Ecuador Hit from Colombia Again

[magbana]

Ecuador Hit from Colombia Again

Quito, May 30 (PL) - The raid carried out by alleged Colombian paramilitaries on a bordering Ecuadorian locality revives Friday the diplomatic crisis between both countries, which have severed diplomatic relations since March.

The nation's Foreign Minister Maria Isabel Salvador said Thursday night that the country is preparing charges against Colombia for the entry of an armed group from that territory to the locality of San Martin, in Barranca Bermeja, province of Sucumbios, and the kidnapping of three refugees.

"We will send our demand through the corresponding channels, once we have all information from investigations carried out by the Armed Forces and the Police," she pointed out.

In addition of the minister, Deputy Defense Minister Miguel Carvajal alerted that although they are not official groups, Bogota is also responsible for the action.

After the accusation, new troops were sent to San Martin to step up security, stated Carvajal.

According to inhabitants from that locality, about 30 camouflaged soldiers entered the town Monday night and after intimidating and threatening people, they captured three Colombian refugees, generating panic among inhabitants.

Security Minister Gustavo Larrea said this new incident evidences that the Colombian government does not control or protect the border with Ecuador.

Although they were paramilitary groups, the neighboring country violated once more Ecuador's sovereignty, he noted.

This military raid takes place amid a crisis between Quito and Bogota due to the Colombian bombing on March 1 of a secret camp of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in this territory, considered a deliberate transgression of this country's sovereignty.

http://www.escambray.cu/Eng/news/Wecuadorcolombia080530158.htm

http://snipurl.com/2boox

[Judi Lynn]

1. You know they can't be paramilitary, because a-holes tell us the paramilitaries have been

demobilized! Since we know they don't lie, that they are above reproach, we have to take their word for it! Must be someone else!

Case closed.

You have to wonder what the hell Uribe is trying to do. By sending in the death squads we know he's close to, he can claim the Colombian Army didn't do it, "so shut up!" Smooth, isn't it? He has no official responsibility.

The death squads, however, are free to roam all over South America now that they've "disbanded," and they get to eat everyone they kill. Yum. The right-wing always finds a way to triumph, since they aren't really bound by the law nearly as much as they claim everyone else is.

[Zorro]

2. "Alleged Colombian paramilitaries"

is the operative phrase. It means they don't know who they were.

Although that doesn't stop particularly obnoxious loudmouths from immediately jumping to conclusions and dreaming up further allegations that these "alleged Colombian paramilitaries" are operating under the direct control of Uribe.

And the neverending smear campaign based on innuendo continues.

[Judi Lynn]

3. To refresh memory for the feeble:

Paramilitaries as Proxies
Declassified evidence on the Colombian army's anti-guerrilla "allies"

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 166

Posted - October 16, 2005

Paramilitaries as Proxies
Declassified evidence on the Colombian army's anti-guerrilla "allies"
by Michael Evans, director, Colombia documentation project

The question of the Colombian military's complicity with paramilitary atrocities will probably not be addressed by the National Commission on Reparation and Reconciliation, which convened last week to sort through the legal and compensatory issues involved in the deactivation of the country's right-wing militias. The law governing the demobilization process provides sweeping amnesty for most paramilitary members and requires little more than good faith and modest reparations payments from those guilty of more serious "crimes against humanity." The Justice and Peace Unit of the Attorney General's office-which operates alongside the commission-has only 60 days to prepare cases, and even those found guilty of serious charges can expect to serve relatively light sentences. The measure also does not compel paramilitary commanders to provide information about the operations and financing of their organizations-what President Álvaro Uribe calls "a balance between justice and peace."

Fortunately, recently declassified U.S. documents, including the first-hand accounts of senior Colombian army officers, are beginning to lift the veil of secrecy. Obtained under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act by the National Security Archive, these records provide important new details about military involvement in paramilitary attacks and offer a unique and intimate perspective on the institutional pressures that encouraged a wide range of cooperation with paramilitary forces-from the tacit acquiescence of senior commanders to the direct participation of field officers and their troops.

One case sure to be examined by the commission concerns the infamous series of paramilitary massacres in and around the towns of La Gabarra and Tibú in the summer of 1999. Paramilitaries from the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) moved into the lucrative coca growing region in May 1999 to "cleanse" guerrilla influence from the area, killing some 150 people in more than a dozen attacks over that next three months. In most cases, local military forces simply did not react to the paramilitary incursions.

In the midst of this brutal offensive, the Colombian vice president's office "privately reported" to the U.S. embassy that Colombian army soldiers "had donned AUC armbands and participated directly" in one of the massacres. "The string of mass killings since May without security force response is appalling," U.S. Ambassador Curtis Kamman reported in a cable to Washington. "How did seven massacres occur without interference under the noses of several hundred security force members?"

The ambassador soon had an answer. In November, a U.S. embassy officer interviewed Colombian army Col. Víctor Hugo Matamoros, the commander of the 5th Mechanized Brigade in nearby Cúcuta. Matamoros was subsequently investigated but later released on charges that he had fomented the groups responsible for the La Gabarra killings. Matamoros offered a "surprisingly frank" explanation for why his troops did not intervene in paramilitary attacks:

"Look, I have 100 kilometers of oil pipeline to protect, as well as several bridges and the National Police… Plus, there are guerrillas to fight… If you have so many tasks to do with so few resources, and you're faced with two illegal armed groups, one of which (guerrillas) is shooting at you and the other (paramilitaries) is shooting at them, you obviously fight the guerrillas first, then worry about paramilitaries."

"The local army unit refuses to combat area paramilitaries," the embassy officer wrote in his trip report. "He is convinced that doing so before the guerrillas are defeated would not make military sense."

The colonel's acquiescent approach to paramilitarism should not have surprised anyone at the embassy. Other documents said much the same. "All indications are that paramilitarism has continued to grow…and the government has done little to confront them," the State Department's Andean desk officer reported in January 1999. "Security forces did not intervene during 19 separate attacks in which 143 civilians were killed over four days in January."

In February, a U.S. military official said that security forces had "not actively persecuted" the paramilitaries because they saw them as "allies in the fight against guerrillas, their common enemy." The CIA's Senior Executive Intelligence Brief for September 16, 1999 offered a similarly bleak assessment, finding that local military commanders "do not challenge paramilitary groups operating in their areas because they see the insurgents as the common foe."

Under pressure to clean up its human rights record and humbled by an increasingly effective guerrilla force, the Colombian military had begun to shift more and more of its dirty work to paramilitary groups. Thus, even as military violations declined, a State Department report titled "Colombia: A Violent Backdrop" found that "the military's frustration with its inability to defeat the guerrillas has contributed to a jump in paramilitary violations." The result was "decreased military aggressiveness in the field, and at least tacit support for paramilitaries, which liquidate suspected guerrillas and sympathizers without legal concerns."

The documents describe a firmly entrenched pattern of abuse in the Colombian military, less a specific policy than an institutional culture. A "cashiered" colonel from the Colombian army's notorious 17th Brigade confided to a U.S. military attaché that there was a "body count syndrome" among army forces that tended "to fuel human rights abuses by otherwise well-meaning soldiers trying to get their quota to impress superiors." That mindset had produced what the official characterized as "a cavalier, or at least passive, approach" among military officers when it came to "allowing paramilitaries to serve as proxies for the Colar {Colombian army} in contributing to the guerrilla body count."

More:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB166/index.htm

[Judi Lynn]

4. Presumed Colombian paramilitaries kidnap 3 in Ecuador

Presumed Colombian paramilitaries kidnap 3 in Ecuador

The Associated Press
Thursday, May 29, 2008

QUITO, Ecuador: Ecuadorean officials say an armed group apparently crossed the border from Colombia and kidnapped three men.

The Ministry of Defense said Thursday that the attack in the eastern jungle may be the work of right-wing Colombian paramilitaries. They call it a violation of Ecuador's sovereignty.

Witnesses say about 30 people in military uniforms accused the kidnapped men of cooperating with leftist Colombian rebels and then took them back across the border.

It is unclear if the victims are Colombian or Ecuadorean.

More:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/05/29/america/LA-GEN-Ecuador-Raid.php

[Judi Lynn]

5. Chavez says 1 dead in clash with unknown group along Colombia border

Chavez says 1 dead in clash with unknown group along Colombia border
The Associated Press
Published: June 1, 2008

CARACAS, Venezuela: President Hugo Chavez says one person has died in an armed encounter between Venezuelan soldiers and an unidentified subversive group along the Venezuelan-Colombian border.

Chavez says Venezuela's interior minister told him of Friday clash but did not know who the subversives were or what they were doing.

It wasn't clear if the encounter took place in Venezuela or Colombia.

Relations between the neighbors have been strained since Colombia raided a rebel camp in Ecuador last March, claiming to find evidence there that Chavez had financed Colombian guerrillas.

More:
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/05/31/america/LA-GEN-Venezuela-Colombia.php

These guys get around considering how "demobilized" they are, under the wise leadership of _Bush puppet Uribe.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Venezuela says troops kill Colombian "subversive"

Venezuela says troops kill Colombian "subversive"
Sat May 31, 2008 7:24pm EDT

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan troops killed a Colombian "subversive" in a border gun battle, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Saturday, an incident that could fuel new tensions between the two countries.

The South American neighbors have maintained a war of words in recent months, with Venezuela accusing Colombia of trying to spark war and sending troops into its territory.

Chavez said the Venezuelan army exchanged gunfire with armed "subversives" near the border, but did not offer details on where the incident took place or which group was involved.

"They fired at each other and one (member) of the subversive group died," Chavez said during a televised speech.

More:
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN3140185520080531?rpc=401&