Colombia's Uribe backs army chief against accusations of paramilitary ties

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL NEWS

LENGTH: 632 words

HEADLINE: Colombia's Uribe backs army chief against accusations of paramilitary ties

BYLINE: By JOSHUA GOODMAN, Associated Press Writer

DATELINE: BOGOTA Colombia

BODY:

President Alvaro Uribe on Sunday rejected allegations in a leaked CIA report that his army chief collaborated extensively with right-wing militias accused of some of the worst atrocities in Colombia's long-running civil conflict.

The leaked CIA report was the basis for a Los Angeles Times article published Sunday that linked Gen. Mario Montoya, a close ally of the president, to a paramilitary group headed by one of the nation's biggest drug traffickers, whose extradition has been requested by the U.S.

The CIA document, which according to the newspaper was based on intelligence gathered by an allied Western agency, said that as head of the army's 4th brigade Montoya worked with the militia to carry out a deadly raid in a poor neighborhood in the city of Medellin in 2002.

At least 14 people were killed and several more believed disappeared during the high-profile sweep known as Operation Orion, which was heralded as a campaign to eliminate rebel influence in the crime-infested shantytowns ringing Colombia's second-largest city, but also cleared the way for the militias to gain control of the city's lucrative cocaine trade.

In a statement, Uribe said the "Colombian government rejects the accusations made by foreign intelligence agencies" against Montoya "through press leaks without any evidence having previously been presented to Colombia's government or justice system."

A spokesman for Montoya told The Associated Press the army chief would not comment on the newspaper article.

Human rights groups criticized Uribe's dismissal of the allegations against his loyal adviser.

"These allegations are consistent with the record of many Colombian military units, which have historically tolerated and supported paramilitaries," Jose Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at the Washington-based Human Rights Watch, said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "Instead of rejecting the allegations out of hand, Uribe should take them seriously and call for a thorough investigation in the civilian justice system."

Montoya, 57, is the highest ranking Colombian official yet to be touched by a widening paramilitary scandal that has hit the U.S.-backed Uribe government and led to the arrest so far of eight pro-government congressmen and a governor and forced the resignation of his foreign minister.

Several more former government officials including Uribe's former domestic spy chief are also under investigation, though so far no evidence has been found linking the president himself to the outlawed United Self Defense Forces of Colombia, which the U.S. lists as a foreign terrorist organization.

The Times said the document was made available to the paper by an anonymous source who described himself as a U.S. government employee unhappy that the Bush administration has not held the Uribe government more accountable.

The allied intelligence agency cautioned that the information linking Montoya to jailed paramilitary warlord Diego Murillo, also known as Don Berna, should be treated as raw intelligence because it was based on a yet-unproven account from an informant.

But the document also contains a comment from the defense attache at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, Col. Rey A. Velez, who said information in the report dovetailed with additional, unspecified information on Montoya "provided by a proven source."

That intelligence, Velez said, may work its way up the military chain of command to also implicate the head of Colombia's joint chiefs of staff, Gen. Fredy Padilla, who commanded troops along Colombia's Caribbean coast at the same time Operation Orion took place.

Murillo, who is believed to have led a band of assassins working for deceased drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, is wanted for extradition by a New York federal court on charges of smuggling tons of cocaine into the U.S.

By cali373 on Mar 29, 2007, 07:59 in Politics & the war.

juancegomez says on Mar 29, 2007, 09:11:

Hmmm... Some of the descriptions and phrases in this new article do not match the content of the original LA Times piece (which I posted in the now deleted thread).

For example, this paragraph seems highly interpretative, unless Mr. Goodman himself knows more about the document than what little was mentioned by the LA Times.

"But the document also contains a comment from the defense attache at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, Col. Rey A. Velez, who said information in the report dovetailed with additional, unspecified information on Montoya "provided by a proven source."

The original LA Times piece only said this, which isn't exactly the same thing:

"But the document also included a comment from the defense attache of the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, Col. Rey A. Velez: "This report confirms information provided by a proven source."

It is still not known what actually was the main subject of the report, so exactly what that phrase is referring to cannot be automatically assumed.

If the allegations Montoya are not the main subject of the report, then such a phrase could not be automatically extended to each and every claim in it.

In other words, we need more information and context here. Hence I still prefer to "wait and see" before judging things too quickly.