Leading Colombian party chief arrested

Source: Associated Press

Jul 25, 2:20 PM EDT

Leading Colombian party chief arrested

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- Police have arrested the head of one of Colombia's main governing parties for alleged ties with far-right paramilitaries.

Local television is showing Friday's arrest of Sen. Carlos Garcia on criminal conspiracy charges.

Garcia's National Unity party holds the most seats in Colombia's Senate and it has been promoting efforts to hold a referendum that would let conservative President Alvaro Uribe run for a third consecutive term.

One-tenth of Colombia's Congress has been jailed since early last year on charges of benefitting from far-right death squads that killed thousands and stole land from tens of thousands of others in consolidating control of large swaths of the country.

Most are allies of President Uribe.




Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/COLOMBIA_SCANDAL?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2008-07-25-14-20-52

Cousin of Colombian President Arrested in Death Squad Probe
Mario Uribe Seized After Failed Bid for Political Asylum at Costa Rican Embassy



A man places photographs of people murdered or missing, allegedly because of paramilitary groups, on the fence of the Costa Rican Embassy in Bogota, Colombia. (By William Fernando Martinez -- Associated Press)

By Juan Forero
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, April 23, 2008; Page A12

BOGOTA, Colombia, April 22 -- Authorities on Tuesday arrested former senator Mario Uribe, a cousin and close ally of President Álvaro Uribe, for alleged ties to death squads in a widening inquiry that has implicated nearly a quarter of Colombia's Congress.

The arrest of the former senator, who built a formidable political movement that helped his cousin win the presidency in 2002, comes during an institutional crisis that has tarnished a country closely allied with the United States.

~snip~
Still, the simmering scandal has indirectly hurt Colombia's president, the Bush administration's closest ally in Latin America and the beneficiary of billions of dollars in American military aid. Recently jailed allies include Carlos García, president of the pro-Uribe U Party, and Sen. Rubén Quintero, who was Uribe's private secretary when he was governor of Antioquia state in the late 1990s.

More:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/22/AR2008042201144.html

Another Uribe ally arrested for alleged paramilitary ties
Posted : Fri, 25 Jul 2008 19:08:04 GMT
Author : DPA


Bogota - A Colombian political leader from President Alvaro Uribe's ruling coalition was arrested Friday for alleged illegal contact with right-wing paramilitaries. Senator Carlos Garcia, who leads the National Unity Party, was taken into custody by police in the northern city of Santa Marta on a warrant from the supreme court in Bogota.

"I am completely innocent," he told reporters.

Three former members of the since disbanded United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) said Garcia met with AUC leaders in 2001.

Garcia is the latest politician to be caught up in a scandal tying conservative politicians to the paramilitaries. In 2006, police found information about the links on former AUC commander Rodrigo Tovar Pupo's computer. Since then, 60 legislators - nearly all members of the ruling coalition - have been charged, more than 30 are currently in jail awaiting trial.

Opposition lawmakers have claimed president had ties to the group during his time as governor of Antioquia province.

The paramilitary groups were founded in the 1980s in response to the leftist rebels, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and have been implicated in massacres of civilians that supported the rebels. In 2004, the AUC disarmed.

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/221549,another-uribe-ally-arrested-for-alleged-paramilitary-ties.html

Not so fast there. Our own Senate has just noted the paramilitaries ARE NOT DISARMED:

Jul 22Senate appropriators crank out the 2009 aid bill
U.S. Aid, U.S. Congress

~snip~
Andean Counterdrug Programs (basically the same as International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement): The Committee notes that after providing more than $6,000,000,000 in support of Plan Colombia since 2000, and vigorous efforts by the Colombian Government, many areas of Colombia are safer and its economic indicators have improved. However, armed groups, including demobilized paramilitaries who have rearmed and continue to traffic in drugs, threaten the security of many communities.

More:
http://www.cipcol.org/?p=641

Ally of Colombia's Uribe arrested in "para" scandal
25 Jul 2008 19:25:10 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Hugh Bronstein

BOGOTA, July 25 (Reuters) - The architect of the effort to allow Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to run for a third term in 2010 was arrested on Friday on charges of using paramilitary death squads to intimidate voters.

Sen. Carlos Garcia, head of Uribe's main coalition party, was seized in a hotel in the Caribbean resort city of Santa Marta. He was the 31st politician to be jailed in a scandal over links between the paramilitaries and lawmakers.

Thirty other members of Congress, most from Uribe-friendly parties, are under investigation over links to the right-wing militias formed in the 1980s to help cattle-ranchers, cocaine smugglers and other wealthy Colombians combat leftist rebels.

Garcia is president of the Party of National Social Unity, or "Partido de la U", which is the main political force pushing to let Uribe run for a third term to carry on his popular fight against Marxist guerrillas fighting a 44-year-old insurgency.

More:
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N25424059.htm

http://s3.amazonaws.com.nyud.net:8090/elespectador/files/images/d07fd5de97de8b7da9ef6216b66a54a7.jpg

Headed for his new home, under the bus, Colombian Senator Carlos Garcia

Sick fuck.

Head of Colombian governing party arrested for alleged paramilitary ties
By Frank Bajak
ASSOCIATED PRESS

12:23 p.m. July 25, 2008

BOGOTA, Colombia – The leader of a major governing party was arrested Friday for alleged ties with far-right paramilitaries, compounding a scandal that has battered Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's congressional coalition.

Sen Carlos Garcia, a physician first elected to the Senate in 1994, was arrested at a hotel in the Caribbean city of Santa Marta, the chief prosecutor's office said. The Supreme Court had been investigating him since April.

~snip~
In May, Uribe extradited 14 top paramilitary leaders to stand trial in the United States on drug trafficking charges. Several of them have fingered Colombian politicians – from mayors to governors to national lawmakers – as having gotten help financially or at the ballot box from the paramilitaries.

In exchange, the paramilitaries were allowed to loot public institutions and extort contractors in public works projects.

Garcia is the second high-ranking member of a party closely tied to President Uribe to be arrested in the so-called parapolitico scandal.

In April, authorities arrested former Sen. Mario Uribe, a second cousin and confidante of the president. He is a founder of the Colombia Democratica party.

The arrest of yet another congressman in the scandal “lamentably continues to decimate the credibility” of Uribe-allied parties – even though “many of us have no ties to this illegalilty,” said Sen. Martha Lucia Ramirez, a National Unity party member and former defense minister.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20080725-1223-colombia-paramilitaryscandal.html

who have been murdered this year alone, by Colombia's rightwing death squads, and unlike the 29 political candidates murdered last year, and unlike the 25 sleeping people present at the FARC camp inside Ecuador's border, on March 1, who got blown away by ten U.S. "smart bombs" or shot in the back, without benefit of trial.

"Equal" rights, fair trials, hair-splitting permitted ('we didn't invade Iraq; we were invited in'; 'we didn't invade Ecuador, we were in 'hot pursuit''; 'we don't torture, we waterboard') for the rich and powerful. Silence for the poor. Cuz they're dead.

----------

"You're either with the terrorists, or with us"--that Orwellian bullshit--has been the excuse for HORRENDOUS crimes against humanity by both the Bush Junta and its pal, Colombia. It will no doubt be this asshole's defense--after he splits millions of hairs about whether he was actually 'present' at death squad meetings (what do you mean by 'present'? I was daydreaming about my mistress. I was drunk. I was hardly there and heard nothing anyone said, blah, blah, blah). Can't you hear it now--the Puke hair-splitting (like the crapola we heard yesterday at the House impeachment hearing, about Bush/Cheney's 'good faith' lies about Iraq WMDs, and Condi's assertion last week that "we didn't invade Iraq; we were invited in"). Then he will wrap himself in the flag, and cry "terror, terror, terror!"

"Terror, terror, terror" justifies chainsawing union leaders and throwing their body parts into mass graves, and slitting children's throats on suspicion that their parents are leftists. Convenient. It justifies slaughtering one million innocent people in Iraq to get their oil.

Well, I do hope that these perps are "innocent until proven guilty"--because I know that, as the rats desert a sinking ship, they have a way of cannibalizing their own, to let the biggest rats get away. We really cannot trust the process of justice with such putrid fascists running the country--whether here or there. It could be that Defense Minister Santos is running for military dictator of Colombia, and has decided to "get" Uribe for the purpose of his own rise to power. Not that Uribe is innocent, mind you. But he may be more interested in peace and profit (lots of profit) than in continued war mongering. (Uribe met with Chavez last week to "bury the hatchet" and announce joint infrastructure projects--a meeting that Santos publicly criticized--Santos being most interested to promote war, and the $6 BILLION in military booty that the Colombian military is getting from bankrupt U.S. taxpayers).

Wheels within wheels--in Byzantine BushWorld. The Colombian prosecutors and judges, who have been investigating the crimes of Uribe's cohorts, seem honest and straightforward--not to mention courageous. That doesn't mean they can't be played--and the whole situation turned to the purpose of more fascism and militarism, in the interest of global corporate predators. In fact, it would greatly aid Exxon Mobil/Donald Rumsfeld's war plans in South America to have Uribe out, and Santos in. (Santos is a Rumsfeldian type of cold-ass liar and mass murderer; Uribe at least tries to retain the forms and ambience of democracy, such as it is in Colombia.)

My heart leaped for joy to hear of Garcia's arrest. Can't deny it. But my heart leaped for joy at Scooter Libby's arrest as well. Is that all this is? A ploy--a fall guy, a scapegoat, a distraction--on the relentless treadmill of the Forever War? And...

...will he now be extradited to the Bush DoJ, on lesser charges (say, drug trafficking), to be silenced about the worst crimes of the Bush Junta and its operatives in Colombia?