Banana Executive Admits Participation in Peace Community Massacres

[Judi Lynn]

Banana Executive Admits Participation in Peace Community Massacres

Raul Hasbun, alias Pedro Bonito, a banana plantation owner turned paramilitary chieftain, gave preliminary testimony in Medellin about his participation in several massacres, including against the Peace Community. Massacres were a practice to ensure control of perceived guerrilla-controlled areas, and were seen as a mean to do business in the Uraba region. In his preliminary testimony on July 23, Hasbun implicated the former Army Fourth Brigade commander, General Alfonso Manosalva Florez, and said paramilitary meetings occurred at the brigade headquarters

http://forpeace.net/news/2008/07/31/colombia-peace-news-july-2008#banana

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Adding previous article on the massacre. As you'll note, Colombia's pResident blamed the FARCs:

Colombia: soldiers arrested in Peace Community massacre
Submitted by WW4 Report on Wed, 04/02/2008 - 03:26.

More than three years after a brutal massacre of two families in the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, Colombian prosecutors issued arrest warrants for 15 Army soldiers for participating in the killing and for terrorism. (Fiscalía press release, March 27)

The arrests were based on the chilling testimony of a paramilitary member who participated in the killing. He told prosecutors that he and others had suggested taking the children to a neighbor's house, but that their commander refused, saying six-year-old Natalia Bolivar and her 18-month-old brother Santiago would become guerrillas. Their father, he said, begged on his knees for them not to kill the children, before he himself was killed and, like the others, his body cut into pieces.

An hour's hike from there, Luis Eduardo Guerra, his son and girlfriend were also killed—directly by army soldiers, according to a witness.

At the time, high officials—President Uribe, Vice President Santos and the Defense Minister —said publicly that the army was not responsible, that evidence pointed to the FARC, or accused community leaders of belonging to the FARC.

The arrested soldiers include three lieutenants and 12 foot soldiers from the Velez Battalion of the Army's 17th Brigade, the brigade accused by the Peace Community of participation in many of the crimes committed in the area. Last November, prosecutors arrested a captain from the same battalion, and earlier called 69 soldiers in for questioning about the massacre.

More:
http://ww4report.com/node/5316

[Judi Lynn]

1. The massacre

Massacre at San Jose de Apartado

~snip~
On February 21, 2005 at 11:00 a.m. Luis Eduardo Guerra Guerra, member of the Internal Council of the Peace Community of San Jose Apartado, Deiner Andres Guerra Tuberquia (Luis Eduardo’s 11 year-old son) and Beyanira Areiza Guzman were abducted and held against their will in an area near the Mulatos River.

The next day, people from the surrounding region found the mule Luis Eduardo used as transportation on the path to La Resbalosa. At a nearby farm owned by Alfonso Bolivar they discovered bloody prints leading to a shallow grave containing several bodies, including those of children. Some of the bodies had been mutilated. They believed that the grave contained the bodies of Deiner Andres, Luis Eduardo and Beyanira, along with the entire Bolivar family.

At that point, several farmers were dispatched to San Jose Apartado where they informed the Internal Council of the Peace Community of their discovery. Simultaneously, neighbors of the Bolivar family installed themselves at the Bolivar farm to wait for a Judicial Commission to begin its investigation.

At the time the Corporacion Juridica Libertad was notified of the massacre, the afternoon of February 23, 2005, we sent a message to the Director of the Human Rights and International Law Program, Vice-President, Dr. Carlos Franco, requesting the immediate convocation of a special commission to begin a criminal investigation and recover the cadavers. By the next afternoon, February 24, a commission comprised of one federal official, one attorney and 10 judicial technicians arrived in San Jose de Apartado. On February 25 at noon the helicopters from the Colombian Armed Forces finally arrived at the Bolivar farm. That afternoon they confirmed that five bodies were in the grave: those of two children (a 6 year-old and a two year-old), a woman and two men. They were identified as Natalia Andrea Tuberquia Munoz (6 years old), Santiago Tuberquia Munoz (2 years old), Sandra Milena Munoz, Alfonso Bolivar and Alejandro Perez Cuiles. The adults showed signs of dismemberment.

On February 25 at 5:30 p.m., the bodies of Luis Eduardo, Deiner Andres, and Beyanira were found by members of the peace community near the Mulatos Medio health center. The bodies were lying in an open field. This discovery was immediately communicated to Dr. Franco and a judicial commission was dispatched to the area. Nevertheless, the bodies were not recovered until the morning of February 27.

On Monday, February 21, 2005 military troops from the XVII Brigade of the National Army arrived at El Barro where they held six families from the area until February 26. On February 26 a commission from the Peace Community arrived at the site and was able to procure the release of the families held captive. Those held by the XVII Brigade, including women and children, had not been allowed to leave for any reason, were continuously threatened and intimidated by the soldiers. They were not allowed to bring in any food to the children. Additionally, the soldiers dug two graves, telling their hostages that they would be killed and buried as soon as the soldiers received the go-ahead. During the time they held the six families, the soldiers made many threats against the Peace Community and their accompaniment.

When the soldiers arrived on February 21, they told the residents they had killed three guerrillas –a man, a woman and a child. Since Luis Eduardo, the leader of the Peace Community, his girlfriend Beyanira, and his son had just left El Barro, heading toward Cantarrana where they had a cacao farm, the families told the soldiers that they had killed members of the Peace Community. Upon learning this, the soldiers decided that the three had been killed by paramilitaries. They then indicated that they had actually come from Las Nieves and had killed four people from a family there.

The soldiers had scrawled anti-guerrilla graffiti signing as the Battalion 33 from the XVII Brigade. They removed the graffiti when the rescue commission arrived at the site.

