Colombia's president accused of assisting death squads

On Apr. 17, a Colombian opposition lawmaker alleged that paramilitary death squads met at the ranch of President Álvaro Uribe in the late 1980s and plotted to murder opponents, an explosive charge in a growing scandal that has unearthed ties between the illegal militias and two dozen congressmen. Basing his accusations on government documents and depositions by former paramilitary members and military officers, Sen. Gustavo Petro said the militiamen met at Uribe's Guacharacas farm as well as ranches owned by his brother, Santiago Uribe, and a close associate, Luis Alberto Villegas. "From there, at night, they would go out and kill people," Petro said, referring to the sprawling ranch owned by Uribe. The Supreme Court and the attorney general's office are investigating nearly 20 other current or former members of Congress, most of them allies of the president. And the court is collecting evidence and interviewing witnesses to establish whether the president's cousin, Sen. Mario Uribe, had met with paramilitary commanders to plot land grabs. The Bush administration's closest ally in Latin America, Uribe's government has received more than $4 billion in mostly military aid to push back Marxist guerrillas and fumigate much of the country's huge coca fields. But Uribe, since he first ran for office, has also been dogged by the fact that paramilitary groups grew dramatically during his term as governor in the northwestern state of Antioquia, from 1995 to 1997. During that time, he helped spearhead the creation of Convivirs, a legal vigilante groups. Some were later denounced for having morphed into paramilitary death squads or for serving as fronts for paramilitary warlords. In a two-hour presentation in which military intelligence reports and affidavits of mid-level military officers were made public, Petro provided a detailed sketch of Colombia's fearsome paramilitary movement, from its first links with cocaine kingpins including Pablo Escobar to its use of massacres to spread terror to its liquidation of the leftist Patriotic Union party. He spoke of how banana companies, including foreign firms, bankrolled death squads and helped paramilitary groups traffic in cocaine. And he read from a government statement provided by an army captain who was present at meetings between a former general, Rito Alejo del Rio, and paramilitary commanders. President Uribe has long been close to del Rio, who was charged in 2001 with having paramilitary ties. The charges were later dropped. The senator said that despite a common perception, the generation-old paramilitary movement did not surge because of the lack of state presence. "Paramilitarism was founded with the help from some sectors of the state," he said. In the hearing, Petro focused much of his time on the Convivirs and how officials who promoted them knew that paramilitary warlords ran some of the groups. The Convivirs were eventually outlawed following allegations of rights abuses. "Convivirs... ended up bringing paramilitaries to the farm of the current president of the republic, who apparently had no idea while he was governor," Petro said. Uribe fought back against the allegations, calling Petro a "slanderer." Meanwhile, the scandal continued to widen as three more pro-government congressmen, including a senator who was Uribe's private secretary when he was the governor of Antioquia, were called to testify before the Supreme Court. The scandal has crept ever closer to Uribe. His foreign minister resigned after her brother, a senator, was jailed in the scandal. A former regional campaign manager and his hand-picked head of the secret police face charges of collaborating with the militias. Meanwhile, in an explosive new report, the International Trade Union Confederation has presented direct evidence of collusion between Colombia's notorious DAS Security Agency and paramilitary death squads in the murder of at least seven trade unionists since the early 1990s. The DAS is under the direct authority of Uribe. An investigation by Colombia's attorney general office has revealed that the DAS apparatus has long been pursuing a policy of secret monitoring and observation of legitimate trade union activities and in particular of union leaders. The new evidence includes a list of 22 union leaders and one union advisor, who had been specifically identified by detectives from the National Intelligence Directorate. Seven of those on the list were killed following their identification by the Directorate. Chiquita Brands International's recent admission that it paid off the same paramilitaries, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), highlighted the collusion between multinational corporations and death squads to suppress labor organizers. The picture emerging appears to include elements in the government as well. Several other US-based corporations, including Atlanta-based Coca-Cola and the Alabama-based coal company Drummond Co., face civil lawsuits alleging their Colombian operations worked with the AUC to kill several trade unionists. The AUC is on the US government's list of terrorist organizations. While Uribe was governor of Antioquia, Chiquita's then-wholly owned subsidiary, Banadex, made payments to the AUC. The man running the AUC at that time was Carlos Castaño. Court documents filed in the Chiquita case stated that Castaño met with the then-general manager of Banadex in 1997. Castaño told Banadex to channel payments through Convivirs. Colombian authorities are pursuing their own investigations into Chiquita's payments, and have threatened to seek the extradition of Chiquita executives from the United States. The Colombian attorney general's office also is investigating the Drummond and Coca-Cola cases. "I do not regard this as a relationship between a blackmailer and his victim," Attorney General Mario Iguarán told journalists. "What I can see is a criminal relationship." The US Congress is currently considering a Bush administration request for another $600 million in aid for Colombia's fight against drugs and left-wing guerrillas. At the same time, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-VT) has frozen $55.2 million in military aid to Colombia. Leahy spokesman David Carle said the senator wanted to discuss his concerns, including those stemming from a report last month citing CIA documents that say Colombian army commander Gen. Mario Montoya worked with the AUC militias. "The US Congress should maintain a hold on military assistance to Colombia until alleged links between paramilitary groups and state officials are thoroughly investigated," US-based rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, said in a joint statement.