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...and here it is...
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Colombia Democratica leader Mario Uribe, currently in jail awaiting trial for his alleged paramilitary ties, asked the ambassador in early 2006 to tell him which suspicious candidates for the congressional elections to remove. "(Uribe earlier told D/Polcouns that he could not afford to lose his U.S. visa because he had three children in the U.S., two studying and one working; he anticipated spending 'more and more' time in the U.S. in coming years. He added he would give up his Senate seat and political career if that was the only way to keep his visa."
Current Antioquia governor (Ramos? OP punctuation unclear), former leader of the now-defunct Alas-Equipo Colombia party and currently investigated for paramilitary ties, "stressed his party was pro-U.S., closely allied with prominent Colombian industrialists, and totally free from AUC influence. Ramos noted that A-EC only accepted donations from leading business members, and that he had personally taken out a large private loan from a major bank to help finance the party's Congressional candidates."
(QUOTE OF THE CABLE: ) "Per guidance from the Department, the Ambassador told Uribe, Holguin, and Ramos that the U.S. was concerned about the possibility of illicit paramilitary involvement in electoral campaigns through intimidation, corruption, and violence. However, the U.S. was not involved in reviewing party lists (and had declined suggestions from some party leaders that it do so)."
--from the OP (my emphasis) (parentheses not in italics are mine)
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First of all, what are rightwing (Uribe machine) political candidates doing consulting closely and personally with the U.S. ambassador about how they can get elected?
Secondly, why do they think that the U.S. ambassador can x names off their candidate list that might be tainted with AUC (rightwing pararmilitary death squad) associations?
My first thought: The U.S. was intensely spying on Colombian politicians and they knew it (which is why they ask him to pick out the "bad candidates" and x them off the list)--concerning which there is a long story about the CIA's recent removal of spying witnesses against Alvaro Uribe, out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors, which I'll get to in a minute.
And my second thought was that the Bush Junta would not have been in the least concerned about "electoral campaigns through intimidation, corruption, and violence." This is a bald-faced lie (and we need to watch out for these kind of lies, and other agendas, in the Wikileaks cables). What was probably going on is that the U.S. ambassador was advising them on how best to get elected "through intimidation, corruption, and violence" without getting caught. He was probably feeding them info from human rights groups, from Colombian prosecutors and other sources obtained by U.S. spying.
The next U.S. ambassador, Wm Brownfield, arranged for the extradition of death squad witnesses to the U.S., where they were 'buried' in the U.S. federal prison system--out of the reach of Colombian prosecutors and over their objections--by complete sealing of their cases in U.S. federal court in Washington DC. Not incidentally--in my opinion--Brownfield also secretly negotiated a U.S./Colombia military agreement, with Uribe, that included total diplomatic immunity for all U.S. soldiers and all U.S. military 'contractors' in Colombia. This agreement was subsequently declared unconstitutional (because the Colombian legislature never approved it) but the question remains: Why did the U.S. need this officially signed immunity in 2009, a good decade into the U.S. military presence in Colombia?
There may be several answers to this question, but one of them may be U.S. spying on prosecutors, judges, human rights rights groups and others, and abetting of Alvaro Uribe's illegal spying, in Colombia.
Recently, the chief spying witness against Uribe was whisked out of Colombia and given instant asylum in the U.S. client state of Panama--something that could not have happened without U.S. help. Illegal domestic spying by Uribe was one of the chief handles that Colombian prosecutors had on Uribe (and his many crimes).
The U.S. has given extraordinary protection (and honors) to Alvaro Uribe. The survivors of death squad victims have pursued him to the U.S. and served him with a warrant for deposition in their case. Uribe has asked the State Department to grant him what he calls "sovereign immunity"--that is, as the ex-King of Colombia, no one should be able to touch him--even for a deposition--in the U.S. (And I would imagine, at this point, that the CIA may be considering jettisoning Uribe as a serious liability).
One of the other reasons that the U.S. wanted "total diplomatic immunity" for all U.S. military personnel and 'contractors' in Colombia may have surfaced a few months ago when the State Department "fined" Blackwater for "unauthorized trainings" of "foreign persons" IN COLOMBIA "for use in Iraq and Afghanistan."
Bear in mind that Colombia had become basically a "turkey shoot" against peasant farmers, trade unionists, human rights workers, community activists, teachers, journalists and others, under Uribe, by the Colombian military ($7 BILLION in U.S. military aid) and its closely tied rightwing death squads. Were U.S. personnel joining in the 'fun'?
And a third reason that the U.S. was trying to get signed immunity for everyone last year may be the biggest scandal of all, and that is, that Uribe was running the entire country as a criminal enterprise for the Bush Cartel, with the purpose of consolidating the trillion dollar-plus cocaine trade in their hands--i.e., eliminating independent or rival drug lords, taking over FARC guerrilla coca leaf farms and operations, and establishing large-scale, mafia-like control of this immense, illicit revenue stream.
To do this, the U.S. had to have Uribe in place as president with a supportive legislature, had to run interference for him and his political cohorts with human rights groups, nosy U.S. labor Democrats in Congress, any honest DEA or FBI agents sniffing around, Colombian prosecutors, etc., and had to conduct massive spying for these purposes as well as assisting Uribe with his own spying projects (one of which may be been drawing of lists of trade unionists to death squad hits).
The Obama administration may have a different purpose in Colombia but one that is not much better: U.S. "free trade for the rich." Now that the leftist leadership has been decapitated in Colombia by means of the U.S. "war on drugs" (consolidation of the cocaine trade) and the war on the FARC guerrillas (related to the consolidation of the cocaine trade), the ground is well prepared for even bigger scale ravaging of Colombia's other resources--oil, coal, farm land for biofuels, etc.--and grooming of a slave labor force for U.S. multinationals.
Now re-read this article of U.S. cables out of Colombia with these new eyes. The questions are: Why is the U.S. ambassador meeting with rightwing (Uribe machine) politicians before an election? Why do they think that he knows their ranks better than they do? And what were they really talking about?
Most of what you read here is double-talk, lies and code. What else may hidden within lines?
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