The Peace Community commission and the accompaniment team received a message sent by those held at El Barro imploring them to rescue the families, stating that they were being held totally against their will and without access to food. Once contact was established with the official responsible for the 33 Battalion, they told him that members of the Peace Community and accompaniment had arrived at el Barro to free the families held there, exactly where the troops were quartered. The official denied any families were at the site and stated it would be a waste of time to attempt to free them as the area was completely abandoned.

Saturday, February 26, the area where Luis Eduardo, Beyanira and Deiner’s bodies were found was totally cordoned off by the Counter-Guerrilla Police of Uraba Battalion Velez and soldiers from Battalion 33. A soldier from the 33 Battalion found a bloody machete near the bodies, which he picked up. In front of all those present, he took the machete to the Mulato River and scrubbed it with sand. This accomplished; he told the soldiers that the machete was the weapon used to kill the victims. This incident was immediately communicated to Captain Castro of the Police Force. The next day the Federal Commission that had recovered the bodies, and members of the NGO that had participated in the commission, left documentation of the act they had witnessed –the alteration and concealing of evidence on the part of the soldiers.

During the three days the Peace Community Commission and their accompaniment were present, it was confirmed that the only uniformed individuals in the area had been soldiers from the XVII Brigade, 33 Battalion. Many people testified that on Friday, February 18, 2005 a major military operation was launched from several angles with troops converging on Mulatos. They received testimony from farmers from Las Nieves, Mulatos and La Esperanza confirming that several families have disappeared. Families in La Resbalosa announced there were waiting for accompaniment and planned to leave the area.

During the past twelve months, the Corporacion Juridica Libertad has repeatedly informed the national government that an effective means of protecting the Peace Community needed to be put in place. And, as stated on various occasions by the Inter-American Human Rights Court, there is an especially urgent need to remove the XVII Brigade from the area as their ties to the paramilitary have been amply demonstrated. The various state entities responsible for the coordination and implementation of provisional measures, including the central government, the Attorney General, and the Public Prosecutor, have been uniformly unwilling to comply with the suggestions made by the Inter-American Human Rights Commission.

http://isla.igc.org/Features/Colombia/MassacreFeb2005.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hope the fascists are proud of their accomplishment against the citizens of this Peace Community, and the fact they almost were able to pass it off on the FARCs, just as they attempt to mischaracterize dead farmers the military and the death squads claim are FARCs, as well, by putting FARC clothing or weapons on them from their "kits."

You know I've got the links on this.

[Judi Lynn]

8. Sorry, dupe post. /t

[Judi Lynn]

2. Public statement on the murder of the founder of the Peace Community:

Public Statement



London, February 28th, 2005



Everyone involved in Peace Brigades International Colombia would like to express their deep concern and sadness at the murder of Luis Eduardo Guerra, well-known leader of the San José de Apartadó Peace Community in Antioquia, Colombia, and seven other people, among them women and children. This shocking massacre took place between the 21st and 22nd of February.

PBI accompanied Luis Eduardo from the time we established our team in Urabá in 1998. He was one of the community leaders we most admired for the clarity and consistency of his ideas and his total commitment to peace and human rights despite systematic death threats against him. These threats forced Luis Eduardo to leave San José de Apartadó, but after being internally displaced for more than two years he returned in 2004. PBI accompanied him in the sadness of his departure and in the joy of his return.

Luis Eduardo Guerra represented the peace community in numerous meetings with the Colombian government and state agencies, the diplomatic corps accredited in Colombia, and national and international organisations. He met politicians, journalists and solidarity committees during his tours in countries such as Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the United States.

According to statements from the San José de Apartadó Peace Community and the Corporation for Judicial Liberty (both accompanied by Peace Brigades International) eyewitnesses confirm that on February 21, near the Mulatos river, Luis Eduardo Guerra, his son, his partner and another person were detained by armed men in uniform who identified themselves as belonging to the 11th Army Brigade. They were then taken to the farm of Alfonso Bolívar Tuberquia, a member of the Peace Council of the hamlet of Mulatos.

Luis Eduardo Guerra, Alfonso Bolívar and their families were not seen again. Several local people went back the next day to Alfonso Bolívar Tuberquia’s farm and discovered traces of blood and human remains. When the Internal Council of the San José de Apartadó Peace Community received this information, it immediately requested that the relevant state agencies investigate these occurrences.

On February 25, the Peace Community organised a fact-finding commission and invited state agencies and national and international NGOs to take part. This commission, which included about 100 members of the community, walked from San José to the hamlets of Mulatos and La Resbalosa accompanied by the Corporation for Judicial Liberty, Peace Brigades International, Fellowship Of Reconciliation and Concern America. At the same time, officials from the Attorney General’s office and the Internal Affairs Agency arrived in the area by helicopter.

The judicial commission carried out the exhumation of a grave on the farm of Alfonso Bolívar Tuberquia where the mutilated bodies of three adults were found in addition to the bodies of two children aged six and two. Later in the day, near the hamlet of La Resbalosa, three more bodies were found (two adults and a boy of eleven). Members of the community recognised them as those of Luis Eduardo Guerra and his family. The body of Luis Eduardo Guerra bore signs of torture. In both instances members of Peace Brigades International were present.

This massacre joins the list of constant attacks the San José de Apartadó Peace Community has faced since it was founded in 1997, resulting in more than 130 murders for which as yet no one has been convicted.

More:
http://isla.igc.org/Features/Colombia/Massacre2.html

[Judi Lynn]

3. More on this massacre by monsters, including U.S.-taxpayer-supported Colombian soldiers:

~snip~
The background of events in this region of Colombia is comprehensively summarized in a Background section of this report. A list (spreadsheet from the community) of 500 violations of human rights, including other massacres that the people of San Jose de Apartado have suffered, is also presented. San Jose’s website (in Spanish) offers more recent information. San Jose represents the experience (website with comprehensive listing of human rights violations in Colombia, in Spanish) of many rural communities in Colombia: the aggression toward them is systematic.

