Uribe-Is It True......?

claudia82 says on Mar 9, 2005, 11:33:

Yes it's true...he was kidnapped from his farm by guerrilleros

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Dan says on Mar 9, 2005, 12:30:

I heard that too and... heard that because of that, Uribe was in the AUC for a bit too.

God Bless America!

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platano says on Mar 9, 2005, 13:04:

A different version from Fabio Ochoa...
Alberto Uribe Sierra (Q.E.P.D.) was killed by FARC on his farm Guacharacas. He defended himself with a pistol against 30 murderers with machine guns, this according to Fabio Ochoa (from a letter written 23 May 1985).

SOURCE: Contreras, Joseph. Biografia no autorizada de Alvaro Uribe Velez. Editorial Oveja Negra, 2002.

plátano

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juancegomez says on Mar 9, 2005, 14:47:

The AUC was only created in 1997 and there is no evidence of Uribe ever being part of that organization. Or at least it hasn't been presented yet.

The only relationship that has been documented even by most serious opponents is between CONVIVIR groups, as a 1994-1997 project which Uribe promoted, and future AUC members (but not all AUC members were in the CONVIVIR, nor vice versa. Both statements would therefore appear to be exaggerations if many in absolute terms). That is not a personal nor an organic relationship but rather an indirect one.

There are certainly clearer ideological connections that stem from that, obviously.

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Mr X says on Mar 10, 2005, 03:31:

his father Alberto Uribe, who was subject to an extradition war http://www.colombiajournal.org/colombia185.htm

President Uribe’s Hidden Past

by Tom Feiling

Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe is, by his own admission, a man of the right. Unlike most recent Colombian presidents, Uribe is from the land-owning class. He inherited huge swathes of cattle ranching land from his father Alberto Uribe, who was subject to an extradition warrant to face drug trafficking charges in the United States until he was killed in 1983, allegedly by leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas. Alvaro Uribe grew up with the children of Fabio Ochoa, three of who became leading players in Pablo Escobar’s Medellín cocaine cartel.

President Uribe’s credentials are impeccable. He was educated at Harvard and Oxford, is as sharp as a tack, and a very able bureaucrat. At the tender age of 26 he was elected mayor of Medellín, the second-largest city of Colombia. The city’s elite in the 1980s was rich, corrupt and nepotistic, and they loved the young Uribe. But the new mayor was removed from office after only three months by a central government embarrassed by his public ties to the drug mafia. Uribe was then made Director of Civil Aviation, where he used his mandate to issue pilots’ licenses to Pablo Escobar’s fleet of light aircraft, which routinely flew cocaine to the United States.

In 1995, Uribe became governor of the Antioquia department, of which Medellín is the capital. The region became the testing ground for the institutionalization of paramilitary forces that he has now made a key plank of his presidency. Government-sponsored peasant associations called Convivir’s were “special private security and vigilance services, designed to group the civilian population alongside the Armed Forces.�

Security forces and paramilitary groups enjoyed immunity from prosecution under Governor Uribe, and they used this immunity to launch a campaign of terror in Antioquia. Thousands of people were murdered, “disappeared,� detained and driven out of the region. In the town of San Jose de Apartadó for example, three of the Convivir leaders were well-known paramilitaries and had been trained by the Colombian Army’s 17th Brigade. In 1998, representatives of more than 200 Convivir associations announced that they would unite with the paramilitary organization, the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), under its murderous leader Carlos Castaño.

When Uribe launched his campaign for president, the candidate’s paramilitary connections appeared to deter many journalists from examining the ties between drug gangs and the Uribe family. An exception was Noticias Uno, a current affairs program on the TV station Canal Uno. In April 2002, the program ran a series on alleged links between Uribe and the Medellín drug cartel. After the reports aired, unidentified men began calling the news station, threatening to kill the show’s producer Ignacio Gómez, director Daniel Coronell, and Coronell’s 3-year-old daughter, who was flown out of the country soon thereafter. Gómez was also forced to flee Colombia and is currently living in exile.

Noticias Uno told the story of how in 1997, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) seized 50,000 kilos of potassium permanganate from a ship docked in San Francisco. Potassium permanganate is a chemical used in the production of cocaine. The cargo was on its way to Colombia to be delivered to a company called GMP Chemical Products. The owner of GMP was Pedro Moreno Villa GMP, Uribe’s presidential campaign manager. The chemicals seized were sufficient to produce $15 billion worth of cocaine. The DEA confirmed that GMP was Colombia’s biggest importer of potassium permanganate between 1994 and 1998, when Uribe was governor of Medellin and Moreno Villa was his chief of staff.

