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HUMAN RIGHTS-COLOMBIA: Uribe on the Defensive
By Constanza Vieira
BOGOTÁ, Apr 20 (IPS) - The Colombian government has assigned military
intelligence agents to monitor opposition legislators who are travelling
to the United States to express their views on different aspects of
relations between the two countries, rightwing President Álvaro Uribe
himself revealed.
The president said Thursday night that "I have evidence from military
intelligence and the police" on these activities engaged in by critics of
the free trade agreement that the Colombian government signed with
Washington, but which has not yet been ratified by the U.S. Congress, and
of Plan Colombia, the U.S.-financed anti-drugs and counterinsurgency
strategy whose continued funding must be decided on this year by the U.S.
legislature.
Uribe did not give specific names of legislators.
The U.S. House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere
announced that it would hold hearings on Colombia, to study relations
between the two countries. The first will be held on Tuesday, Apr. 24.
Senator Gustavo Petro of the leftist Alternative Democratic Pole led a
high-profile parliamentary debate Tuesday in which he showed documents and
testimony about members of the military and people close to Uribe with
alleged links to the paramilitaries.
The evidence he presented forms part of cases that have been shelved by
the attorney general's office (Fiscalía General de la Nación) and the
office of the inspector general (Procuraduría General de la Nación), which
oversees the behaviour of public officials and is charged with ensuring
respect for human rights.
On Thursday it was reported that a witness had gone to the Procuraduría to
warn of plans for an attempt on Petro's life.
Opposition lawmakers "are very obvious; they're not as careful as they
think they are," said Uribe in a nearly two-hour press conference late
Thursday, which was broadcast by radio and televised by all of the country's
private and public stations during prime time.
Only a few hand-picked media outlets were allowed to take part in Thursday's
press conference. Among those that were excluded were El Tiempo, the
country's largest circulation newspaper; Semana, the leading political
magazine, which from the start has led the revelations that gave rise to
the "parapolitics" scandal; and this agency, IPS.
Eight pro-Uribe politicians are in jail for their ties to the paramilitary
militias so far, as a result of the parapolitics, or "paragate" scandal,
as it has been dubbed in Colombia.
The scandal has shed light on the close relations between the economic and
political elites and the paramilitary groups, many of which are led by
drug lords, and which are held responsible for the great majority of human
rights crimes committed in Colombia's four-decade civil war, although the
leftist guerrilla groups active since the 1960s also commit atrocities.
Thursday's news briefing was the first time, since Uribe took office in
2002, that he did not lash out at journalists for raising uncomfortable
questions about his family and its supposed ties to the paramilitaries. In
the past, said the president, "I grabbed the throat" of a U.S. reporter
who asked questions that bothered him. "That's true," he added.
Uribe was rehearsing responses for another news conference that he himself
organised Friday in Miami, through the Colombian consulate, to which U.S.
media outlets were invited.
In that press conference, he said "people from the opposition shout out in
the south against Yanqui imperialism" and then go to the United States to
bad-mouth the Colombian government - an argument he also voiced on
Colombian TV and radio Thursday night.
"It is clearly not democratic to invite only some media. They chose the
outlets that are most convenient to them. I don't know of a good reason
why they didn't invite Semana," the magazine's chief editor, Mauricio
Sáenz, told IPS.
"The holding of such a strange press conference shows how nervous the
government is," he added.
Uribe explained that he called the press meet because of former U.S. vice
president Al Gore's announcement Thursday that he was cancelling his
participation in an environmental conference in Miami Friday, where both
he and Uribe were scheduled to speak, because of the Colombian leader's
presence there.
Gore's spokesperson said he regretted that he would not be attending the
forum, where he was to be the keynote speaker, because of very problematic
reports about the Colombian government.
This Friday it emerged that Gore also cancelled his attendance at
Expogestión, a business management forum to be held in Bogotá in
September. It was reported that Gore took both decisions on the basis of a
report from the State Department, not articles in the press.
Uribe admitted that, as governor of the northwestern province of Antioquia
(1995-1997), he did authorise the creation of the private security
cooperative (CONVIVIR) Sietecueros Association, led by paramilitary chief
José "Chepe" Barrera, who controlled two provinces on the country's
northern Caribbean coast for two decades.
Sietecueros was one of the two security cooperatives commanded by
paramilitaries mentioned by Petro in the debate. These CONVIVIR
associations, legalised as vigilante-style neighbourhood groups in 1993,
fell into disrepute due to abuses and had their teeth drawn in 1997, when
the Constitutional Court forbade them to use military-grade weapons,
Gustavo Gallón, head of the Colombian Commission of Jurists human rights
group, told IPS.
As governor, Uribe "invented his own authority for creating CONVIVIR
groups. In Antioquia, in addition to the CONVIVIR groups recognised by the
Defense Ministry and authorised by the Superintendency of Vigilance and
Private Security, there were CONVIVIR groups operating by the sole
authority of Governor Uribe," he said.
The president said he found out that "Chepe" Barrera was a paramilitary in
2004, when Barrera demobilised as a result of the negotiations the Uribe
administration carried out with the paramilitary groups. "I must apologise
for my mistakes, but not for any crimes," Uribe stated.
He said he hoped for a positive outcome in the case of his former
intelligence tsar, Jorge Noguera, who had his U.S. entry visa withdrawn by
the United States last December, it transpired on Thursday.
Noguera is accused by the attorney general's office of having placed the
Administrative Security Department (DAS), in charge of national security
intelligence matters, at the service of paramilitary groups.
According to U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) documents quoted by
the Los Angeles Times, current army commander Mario Montoya collaborated
with paramilitaries in an occupation of Comuna 13, a low-income
neighbourhood of Medellín, the capital of Antioquia, in an action known as
Operation Orion in October 2002.
Uribe pointed out that Montoya had commanded the military base of Tres
Esquinas, in the south of the country, where the Colombian army is engaged
in fighting the leftwing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC),
with heavy U.S. assistance.
"Whoever commands Tres Esquinas has to have the confidence of the United
States," Uribe said. "Peace in Medellín had a starting point, and that was
Operation Orion," he added about the city, where the murder rate has
dropped significantly.
The president also said that clashes between the two rebel groups, the
FARC and the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN), "had a major
influence on" the murders of union members in 2006.
The number of these murders has fallen, but "they killed 38," the
president said, in a turn of phrase that might be interpreted as
attributing all such deaths to the guerrillas.
(END/2007)
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