The culpability of the armed forces in the most serious of human rights violations has been acknowledged by the Colombian Procuraduria, which in May 2005 issued a decision (document in Spanish) that disciplinary action will be taken against units of the Army and Police that were in command of the region in which San Jose de Apartado is located in the years 2000 to 2002, for their responsibility in the same types of violations of human rights then in San Jose, including massacres. Please see the Background document and list of violations from the community for details on those violations.

US aid must not support the Colombian Police and Army in such behavior.

We expect that similar action from the Procuraduria will result in due time following the massacre of February 2005, which they are now investigating.

But whether the sanctions against those responsible in the military will be effective remains to be seen. Often in the past such sanctions have not been so.

Information we gathered during our visit:

• We met April 18th and 19th with the people of San Jose, who told us among other important things that when they travel through the check- points along the road to Apartado they still suffer personal harassment and confiscation of purchases and other belongings. A group of leaders summarized their concerns (notes of interviews with community leaders) about the police station placed in the village after the massacre, inability to get justice from the government, their stigmatization in the media by government officials, and the history of recent abuses.In private meetings, witnesses shared information on the massacre of February 21 and related events with us. Some were able to identify forces in that area during the massacre as Army, and one said soldiers there told them the Army did it. Please see our summary notes on this point, and our notes from interviewing witness1, witness2, witness3, witness4 and witness5. For their protection, information that could lead to the identification of these witnesses has been expunged. Witnesses were assassinated after giving testimony following a massacre in San Jose a few years ago.
  
• We had supper on the evening of May 19 with five members of the Apartado Municipal Council, and met with the mayor (Alcalde of Apartado) in his office on April 20. Please see our notes regarding their hostile attitudes toward San Jose.
  
• We met with General Hector Jaime Fandino-Rincon, Commander of the 17th Brigade of the Colombian Army stationed in Carepa, near Apartado (link to photo) in his office at the Brigade Headquarters for an hour on April 20. Our notes on the discussion there outline how he argued that his troops were not involved in the massacre of February 21, and his ideas implying it was due to an internal dispute within the Peace Community or an action of the FARC guerrillas.
  
  
• The historical context regarding some persons mentioned in these notes is in the section, Peculiar Characters for Application of Democratic Security in Apartado, beginning on page 19 of the Background document.
  
  
• We met with Colonel Yamik Armando Moreno of the National Police, in charge of the region in which San Jose and Apartado are located, in his headquarters for two and a half hours on April 20. As indicated in our notes from that meeting, he presented a version of events surrounding the massacre, and a theory of who did it, that was nearly identical to that of General Fandino. He expressed a very hostile attitude toward the Peace Community, while maintaining a friendly one toward us.
  
• We met with the Procurador of the Nation, Edgardo Jose Maya-Villazon, who told us that the investigation by his office of the February 2005 massacre in San Jose and related events there was in an advanced state. He arranged for us to meet with his staff to discuss our findings. He said the Police station should be in the place where the Peace Community wants it, which would be consistent with the ruling of the Inter- American Court, a ruling which he said the Colombian government should follow.
  
• We met with Carlos Franco, Director of the President of Colombia’s Human Rights Program, on Monday April 25, 2005. He strongly defended the principle of a police station in San Jose, and listed a large number of events (such as hand grenades exploding in the village) that he felt discredited the community. Please see our notes of the meeting
  
  
• The representative at the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Luis Carlos Monge with whom we met, as well as Procurador Maya and his staff, told us that the location of the police station within San Jose does not meet conditions imposed by the Inter-American Court for Human Rights, nor with Colombian law.
  
• The members of the Procurador’s staff who met with us told us that:
  • “Unfortunately the public forces also violate human rights and the law.”
    
  • “High Army powers have recently trained people who historically do not respect Human Rights.”
    
  • “Current negotiations re. demobilization could intensify paramilitary presence, making the situation like the massacre more common.” With regard to a perception that the Peace Community is “taken ideologically by the guerillas,” and similar statements from the Police, some Apartado council members and the Mayor, and some other Colombians with whom our delegation met:
  
  We would not expect members of the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado not to know guerillas personally. Members of the Peace Community have grown up with and been friends with a wide variety of local people, some of whom wound up with the guerillas.
  
• San Jose presents non-violent resistance in a country that only knows violent resistance. That is why they are important and why FARC guerillas have killed nineteen residents since the community declared itself a Peace Community.
  
• We would expect some residents of San Jose, as neutrals, to be in touch with friends in the guerillas, just as they would be in touch with friends in Apartado who may have been, for example, trained by the Army to act as paramilitaries. Their lives are in Apartado.
  
• So when, as Colonel Moreno of the national police reported, a cell-phone call from a woman in San Jose to a friend in the guerillas was intercepted, with the essence of the conversation being: “did you do that “ (referring to some guerilla action), this does not mean that San Jose is violating neutrality. When members of the community encounter guerillas out in the countryside and talk with them (as Col. Moreno reports the Police have observed), this does not mean that San Jose is violating neutrality. We would expect friends to keep in touch for a variety of social reasons (including births, deaths, personal support), and that conversation would flow at those encounters. Officers and others who grew up in privileged circumstances may not personally know any guerillas or campesinos, and may not appreciate the above points.
  
• Colonel Moreno told our delegation that another reason he believes the leaders of the community are overtly against the government is that their website billboards the word “RESIST”. One’s perceptions are often influenced by one’s peer group. The authors of the website more likely intend an exhortation to resist the kind of population displacement that has already been forced on several million Colombian campesinos.
  
• San Jose is caught in a Civil War. The most principled stance is to be neutral, not contributing to the killing of friends, in-laws, brothers and sisters who may be guerillas, paramilitaries and armed forces of the nation. The position of the Peace Community is one that we recognize and respect, and you may very well respect it too.

More:
http://www.colombiasupport.net/2005/6_26_RPT/san_jose_investigation.htm

[Judi Lynn]

4. From the School of the Americas Watch:

Massacre in Colombian Peace Community

Once again, the trail of blood leads to the SOA:
SOA graduate commands accused brigade

"We have always said, and in that we are clear, that until this very day we are resisting. And our work is to continue resisting and defending our rights. We don't know until when, because the truth we've lived in our story is this: today we are here talking; tomorrow we may be dead. Today we are here in San Jose de Apartado; tomorrow the majority of people here could be displaced because of a massacre."

Luis Eduardo Guerra, in an interview on January 15 of this year, 37 days before he was assassinated by the Colombian military.



On February 21-22, 2005, eight members of the San Jose de Apartado Peace Community in Uraba, Colombia -including three young children, were brutally massacred. Witnesses identified the killers as members of the Colombian military, and peace community members saw the army's 17th and 11th Brigades in the area around the time of the murders.

Among those killed was Luis Eduardo Guerra, an internationally recognized peace activist and a co-founder of the Peace Community. In November 2002, Luis travelled from Colombia to Fort Benning, Georgia to speak out against the School of the Americas and to give a first hand testimony about the brutal impact that SOA training and US foreign policy have on the dire situation in Colombia.

General Hector Jaime Fandino Rincon is the commander of the 17th Brigade of the Colombian army. Like Luis Eduardo, Fandino Rincon also travelled to the School of the Americas -- not to speak out for justice and peace like Luis, but to attend the "Small-Unit Infantry Tactics" course in order to become "familiar with small-unit operational concepts and principles at the squad and platoon level, receive training in planning and conducting small-unit tactical operations." Fandino Rincon is a 1976 graduate of the notorious School of the Americas. In December of 2004 he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General.

Since the massacre, the Colombian administration of Alvaro Uribe has done little to investigate the murders. No investigation into the military or the 17th or 11th Brigade has begun. All the focus now of the government agencies intervening in the situation is to force the community members to testify at risk of their lives' instead of focusing on the military that was in the area at the time of the murders.

Police and military forces have flooded San Jose against the wishes of the Peace Community, which has taken a fundamental stance against any and all armed actors. Since the massacre, all but five of the 100 families that formed the Peace Community have been forced to leave their homes and land.

More:
http://www.soaw.org/article.php?id=1024

[Judi Lynn]

5. Found a photo of the courageous Colombian General who assisted the bloody murder of unarmed people

at the Peace Community, the same place Uribe claimed had FARC sympathizers living within it.

http://www.choco7dias.com.nyud.net:8090/534/index.3.jpg

Bully, Bully, General! Kill them when they're
unarmed, unprepared to defend themselves.
Warrior Alfonso Manosalva Florez.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Testimony recorded by Miami Herald's El Nuevo Herald's reporters on the massacre at El Aro,

the planning meeting of which was attended, according to witnesses, by the sitting Mayor of Antiocha, Álvaro Uribe. This is google translated from an article which was published by "El Nuevo Herald" in Miami:

Details of testimony involving Uribe to slaughter
Rural Press Agency / Saturday April 26, 2008 / English


Because of its importance, we reproduce this article published in the Nuevo Herald of Miami, written by journalists Gonzalo Guillen and Gerardo Reyes.

Former Colombian paramilitary Francisco Villalba Enrique Hernandez told the Attorney General of Colombia last February that President Alvaro Uribe and his brother Santiago participated in planning a slaughter in the northern department of Antioquia, according to a copy of testimony obtained by The Nuevo Herald.

Part of the confession Villalba, whose credibility Uribe attacked this week, was used by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) to condemn Colombia for this slaughter, which occurred in the village of El Aro in 1997, according to an extensive judgement of that court two years ago.

Villalba did not compromise the agent nor his brother in testimony before the IACHR, but his story was part of the evidence that served to the court to conclude that in the El Aro massacre of law enforcement officers worked with groups of the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) to murder in cold blood at least 15 peasants "in a state of helplessness, stripping others of their property and generating terror and displacement''according to the judgement of 160 pages.

The same ruling cites a witness in the sense that the governance of the department of Antioquia, then in charge of President Uribe today, refused to provide protection to the inhabitants of El Aro to learn that the paramilitary attack was imminent.

"Faced with this situation, as two months before the siege, the Board of Communal Action of El Aro requested protection for governor , which was not granted'', he expressed the judgement of CDIH.

So far only indirect and piecemeal knew some aspects of the statement Villalba before the prosecution revealed by Colombian Uribe unexpectedly during a radio interview this week to reject the remarks of former paramilitary.

But El Nuevo Herald obtained a full copy of the statement, in effect, contains repeated testimony that Villalba Uribe when he was governor of Antioquia department, rub shoulders with the top leaders of the AUC and gave carte blanche to carry out the slaughter.

" that what would be done that we did''said Villalba to describe a meeting attended by leaders of the AUC, military and brothers Alvaro Uribe and Santiago.

The statement of 19 pages describing Villaba with name and details a close relationship of camaraderie and complicity between military authorities and police with the ringleaders of the death squads.

Villalba denounced the killing of officials from the prosecutor investigating the slaughter, the murder of human rights activists who cooperated with the authorities in clarifying the facts and three bombings, one of them with cyanide that put him in a drink malta.

The statement contains at least two inconsistencies: that one of the soldiers who Villalba mentioned as a participant in a meeting in late 1997 had died in April this year and that the date of slaughter was not in November, as he contended, but in October of that year.

When the paramilitaries arrived in El Aro, a hamlet of about 500 inhabitants in a mountainous area of northern department of Antioquia, wore a list of their victims, Villalba told the newspaper El Colombiano de Medellin.

A few were killed by a shot in the neck, bocabajo, in the town square, also finalized a couple of 14 years, but in the case of the owner of the grocery store Areiza Marco Aurelio Osorio, a trader for 64 years, appreciated in the region for their generosity, the paramilitaries are ensañamiento with an astonishing coldness.

According to testimonies collected by Human Rights Watch and Colombian journalists, he ordered the trader to prepare a sancocho, and after that it served as tied to an orange and alive, he removed the heart, eyes and then pulled him after the testicles.

Some children who hid near the plaza saw him around

"The Hubs hard and then chill''as a child, told one of the minors to journalists Carlos Giraldo and Miguel Garrido, El Colombiano.

The paramilitaries were admitted to El Aro on Saturday October 25, a day before municipal elections. Taking people's lasted about four days, during which some 120 paramilitary uniforms with the AUC peasants murdered, raped women, looted shops and stole about 900 head of cattle, according to court documents.

Villalba, aged 36, confessed that he had participated in this and other massacres of the AUC.

Three months after the events of El Aro, appeared before the judicial authorities because he was tired of so many deaths and planned attacks were not consistent with that, he said. Today meets a penalty of 33 years in prison in the La Picota prison in Bogota.

According to their statements to the police, army and the AUC planned making escarmentar The Ring for the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and rescued about eight breeders and traders that the rebels had abducted.

Villalba said that three days before the raid in El Aro had a meeting at an estate of a landowner-not-identified in the municipality of La Caucana, in northwestern Antioquia. In addition to meeting attended by military commanders of the Fourth Brigade and the Police, leaders of the AUC and the Uribe brothers, he added.

"He also Santiago and Alvaro Uribe Uribe, who was governor when it'', said the witness.

When asked if he knew earlier to Uribe, Villalba said that in the case of Alvaro not, but that Santiago "has always been known in the organization because it still has a block of Self-Defense in Santa Rosa de Osos''.

Villalba said that he learned who was Uribe after the slaughter when the then governor was presented at the same farm to congratulate them on the success of the operation.

"I knew that Alvaro Uribe was because he was presented, talked to us and said that the operation was a success, that the hostages had left unharmed''said Villa." They came with an escort named Serna'' He added.

The eight hostages were released.

This week, Uribe said that ever has been in La Caucana.

Villaba told the prosecution that he saw again years later to escort Serna, but this time as a guard at the National Penitentiary Institute (INPEC), in La Picota prison in Bogota. Serna was recognized and hailed what he said.

At the meeting prior to slaughter present were leaders of the AUC Carlos Castano, then head up the organization and who was assassinated; Salvatore Mancuso, second in command, and others who identified with the nickname '''Ninety, "Cobra' 'The Black Ricardo and Junior.

It also came a man who identified wavering, as Jose Ardila, the peasant self-defense organizations legalized by the government and known as Convivir.

Referring to whereabouts of Ardila, Villalba said:

" stating he was against Alvaro Uribe, what drew him from prison, was sentenced to 60 years and it disappeared, I do not know where to be.''

Mancuso was sentenced by the Colombian justice to 40 years in prison for massacres of La Granja and El Aro. The latter were tortured and killed five people on July 11, 1996.

According to the declarant, Alvaro Uribe "was invited by Carlos Castano''to the meeting prior to slaughter and then submitted by Mancuso before the audience.

At that meeting, Uribe spoke in public, detailed Villalba.

"Alvaro Uribe said recommendations, which the abductees, who saved all out and that it would have to do to do so'', said the witness.

As to the farm where the meetings were conducted, the former paramilitary noted that "there are some on the left pens and stables, farm that had no name but still exists, we arrived one day before , with my 22 Men''.

Villalba told Carlos A. Camargo Hernandez, tax specialist of the ninth National Unity of Public Prosecutions for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law,''was that the meeting day, began as at 10 o'clock in the morning and ended 3 in the afternoon, after lunch and all that.''

According to the witness, Mancuso and Castano arrived in a grey helicopter, small, fell to the farm and directly''in the area "had (sic) as 100 men {death squads} with the people and the 22 that I had.''

When the prosecutor asked him whether the death squads were assisted by the security forces, Villalba said: "Yes doctor, Fourth Brigade of the {Army}. I say this because before the slaughter there was a meeting, there were (sic) withdrawals troops of the roadblocks , suspended troop roadblocks on the road.''

Villalba told the prosecutor that their statements prior to February this year had handed over to justice details of this and other massacres officials Technical Investigation Corps of the Attorney General of Medellin.

He also stated on the participation of the brothers Uribe, of which were recorded on tape, he said.

But "the recordings were in the hands of Mancuso''he said Villalba, and CTI officials were murdered in September 1999.

"They killed them in Medellin, killing people in the banda de La Terraza and I was sent to me called''he said.

The Terrace is a huge agency hired murderers of Medellin that has operated under the direction of powerful drug traffickers and paramilitaries.

On the meeting attended by the brothers Uribe Velez, said Villalba, also spoke several times with the director of CTI Medellin, "a gentleman of gafitas, young, and told him what La Caucana and did not say nothing,''he stayed silent.

The witness also said that talked about these issues with Maria Teresa Gallo, tax specialist terrorism and human rights.

"I promised many things, like change of identity, out of the prison and send me to another country''he said.

In January 2007 Villalba was transferred to Medellin to testify against the military Juan Manuel Grajales by another slaughter committed by paramilitaries in November 1997 in La Balsita municipality of Dabeiba, Antioquia.

On that occasion 15 people were killed and among those responsible, he says, "was also the brother of Alvaro Uribe, Santiago, who gave as 20 peeled for that.''

Villalba has a second sentence of 37 years in prison for the slaughter of La Balsita. The''peeled''that would have given the brother of President Uribe, belonged to the paramilitary banda The Twelve Apostles, which according to several versions judicial commanded directly Santiago Uribe.

Villalba said that the February 13, 1998 decided to surrender voluntarily to the Prosecution, as military assets, drug traffickers and paramilitaries were planning several crimes with which he disagreed.

The plans were met. According to the witness, this group killed the journalist and humorist Jaime Garzon, the lawyer Jaime Umaña and the human rights defender Jesus Maria Valle Jaramillo.

Valley had warned since 1996 that drug traffickers, military and death squads were about to commit the slaughter of El Aro. In response, President Uribe today, then governor of Antioquia, Valle publicly accused of being enemy of the armed forces and the army tried for libel.

Then he was murdered in Medellin.

A Valley, Villalba said, "what killed the banda de La Terraza and I was sent to me callara {...} he was sent to kill by investigations being carried on the slaughter of Aro. It was one of those who helped me because I knew when I handed me iban to kill and not to say anything.''

The prosecutor who was responsible for investigating Valley, had to leave the country, he said.

In addition to President Uribe and his brother Santiago, in the court files include former General Carlos Alberto Ospina-commander of the armed forces during the first government-Uribe, who at the time of the incident was commander of the Fourth Army Brigade, stationed in Medellin, and the overall Army Alfonso Manosalva Florez, who according to witnesses like Villalba and Mancuso gave the death squads list of people to be killed in La Granja and El Aro.

President Uribe noted as one of the inconsistencies in the statement that the assertion that Villalba Manosalva was present at a meeting in November 1997 with paramilitary leaders when he died in April this year.

Villalba recounted that has been the victim of three attacks. The first occurred in jail in the town of Palmira after having spoken with the prosecutor Gallo.

"A boy of self-defence groups, Edison Parra, {convicted of murder in the Llano}gave me a stab on the left side, on the chest.''

Two months later, "in the same courtyard made me another attack with cyanide in a Pony Malta {brand of drink malta}. I did Edwin Tirado, also of the AUC, which is now in jail in Monteria, he was a Former worker''Mancuso.

"The attacks were attributed to Mancuso, in those days I was declaring against the security forces'', he added.
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Thank you for contributing your translation suggestion to Google Translate.We'll use your suggestion to improve translation quality in future updates to our system. Details of testimony involving Uribe to slaughter
Rural Press Agency / Saturday April 26, 2008 / English

Because of its importance, we reproduce this article published in the Nuevo Herald of Miami, written by journalists Gonzalo Guillen and Gerardo Reyes.

Former Colombian paramilitary Francisco Villalba Enrique Hernandez told the Attorney General of Colombia last February that President Alvaro Uribe and his brother Santiago participated in planning a slaughter in the northern department of Antioquia, according to a copy of testimony obtained by The Nuevo Herald.

Part of the confession Villalba, whose credibility Uribe attacked this week, was used by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) to condemn Colombia for this slaughter, which occurred in the village of El Aro in 1997, according to an extensive judgement of that court two years ago.

Villalba did not compromise the agent nor his brother in testimony before the IACHR, but his story was part of the evidence that served to the court to conclude that in the El Aro massacre of law enforcement officers worked with groups of the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) to murder in cold blood at least 15 peasants "in a state of helplessness, stripping others of their property and generating terror and displacement''according to the judgement of 160 pages. The same ruling cites a witness in the sense that the governance of the department of Antioquia, then in charge of President Uribe today, refused to provide protection to the inhabitants of El Aro to learn that the paramilitary attack was imminent. "Faced with this situation, as two months before the siege, the Board of Communal Action of El Aro requested protection for governor , which was not granted'', he expressed the judgement of CDIH. So far only indirect and piecemeal knew some aspects of the statement Villalba before the prosecution revealed by Colombian Uribe unexpectedly during a radio interview this week to reject the remarks of former paramilitary. But El Nuevo Herald obtained a full copy of the statement, in effect, contains repeated testimony that Villalba Uribe when he was governor of Antioquia department, rub shoulders with the top leaders of the AUC and gave carte blanche to carry out the slaughter.

"{Alvaro Uribe told us} that what would be done that we did''said Villalba to describe a meeting attended by leaders of the AUC, military and brothers Alvaro Uribe and Santiago. <br> <br> The statement of 19 pages describing Villaba with name and details a close relationship of camaraderie and complicity between military authorities and police with the ringleaders of the death squads.
Villalba denounced the killing of officials from the prosecutor investigating the slaughter, the murder of human rights activists who cooperated with the authorities in clarifying the facts and three bombings, one of them with cyanide that put him in a drink malta.

The statement contains at least two inconsistencies: that one of the soldiers who Villalba mentioned as a participant in a meeting in late 1997 had died in April this year and that the date of slaughter was not in November, as he contended, but in October of that year.

When the paramilitaries arrived in El Aro, a hamlet of about 500 inhabitants in a mountainous area of northern department of Antioquia, wore a list of their victims, Villalba told the newspaper El Colombiano de Medellin.
A few were killed by a shot in the neck, bocabajo, in the town square, also finalized a couple of 14 years, but in the case of the owner of the grocery store Areiza Marco Aurelio Osorio, a trader for 64 years, appreciated in the region for their generosity, the paramilitaries are ensañamiento with an astonishing coldness.

According to testimonies collected by Human Rights Watch and Colombian journalists, he ordered the trader to prepare a sancocho, and after that it served as tied to an orange and alive, he removed the heart, eyes and then pulled him after the testicles. Some children who hid near the plaza saw him around "The Hubs {women} hard and then chill''as a child, told one of the minors to journalists Carlos Giraldo and Miguel Garrido, El Colombiano.

The paramilitaries were admitted to El Aro on Saturday October 25, a day before municipal elections. Taking people's lasted about four days, during which some 120 paramilitary uniforms with the AUC peasants murdered, raped women, looted shops and stole about 900 head of cattle, according to court documents.

Villalba, aged 36, confessed that he had participated in this and other massacres of the AUC.
Three months after the events of El Aro, appeared before the judicial authorities because he was tired of so many deaths and planned attacks were not consistent with that, he said. Today meets a penalty of 33 years in prison in the La Picota prison in Bogota.

According to their statements to the police, army and the AUC planned making escarmentar The Ring for the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and rescued about eight breeders and traders that the rebels had abducted.

Villalba said that three days before the raid in El Aro had a meeting at an estate of a landowner-not-identified in the municipality of La Caucana, in northwestern Antioquia. In addition to meeting attended by military commanders of the Fourth Brigade and the Police, leaders of the AUC and the Uribe brothers, he added.
"He also Santiago and Alvaro Uribe Uribe, who was governor when it'', said the witness.
When asked if he knew earlier to Uribe, Villalba said that in the case of Alvaro not, but that Santiago "has always been known in the organization because it still has a block of Self-Defense in Santa Rosa de Osos''.
Villalba said that he learned who was Uribe after the slaughter when the then governor was presented at the same farm to congratulate them on the success of the operation.
"I knew that Alvaro Uribe was because he was presented, talked to us and said that the operation was a success, that the hostages had left unharmed''said Villa." They came with an escort named Serna'' He added.

The eight hostages were released.
This week, Uribe said that ever has been in La Caucana.
Villaba told the prosecution that he saw again years later to escort Serna, but this time as a guard at the National Penitentiary Institute (INPEC), in La Picota prison in Bogota. Serna was recognized and hailed what he said.

At the meeting prior to slaughter present were leaders of the AUC Carlos Castano, then head up the organization and who was assassinated; Salvatore Mancuso, second in command, and others who identified with the nickname '''Ninety, "Cobra' 'The Black Ricardo and Junior. <br> <br> It also came a man who identified wavering, as Jose Ardila, the peasant self-defense organizations legalized by the government and known as Convivir.

Referring to whereabouts of Ardila, Villalba said:
"{Ardila} stating he was against Alvaro Uribe, what drew him from prison, was sentenced to 60 years and it disappeared, I do not know where to be.''

Mancuso was sentenced by the Colombian justice to 40 years in prison for massacres of La Granja and El Aro. The latter were tortured and killed five people on July 11, 1996.

According to the declarant, Alvaro Uribe "was invited by Carlos Castano''to the meeting prior to slaughter and then submitted by Mancuso before the audience.

At that meeting, Uribe spoke in public, detailed Villalba. "Alvaro Uribe said recommendations, which the abductees, who saved all out and that it would have to do to do so'', said the witness.

As to the farm where the meetings were conducted, the former paramilitary noted that "there are some on the left pens and stables, farm that had no name but still exists, we arrived one day before {the meeting}, with my 22 Men''.

Villalba told Carlos A. Camargo Hernandez, tax specialist of the ninth National Unity of Public Prosecutions for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law,''was that the meeting day, began as at 10 o'clock in the morning and ended {to}3 in the afternoon, after lunch and all that.''

According to the witness, Mancuso and Castano arrived in a grey helicopter, small, {that} fell to the farm and directly''in the area "had (sic) as 100 men {death squads} with the people and the 22 that I had.''

> When the prosecutor asked him whether the death squads were assisted by the security forces, Villalba said: "Yes doctor, Fourth Brigade of the {Army}. I say this because before the slaughter there was a meeting, there were (sic) withdrawals troops of the roadblocks , suspended troop roadblocks on the road.''

Villalba told the prosecutor that their statements prior to February this year had handed over to justice details of this and other massacres officials Technical Investigation Corps of the Attorney General of Medellin.

He also stated on the participation of the brothers Uribe, of which were recorded on tape, he said.

But "the recordings were in the hands of Mancuso''he said Villalba, and CTI officials were murdered in September 1999.

"They killed them in Medellin, killing people in the banda de La Terraza and I was sent to me called''he said. <br> <br> The Terrace is a huge agency hired murderers of Medellin that has operated under the direction of powerful drug traffickers and paramilitaries.

On the meeting attended by the brothers Uribe Velez, said Villalba, also spoke several times with the director of CTI Medellin, "a gentleman of gafitas, young, and told him what La Caucana and did not say nothing,''he stayed silent.

> The witness also said that talked about these issues with Maria Teresa Gallo, tax specialist terrorism and human rights.

"I promised many things, like change of identity, out of the prison and send me to another country''he said.

In January 2007 Villalba was transferred to Medellin to testify against the military Juan Manuel Grajales by another slaughter committed by paramilitaries in November 1997 in La Balsita municipality of Dabeiba, Antioquia.

On that occasion 15 people were killed and among those responsible, he says, "was also the brother of Alvaro Uribe, Santiago, who gave as 20 peeled for that.''

Villalba has a second sentence of 37 years in prison for the slaughter of La Balsita. The''peeled''that would have given the brother of President Uribe, belonged to the paramilitary banda The Twelve Apostles, which according to several versions judicial commanded directly Santiago Uribe.

Villalba said that the February 13, 1998 decided to surrender voluntarily to the Prosecution, as military assets, drug traffickers and paramilitaries were planning several crimes with which he disagreed.

The plans were met. According to the witness, this group killed the journalist and humorist Jaime Garzon, the lawyer Jaime Umaña and the human rights defender Jesus Maria Valle Jaramillo. <br> <br> Valley had warned since 1996 that drug traffickers, military and death squads were about to commit the slaughter of El Aro. In response, President Uribe today, then governor of Antioquia, Valle publicly accused of being enemy of the armed forces and the army tried for libel.

Then he was murdered in Medellin.

A Valley, Villalba said, "what killed the banda de La Terraza and I was sent to me callara <....> he was sent to kill by investigations being carried on the slaughter of Aro. It was one of those who helped me because I knew when I handed me iban to kill and not to say anything.''

The prosecutor who was responsible for investigating Valley, had to leave the country, he said.

In addition to President Uribe and his brother Santiago, in the court files include former General Carlos Alberto Ospina-commander of the armed forces during the first government-Uribe, who at the time of the incident was commander of the Fourth Army Brigade, stationed in Medellin, and the overall Army Alfonso Manosalva Florez, who according to witnesses like Villalba and Mancuso gave the death squads list of people to be killed in La Granja and El Aro.

President Uribe noted as one of the inconsistencies in the statement that the assertion that Villalba Manosalva was present at a meeting in November 1997 with paramilitary leaders when he died in April this year. <br> <br> Villalba recounted that has been the victim of three attacks. The first occurred in jail in the town of Palmira after having spoken with the prosecutor Gallo.

"A boy of self-defence groups, Edison Parra, {convicted of murder in the Llano}, gave me a stab on the left side, on the chest.''

Two months later, "in the same courtyard made me another attack with cyanide in a Pony Malta . I did Edwin Tirado, also of the AUC, which is now in jail in Monteria, he was a Former worker''Mancuso.

"The attacks were attributed to Mancuso, in those days I was declaring against the security forces'', he added.

http://www.prensarural.org/spip/spip.php?article1208

[Judi Lynn]

7. A shorter look at the El Aro Massacre from Wikipedia:

Here's a case of displacement which is still too close in time, implicating Colombia's President:
El Aro massacre
Location municipality of Ituango, Antioquia
Colombia
Date October 22, 1997

El Aro massacre (Spanish: Masacre del Aro) was a massacre in Colombia occurred on October 22, 1997 in the municipality of Ituango, Department of Antioquia. 15 leftist supporters of the FARC were massacred by paramilitary groups with support of members of the Colombian army. Perpetrators also violated women, burned down 43 houses, stole cattle and forcedly displaced 900 people.<1><2>

The Third Section of the Council of State determined that the Colombian government was responsible for the massacre and ordered to pay damages to the victims' families.<3>

On November 23, 2008, Colombian President, Alvaro Uribe announced that there was a witness to the massacre that was involving him as one of the masterminds along General Ospina, General Rosso and paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso. The witness, a former member of the paramilitary group later identified as Francisco Enrique Villalba Hernández<4> said that "Uribe had thank them for the massacre because they had help freed 6 hostages, including one of his cousins and that Uribe's brother had lend 20 paramilitary members for the crime" and that they had met in the town of La Cuacana to plan the massacre.<5><6>

Uribe answered that these declaration showed inconsistencies because involved an official in the supposed meeting that had died months prior to the events. Uribe mentioned that "since 1988 public officials knows where I've been, where I have slept and with whom I have met". Uribe was Governor of Antioquia between 1995 and 1997 during which a program of legal paramilitary groups known as CONVIVIR were formed to combat the guerrillas.<7><8>

Uribe was also questioned by congressman Gustavo Petro about the use of a Department of Antioquia government owned helicopter that was allegedly used to transport the paramilitaries to the region of El Aro to perpetrate the massacre. Uribe denied these claims saying that all the helicopters had a recorded flight history. He was also questioned a beeper message intercepted to one of the paramilitaries involved in the massacre that said "Te recuerdo llamar al Gobernador. Preséntame y que yo lo visito en la tarde" (I remind you to call the governor. Introduce me and I will visit him in the afternoon). Uribe defended himself from these claims saying that the criminals could have used the term "governor" as a slang to refer to anything.<9>

Imprisoned paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso affirmed that these people had died in combat and were not civilians, but guerrillas. Mancuso was sentenced to serve 40 years in prison for the massacre.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Aro_massacre

(The date "November 23, 2008" should be "APRIL 23, 2008" according to records. It's an error.)

[Judi Lynn]

9. Throwing this NEW news from today on the pile: Arny colonel confesses

Colombia: army colonel admits participation in Peace Community massacre
Submitted by Bill Weinberg on Sat, 08/02/2008 - 20:15.

Retired Colombian army colonel Guillermo Armando Gordillo confessed to the Fiscalía (attorney general) his participation in the slaying of eight people, including three children, at the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó on Feb. 21, 2005. The Fiscalía said Col. Gordillo was in command of the Bolívar Company, Vélez Battalion, 17th Brigade, which was carrying out a counterinsurgency operation code-named "Fénix" in the area. The massacre was carried out by a "joint command" of Col. Gordillo's troops and paramilitaries, the Fiscalía found. (Radio Caracol, Aug. 2; El Tiempo, Bogotá, Aug. 1)

http://ww4report.com/node/5841

[roody]

10. Thank you, Judi Lynn

[Judi Lynn]

11. Thank you for looking through this material. Definitely makes it worth the time, most surely. n/t