As the Presidential race intensified, journalists became increasingly concerned that media bosses were threatening their editorial independence. Two powerful business groups with ties to the political establishment own RCN and Caracol, the biggest television and radio networks in Colombia. Journalists’ concerns were further heightened when Uribe picked a member of the Santos family, which owns the country’s most influential daily newspaper, to be his vice-president.

Despite his links to paramilitaries and drug cartels, Uribe won the presidency. But to call Uribe’s victory a landslide—as many in and outside Colombia did—is a gross distortion of the facts. Uribe received 53 percent of the official vote, but only 25 percent of the electorate voted. Many urban and middle class Colombians, who have been largely sheltered from the civil war, were thoroughly disillusioned by the peace process of outgoing-President Andrés Pastrana, and backed hardliner Uribe. But the election was hardly a fair one.

Mapiripán is the site of one of the worst paramilitary massacres to date, yet many of the town’s residents voted for the “paramilitary� candidate, Uribe. Father Javier Giraldo of the Colombian human rights group Justicia y Paz was in Mapiripán on election day: “There was a great deal of fraud. There were paramilitaries in the voting booths. They destroyed a lot of ballots. This was denounced to the Ombudsman, but nothing happened.� Electoral fraud, widespread paramilitary threats—denounced by virtually all the other candidates during the election campaign—and the almost total decimation of the electoral left in the preceding decade all contributed to Uribe’s election victory.

Though Uribe has vowed that his “democratic security� platform will bring peace and security to all Colombians, statistics from the Trade Union School in Medellín show continued threats to trade unionists and human rights activists. The number of trade unionists killed in 2003 declined to a “mere� 90, suggesting that the paramilitaries were being reigned in a little. But the number of death threats issued were 20 percent higher, and death threats to trade unionists’ families were up by 30 percent. Police raids, mass detentions and forced “disappearances� are also all higher than the previous year.

Uribe is clamping down on the opposition, while sidling yet closer to the Republican White House in Washington. Uribe was the only South American leader to back President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq. At the time, he even went so far as to invite the United States to invade Colombia. Uribe hopes to double the size of the Colombian Armed Forces, and has asked the United States for more helicopters and greater involvement in areas such as intelligence gathering. Many in the Bush administration are keen to see the United States expand its multi-billion dollar military investment in “Plan Colombia.� U.S. Army Lt. Gen. James T. Hill, for example, recently told a Senate committee, “It would be a terrible loss if democracy failed in Colombia. You need to let me get on the ground.�

But before that happens, the United States is pushing for Uribe to reign in his illegal paramilitary allies. The peasant militias and million-strong informers’ network that Uribe has launched are evidence of the way in which the paramilitary strategy is being institutionalized. Under the “state of unrest� that Uribe decreed upon assuming the presidency, the police and army were granted the right to detain citizens on the slightest suspicion of supporting the guerrillas, without evidence or legal counsel, and to enter people’s homes without a warrant.

As Bush and Uribe have both said time and again, in the “war on terror� there can be no neutrals. President Uribe has branded those NGOs that do claim to occupy a non-partisan position on the armed conflict “political agitators in the service of terrorism, cowards who wrap themselves in the banner of human rights.� Only pro-government, anti-guerrilla NGOs are being left untouched.

Uribe’s strategy is to bring the war out into the open, to declare social organizations illegal, and to use the army and police against them directly, while holding “negotiations� with the paramilitaries. Given the murderous tactics that Uribe is prepared to resort to, it is easy to understand why trade unionists and human rights defenders are inclined to feel despondent. It also makes the unquestioning support being offered Uribe by the U.S. and British governments all the more immoral.

Tom Feiling is a campaign officer for the UK-based Justice for Colombia.

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juancegomez says on Mar 10, 2005, 07:25:

Not exactly the most balanced, up to date and informed article around...

"Noticias Uno told the story of how in 1997, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) seized 50,000 kilos of potassium permanganate from a ship docked in San Francisco. Potassium permanganate is a chemical used in the production of cocaine. The cargo was on its way to Colombia to be delivered to a company called GMP Chemical Products. The owner of GMP was Pedro Moreno Villa GMP, Uribe’s presidential campaign manager. The chemicals seized were sufficient to produce $15 billion worth of cocaine. The DEA confirmed that GMP was Colombia’s biggest importer of potassium permanganate between 1994 and 1998, when Uribe was governor of Medellin and Moreno Villa was his chief of staff."

The DEA later cleared Moreno, he won legal suits against people who continued to say this sort of thing, and no effective links between him and the drug cartels were demonstrated, and in fact Potassium permanganate also has legal uses.

"President Uribe has branded those NGOs that do claim to occupy a non-partisan position on the armed conflict “political agitators in the service of terrorism, cowards who wrap themselves in the banner of human rights.� Only pro-government, anti-guerrilla NGOs are being left untouched."

This is an unfair representation of both what Uribe said (despite the fact that I don't agree with that either, but I don't need to exaggerate in order to do that) and of the situation in general. If someone actually cares about this, they should read the speech itself and not just somewhat distorted outtakes from it.

"Despite his links to paramilitaries and drug cartels, Uribe won the presidency. But to call Uribe’s victory a landslide—as many in and outside Colombia did—is a gross distortion of the facts. Uribe received 53 percent of the official vote, but only 25 percent of the electorate voted. Many urban and middle class Colombians, who have been largely sheltered from the civil war, were thoroughly disillusioned by the peace process of outgoing-President Andrés Pastrana, and backed hardliner Uribe. But the election was hardly a fair one."

1. Actually 46-47% percent of the electorate voted. The author is distorting facts by saying that only 25% of the electorate voted, when the truth is that 25% of the population is about 47% of the electorate.

2. The author doesn't mention that the FARC and other groups also interferred with the electoral process. And it's not the first time that this has happened. But apparently the author doesn't want or need to tell us.

"Uribe’s strategy is to bring the war out into the open, to declare social organizations illegal, and to use the army and police against them directly, while holding “negotiations� with the paramilitaries. Given the murderous tactics that Uribe is prepared to resort to, it is easy to understand why trade unionists and human rights defenders are inclined to feel despondent. It also makes the unquestioning support being offered Uribe by the U.S. and British governments all the more immoral."

So Uribe is evil incarnate and has pictures of Hitler on his walls, which he worships every night by sacrificing indigenous virgins. What else?

"Tom Feiling is a campaign officer for the UK-based Justice for Colombia."

Unfortunately, "Justice for Colombia" doesn't practice "justice" in condemning or even describing the abuses of all sides. I don't think that's deserving of having the word "justice" in its name at all.

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platano says on Mar 10, 2005, 07:47:

Uribe -- Is it true? juancegomez wrote:
"So Uribe is evil incarnate and has pictures of Hitler on his walls, which he worships every night by sacrificing indigenous virgins."

Platano is shocked!

This is the first time I have heard this. And I know reporters whose job it was to cover Uribe when he was governor and they spent a lot of time with him. Based on what they learned from their experience they would never vote for him and don't trust him, but they never mentioned Hitler or human sacrifice. OK, sending young men into battle could possibly be conceived as a form of human sacrifice, but that is different from sacrificing indigenous virgins! And nary a word of Hitler, unless convivir.... nah, too big a stretch!

plátano

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vladimiro says on Mar 10, 2005, 07:57:

Moreno "and in fact Potassium permanganate also has legal uses."

There may be some exagerrations in the article posted above, and there are legal uses, but does Colombia have an industry that requires such large amounts of potassium permangante? Moreno was importing huge quantities. He had previously used very evasive techniques of getting it into the country, too. Colombia requires permits for importing this chemical in large quantities, so Moreno used to break the shipments up into smaller amounts to avoid requesting permits in which he would have to justify its use.

I believe the only other use for potassium permanganate, other than processing cocain, is in manufacturing computer chips and Intel doesn't have a plant in Colombia that I know of:)

Or Maybe Moreno was just planning on re-selling the chemicals to Taiwan or countries that have industries which requires potassium permanganate:)

"Look at the full moon, how it has disrupted our sleep,
It shines from the seventh sky at our homeland in ruins" -Rumi

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Tinto (Moderator) says on Mar 10, 2005, 08:07:

Darn, UMM went away, he said he was a chemist. ;-)

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utopiacowboy says on Mar 10, 2005, 08:43:

Very interesting thread. There are so many links among the players in Colombia's war that it more resembles a Mafia gang war than anything else. Nobody really has clean hands. It appears to be a conflict about who is going to control Colombia's number one industry rather than a fight for ideology or some abstract ideals.

