe [Vélez]. He did not express them clearly." According to El Nuevo Herald, the newspaper had requested, but did not receive, any comments from the Colombian President's Press Office in October, before the story was published.[52]
The article indicated that President Uribe had previously argued that the helicopter had been sold before the Tranquilandia operation.[52] The judicial process which followed Lara Bonilla's murder included a DAS report which stated that the seized helicopter was registered as the property of a private enterprise managed by Carlos Alberto Amórtegui Romero, one of whose partners was Alberto Uribe Sierra. Jaime Alberto Uribe Vélez, one of the late Uribe Sierra's sons, had declared seventeen days after the anti-drug raid that the helicopter had been sold by the company to a third party a month before the operation, as payment for a debt. The judicial archives for the investigation did not contain any formal record of the transaction.[52] The Colombian government sent a letter to El Nuevo Herald saying that Carlos Amórtegui, the legal representative of the company which owned the seized helicopter, had published a May 22, 1984 statement in Cromos magazine about the sale of the aircraft.[53]
Rodrigo Lara Restrepo, son of the murdered Minister of Justice, had been named Colombia's Anti-Corruption Czar a year and a half before the publication of the article. Lara Restrepo told the Miami newspaper that he would make a declaration in the following days.[52] Lara Restrepo later resigned his post, arguing that several government officials had known about the El Nuevo Herald story since October, without informing him about it, and that he had not previously read Cecilia Lara's 1984 statements. He added that he still believed in the Colombian government and the Uribe administration's fight against the drug cartels, but that his resignation was made as a sign of respect for his father.[53]
The head of the Colombian President's Press Office, César Mauricio Velásquez, said that he decided not to reply to correspondent Gerardo Reyes, who had made an e-mail inquiry, and also criticized the journalist. He added that he had not thought about informing Rodrigo Lara Restrepo. [53]
Parapolitics scandal
In November 2006, a political crisis emerged as several of Uribe's congressional supporters were questioned or charged by the Colombian Supreme Court and the office of the Attorney General for having alleged links to paramilitary groups. Álvaro Araújo, brother of Uribe's Foreign Minister María Consuelo Araújo, was among those summoned for questioning.[54] In November, the former ambassador to Chile, Salvador Arana, was charged for the murder of a mayor in a small town in the Department of Sucre.[55]
In April 2007, Senator Gustavo Petro made several accusations against President Uribe during a televised congressional debate about paramilitarism in Antioquia. Petro said that some of the Uribe family's farms in the north of the country had been previously used as staging grounds for paramilitary forces. He also showed a picture of Santiago Uribe, the President's brother, together with Fabio Ochoa, a drug dealer, in 1985. Petro also argued that Governor Uribe's office allowed paramilitary personnel to participate in some of the legal self-defense groups known as CONVIVIR. Another accusation concerned the possible participation of a helicopter belonging to the former Antioquia Governor's administration during a paramilitary massacre.[56]
Two days later, President Uribe publicly revealed that former US Vice President Al Gore had cancelled his participation in a pro-environment event Uribe was to attend in Miami due to the continuing allegations against him. The Colombian President reacted by organizing a press conference during which he addressed several of the accusations Senator Petro and others had made against him. Uribe argued that his family had nothing to do with any massacres and that they had already sold the implicated farms several years before the alleged events. He also stated that the Uribes and the Ochoas were both famous in the horse breeding business, causing their meetings to be both common and public. He claimed that the helicopter's hours and missions had been strictly logged, making it impossible for it to have participated in any massacre. Uribe said that he supported the CONVIVIR groups but was not solely responsible for their creation, adding that other civilian and military authorities also participated in their oversight. He also said that he dismantled some CONVIVIR groups when doubts began to surround their activities.[57][58]
On April 22, 2008, former senator Mario Uribe Escobar, one of the Colombian President's cousins and a close political ally, was arrested after being denied asylum at the Costa Rican embassy in Bogotá, as part of a judicial inquiry into the links between politicians and paramilitary groups. Mario Uribe has been accused of meeting with paramilitary commander Salvatore Mancuso in order to plan land seizures.[59]
.
On April 23, 2008, President Uribe revealed that a former paramilitary fighter had accused him of helping to plan the 1997 massacre of El Aro, a charge which he said was under official investigation. Uribe described the accuser as a "disgruntled convict with an axe to grind", denied the charges and said there was proof of his innocence.[60] The Colombian newsweekly Revista Semana reported that the paramilitary in question, Francisco Enrique Villalba Hernández, had not mentioned Uribe during previous declarations made more than five years ago, when he was sentenced for his own role in the massacre. The magazine also listed a number of possible inconsistencies in his most recent testimony, including the alleged presence of General Manosalva, who had died months before the date of the meeting where the massacre was planned. [61
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário