Former paramilitary death-squad leader captured in Colombia

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Former paramilitary death-squad leader captured in Colombia
Feb 17, 2010, 3:20 GMT

Bogota - Police have arrested the former leader of a right-wing paramilitary death squad accused of ordering at least 2,500 murders in Colombia, judicial investigators said.

Arnuolfo Santamaria, alias Pipa, was captured by agents of the attorney general's office in the town of Soacha, where he passed himself off as a witch doctor and vendor of mobile telephones, the office said Tuesday.

Santamaria commanded the southern front of the paramilitary United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), which authorities blamed for more than 5,000 crimes in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It operated in the department of Putumayo, bordering Ecuador and Peru.

~snip~
He was a fugitive for more than three years, accused of murder, kidnapping, forced disappearances and other crimes, including the slaying of a union organizer in the rural municipality of South San Miguel in 2005, officials said.

Read more: http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/americas/news/article_1534169.php/Former-paramilitary-death-squad-leader-captured-in-Colombia

[ro1942]

1. We get to see how free him from prosecution

[ck4829]

2. Kick

[Judi Lynn]

3. Colombia nabs militiaman charged with 2,500 killings

Colombia nabs militiaman charged with 2,500 killings
Irish Sun
Wednesday 17th February, 2010
(IANS)

Bogota, Feb 17 (IANS/EFE) A fugitive Colombian militia commander accused of involvement in some 2,500 murders has been arrested, the Attorney General's Office said.

Arnolfo Santamaria Galindo, who formerly led a paramilitary unit in the southern province of Putumayo, was arrested in the Bogota suburb of Soacha, prosecutor Luis Gonzalez told the media.

Roughly 32,000 members of the AUC militia federation demobilised between 2003 and 2006 as part of a peace process with the government of President Alvaro Uribe, but Santamaria, like many paramilitaries, declined to lay down his arms.

Gonzalez said Santamaria's faction is blamed for some 5,000 killings and that the former warlord faces charges in connection with 2,500 deaths in Putumayo, a mainly jungle province bordering Ecuador and Peru.

Santamaria spent his time in Soacha peddling cell phones and styling himself as a shaman, Caracol television said.

More:
http://story.irishsun.com/index.php/ct/9/cid/2411cd3571b4f088/id/602419/cs/1/

~~~~~~~
Article from 2007:

sunday, may 06, 2007
211 bodies in mass graves in southern Colombia

http://3.bp.blogspot.com.nyud.net:8090/_tETL01JknQ8/Rj399Sey6MI/AAAAAAAAAIk/flzQDKAdOnA/s320/fosa.jpg

211 bodies of men and women, mostly dismembered, were found in mass graves in Putumayo, southern Colombia.

According to the investigators of the Prosecutor and the Judicial Police, "it is established that the gentlemen" Macaco "and Arnolfo Santamaría Galindo, alias" Pipa ", second leader of the Central Bolivar Bloc of the AUC, were directly responsible for ordering the disappearance, torture and death of people considered at your convenience.

The self-defense entered the region set up illegal roadblocks at the entrances of the inspections, where they had informants who received up to 2 million dollars per draw guerrilla collaborators.

In most of the opportunities called "informants" drawn to people without reason, who finally were missing and murdered by paramilitaries.

Villagers say they have buried in that region over three thousand victims.

Google translation
http://carloscuentero.blogspot.com/2007/05/211-cadveres-en-fosas-comunes-al-sur-de.html

[Judi Lynn]

4. Colombian voters threatened with loss of gov't aid

Colombian voters threatened with loss of gov't aid
Feb, 15, 2010 12:49 PM - EFE Ingles

Bogota, Feb 15 (EFE).- Some candidates in next month's Colombian congressional elections are threatening voters with the loss of government aid if they don't support the ruling party at the polls, members of an international observer mission said here Monday.

The mission, put together by non-governmental organizations from the United States, Mexico and a half-dozen other countries, held a press conference in Bogota to present its findings.

"Aspirants to the (lower) house and the Senate have attended meetings with beneficiaries, in which they have said that if they don't vote for them and for the presidential candidate of the Party of the U (President Alvaro Uribe's party), the subsidies they receive from the president will end," the report says, without mentioning any candidates by name.

"(A)s many people live from those subsidies, it is a threat that is unfair and which has a lot of impact," Laura Carlsen, director of the Americas Program at the International Relations Center, told reporters in the Colombian capital.

The observer mission, led by U.S.-based NGO Global Exchange, visited the northern provinces of Cordoba, Antioquia and Santander and the southern region of Valle del Cauca.

Besides the threats about the loss of government assistance, the observers cited assassinations and persecution of community leaders during the run-up to the elections.

More:
http://www.poten.com/NewsDetails.aspx?id=10362822

[Vidar]

5. I'm surprised they don't pin a medal on the murderous thug.

[Flaneur]

6. Well, at least he didn't shoot teargas at demonstrators, or DU would be really pissed.

[Judi Lynn]

8. Right! His military has been found to participate in death squad massacres,

and murder people they KNOW to be innocent, and count their victims as "FARC".

God forbid Venezuela's police should try to inhibit US-financed, organized "guarimba" (violent protest) participants, and god speed that nice narcotrafficking-connected Alvaro Uribe, with love and kisses from the US American right-wing.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Colombia solidarity activists harassed

Colombia solidarity activists harassed
19 February 2010

In recent months, there had been unprecedented harassment and persecution of solidarity activists internationally who have shown support to the political struggles of the Colombian people.

This international campaign began soon after the March 2008 murder of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia-People’s Army (FARC-EP) leader Raul Reyes and the illegal seizure of information from a “magic laptop” that somehow did not get destroyed after heavy bombing.

Law specialists, including INTERPOL, have questioned the legitimacy of such a source of information.

In any case, that information has been used for interrogating academics, journalists, human rights advocates, unionists and solidarity activists, in an attempt to simplistically link social consciousness, political activism or solidarity with “terrorist activity”.

Colombian intellectuals have been jailed. On August 2008, film-maker and human rights defender Liliany Obando (who toured Australia on two occasions) was detained but is yet to be tried.

On May 2009, Professor Miguel Angel Beltran was illegally extradited from Mexico to Colombia, accused of being a “FARC intellectual” because of his criticism of the Colombian government.

These cases add to the more than 7500 political prisoners languishing in Colombian prisons.

Outside Colombia, several human rights advocates and solidarity activists have been interrogated or harassed. In Spain on July 2008, pacifist activist Maria Remedios Garcia was temporarily jailed in Spain for alleged links to the rebel organisation, and houses of Colombian activists in Switzerland were raided.

To date, the Colombian government has failed to provide evidence of such connections.

During 2008 and 2009, solidarity activists in Chile, Mexico and Peru were harassed with their pictures constantly appearing in the national media without any incriminatory evidence.

In January, American writer and Colombia solidarity activist James Jordan was escorted out of a plane and questioned by US Homeland Security officials about his solidarity work with Colombia.

More:
http://www.greenleft.org.au/2010/827/42529