Uribe aloof as 'paragate' creeps up on the palace (Bush ally)

Source: Financial Times

Uribe aloof as 'paragate' creeps up on the palace

By Anastasia Moloney in Bogotá and Richard Lapper in São Paulo

Updated: 12:12 a.m. CT March 28, 2007
Ever since Salvatore Mancuso declared in 2004 that the rightwing paramilitary groups he had led were "friends" with more than a third of Colombia's members of Congress, locals have wondered how high the scandal would reach.

President Alvaro Uribe has so far remained untouched by the stream of allegations and investigations emerging from Mr Mancuso's trial, but recent revelations have transformed the "paragate" scandal from a case affecting mainly local officials and junior parliamentarians to one approaching the doors of the presidential palace.

Maria Consuelo Araújo, Mr Uribe's foreign minister, was last month forced to resign after her brother, ­Senator Alvaro Araújo, was arrested for allegedly ­conspiring with the paramilitaries.

Jorge Noguera, the former head of Colombia's state intelligence agency and a confidant of the president, was also arrested last month before being released last week on the orders of the Supreme Court. The court's decision was sharply criticised by Mario Iguarán, the attorney-general, who is continuing his investigation into Mr Noguera.




Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17820445/

posted March 26, 2007 at 1:00 p.m. EDT

Report: Colombian army head collaborated with 'terrorist' paramilitaries

Gen. Mario Montoya would be highest military official so far tied to right-wing groups, though Bogota rejects the accusation.

By Arthur Bright | csmonitor.com
The Central Intelligence Agency has evidence alleging that Colombia's top military leader "collaborated extensively" with right-wing paramilitary groups that the United States considers terrorist organizations, according to the Los Angeles Times. Colombia's government, however, denies the accusations.

The Times writes that according to CIA documents the newspaper reviewed, Gen. Mario Montoya, the head of the US-backed Colombian army, coordinated with paramilitary groups during a 2002 military sweep, dubbed Operation Orion, against Marxist guerrillas near Medellin. At least 14 people were killed during the operation, and critics of President Álvaro Uribe's government claim that even more people "disappeared" afterward.
(snip)

Should the allegation hold up, Montoya would be the highest ranking Colombian officer linked to the growing "para-political" scandal in Colombia. Several members of Mr. Uribe's government, including the former foreign minister and various legislators, have been tied to outlawed right-wing paramilitaries. The source who provided the CIA report to the Los Angeles Times — an unidentified US government employee — said that "he was disclosing the information because he was unhappy that Uribe's government had not been held more to account by the Bush administration."

The CIA did not confirm or deny the authenticity of the report, though the agency did request that the Times omit information that "could jeopardize intelligence sources and methods." The CIA also requested that the Times's findings not be released, as some of the sources are considered "unproven." The Times notes, however, that the CIA report itself underscores that the source of the Operation Orion information is confirmed by "a proven source."
(snip/...)

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0326/p99s01-duts.html

spent in Colombia? I imagine it's going about as well as the war on Afghani poppies. You hardly ever hear about the drug war anymore, although I've heard it's a very good bidness.

So much is happening now with revelations coming daily of right-wing paramilitary connections going up through the Congress to the Cabinet of Colombia's President, _Bush's buddy Alvaro Uribe, and even to his own relatives, and today it was learned in US articles, Uribe himself, in association with Pablo Escobar himself years ago!

Colombia FTA: Monkey Business for U.S.
Thursday, 29 March 2007, 2:57 pm
Opinion: Jose Maria Rodriguez Gonzalez

Colombia FTA: Monkey Business for U.S.

By José María Rodríguez González
The Free Trade Agreement (FTA) appears to offer a fair deal. It promises to open U.S. markets to Colombia in exchange for opening the Colombian market to the U.S. But in reality it is a Trojan horse in a minefield.
(snip)

The Colombian ruling class, of which Mr. Uribe is a beloved member, has been skillful enough to put in its pocket politicians as diverse as Mr. George W. Bush and Mr. Bill Clinton. Mr. Uribe, yesterday a friend of Mr. Pablo Escobar, today is a friend of Mr. George Bush. This relationship is not the best PR in a region already distrustful of the U.S. Latin America is well aware of the values and standards the U.S. put aside to shake Mr. Uribe’s hand.

Bush has chosen to overlook the character of the current Colombian government under the reign of Mr. Alvaro Uribe, the two-time president. In 1991, The Bush administration embarrassed itself in the region by suppressing a Defense Intelligence Agency report indicating that Mr. Alvaro Uribe is untrustworthy and has ties with the narco-traffickers. Bush has not only undermined his own intelligence service, but has rejected any further investigation of the matter. Today, Colombia struggles with “paragate” -- it's scandalous “narco-paramilitary politics”, describing the association of narco-traffickers and paramilitaries with Mr. Uribe’s umbrella of parties.

Mr. Uribe relationship to narco-traffickers and paramilitaries, officially protected by U.S. policy, is now off-limits to U.S. intelligence. (Considering that Arabic is not Colombia’s official language and that plenty of spies speak fluent
Spanish, it is astonishing that the CIA now professes ignorance of the growing influence of narco-paramilitaries in Mr. Uribe’s government).

More astonishing is the fact that Mr. Uribe has not even bothered to conceal his criminal connections. There is hard evidence in Antioquia, Mr. Uribe’s state, and the Colombian Congress that Mr. Uribe’s campaigned for Mr. Pablo Escobar, former leader of the infamous Medellín Cartel, and protected him from extradition. Mr. Uribe’s family has close relationships with narco-paramilitaries. Pablo Escobar’s cousin has been Mr. Uribe’s long time confident, adviser and defender, and the narco-paramilitaries themselves have publicly described Mr. Uribe as the best president they ever had.
(snip/...)

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00521.htm



"The Death of Pablo Escobar
Colombian painter, Fernando Botero

1. A mug shot of Pablo Escobar?

2. A painting called "The Death of Pablo Escobar," by Fernando Botero?

3. A photo of the actual death of Pablo Escobar? Who are these laughing/smiling uniformed people with the guns?

Extraordinary painting! Captures the dream-like horror of this man's life and death, and also...the potential of the human spirit? Those chubby, vulnerable feet barely touching the roof tiles, the large body vs. the scaled down context (roofs, houses, mountains), as if he could have been a giant for good or for ill, but chose ill. He could have been a dancer--graceful, beautiful--but instead ended up a fat balloon clown, punctured with bullets, haunting the community.

The first photo is a mugshot, as you suspected, of Pablo Escobar.

The second image is a painting by a very lively Colombian painter, Fernando Botero. You may find his paintings of Abu Ghraib thought-provoking. He did them in his highly recognizable personal style:
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-37,GGLD:en&q=Fernando%20Botero%20Abu%20Ghraib&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi

The third image shows policemen who shot him on a rooftop. Here's the first account I could find, although it's not as well written as it could be:

Account of the death of Escobar:

Drug kingpin's killer seeks Colombia office
Ex-colonel is running for governor
By Karl Penhaul, Globe Correspondent

BARBOSA, Colombia -- Fireworks threw off red sparks into the night sky and flashed in the polished brass trombones and trumpets of the raucous town band.

An armor-plated Toyota Land Cruiser swept into this northeast market town. Inside was a former police colonel, Hugo Aguilar, en route to his latest campaign rally in downtown Barbosa. Bodyguards carrying automatic pistols or pump-action shotguns hung off the back of pickup trucks.

While film star Arnold Schwarzenegger is running for governor in the California recall election, Aguilar, a real-life "Terminator," is seeking to become the next governor of Santander Province.

A decade and 300 miles now separate Aguilar from a rooftop in Medellin where he ended the reign of the world's undisputed king of cocaine, Pablo Escobar, with a single shot to the head from his 9mm pistol. But each day the images of that final shootout, worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster, roll through his mind.

"There was no other alternative. It was him or us," Aguilar said, during a brief break recently in his hectic campaign schedule. "When the shootout began, we had to use all the firepower we had.
(snip/)

http://www.cocaine.org/colombia/pabloescobar-killer.html

Thanks for the hint it could be clearer. Gave me a chance to add a link to Botero's Abu Ghraib images, also!

On edit, a note about Fernando Botero's Abu Ghraib paintings:

Fernando Botero’s Abu Ghraib series is part of a larger exhibition of 150 of his works slated to open in Rome on June 16th of this year. The show then travels to Germany, and in 2006 the exhibit is scheduled to come to the United States. Botero has said his Abu Ghraib paintings will not be included in the US show -unless museums specifically ask for them. Given that the owner of the Capobianco Gallery in San Francisco was assaulted, threatened with death, and run out of business in May of 2004 for showing a painting by Guy Colwell that also depicted US soldiers abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib -it might be wise of Botero to exercise caution when exhibiting his masterworks in the US. Threats from reactionaries notwithstanding, I hope the arts community will rally around Botero and find a way to convince exhibitors that his important new works must be shown in the United States.

http://www.art-for-a-change.com/blog/2005/04/fernando-botero-paints-abu-ghraib.html

Profound thanks for introducing me to this artist. The combination of human horror and inhuman, bureaucratic blandness and greyness (the "suits" depicted in the paintings) is breathtaking.