Disclaimer: any comment I make is inane and is not to be taken seriously, and is so patently ridiculous that no one should take it seriously, even as an insult.

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Mr. Hollywood says on Mar 10, 2005, 08:58:

while negotiating with the AUC You know, it's really not fair to criticize Uribe for negotiating with the AUC when whatever terms come out of the "Truth and Reparation" legislation will apply equally to ANY of the guerilla groups who negotiate a peace, too.

It's not like there's one deal for AUC and something harsher for the guerillas. I predict that once the law is firmed up that the ELN runs, not walks, to sign on for a peace deal. The FARC won't because they've already shown their lack of interest in a real negotiated peace.

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Mr X says on Mar 10, 2005, 10:08:

I understand that some people are upset by that article But to be fair to the author he was writing under the heading "President Uribe’s Hidden Past". It's not meant to be an article about the criminal behaviour of the Farc, ELN, the Paras or any other group. It's an article, which may or may not contain some factual innacuracies, but nevertheless raises serious questions about someone who today is the head of state of a democratic country. If Uribe was not a pro US politician, I wonder what would be his situation today? The fact that he has US backing today doesn't mean that he is whiter than white and it doesn't mean that these allegations won't crop up again at some time in the future. Remember what happened to othe former US allies like...... Noriega, Strosner, Bin Laden, Pinochet, and myriad other despots and terrorists.
I wonder if Uribe would still be as enthusiastic about extradition if his father was still alive?

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Mr X says on Mar 10, 2005, 10:44:

Some Colombian journalists question Uribe's motives The article is in spanish but well worth reading. Is there a deal between the US govt and Uribe to cover up his past as long as he toes the US line?

http://www.elcolombiano.net/print_col.php?cid=6

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Mr X says on Mar 10, 2005, 11:00:

God help the colombian people with a President like this:

http://www.bogota.tv/bogota/actualidad/contenido.php?id=50&categoria=nacional

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jccg says on Mar 10, 2005, 15:44:

Origin... Uribe is the son of a narcotraficant, asked in extradition for USA. He has been involved with narcos all his life. When he was in charge of Aerocivil, he allows the narcos to legalize a lot of aiports.

juancegomez wrote:
"The AUC was only created in 1997 and there is no evidence of Uribe ever being part of that organization. Or at least it hasn't been presented yet."

I have to clarify that the narco-mercenaries or paras started in 1980's
(1982 I guess), and Uribe has been acused of been related with them since the bigining, because he's politics have ever provide some sort of legal support to them. When he created the CONVIVIR, they were formed by members of the narco-mercenaries groups. It was a nice legal support for them, wasn't it?

This is more discussed in other topic, in this forum, but I do not remember what.

This is just the true!!

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platano says on Mar 10, 2005, 17:03:

Gang war, indeed In the eighties I heard a rumor that Pablo Escobar offered to pay the entire national debt of Colombia (at that time something like US$11 Billion dollars) if they would just allow the narcos like Sonia to operate without being bothered. The government refused, and the war heated up especially when the narcos murdered Rodrigo Lara Bonilla (lo recuerdo como si fuera ayer y todavia me duele). The rest, as they say, is history.

plátano

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Lionheart says on Mar 10, 2005, 23:59:

Utopia, the mafiosi are angels compared I would rather compare it to the ex-Sowjet structure, blackmarket majors becoming KGB then after the Fall becoming the Russian Mafia. Mix in the Sowjet military, the politicians and the party, then you get a comparable image ... nobody has clean hands. I assume China is similar, but they are more sophisticated in keeping the lids on their garbage cans after 6000 years.

This thread is more than interesting in one aspect to me. You gotta be a damn good chess player to survive. Even if I don't agree with many of the political things happening, I see intelligence at many levels. Does Colombia have chess matches with Russia?

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Neonovo says on Mar 14, 2005, 13:26:

Call 'em Paras today; or CONVIVIR yesterday... Quasiofficial mercenary groups go back to the later 40s, I believe under Laureano Gomez who as a fan of Mussoullini, and other fascists spun a "brown-shirt"-like organization that spread mayhem, terror and murder accross the country side, and had no qualms about going into barrios-populares to carry out executions.
They were called "pájaros" by the people and roamed the streets in thrue terrorist-style, wearing masks.

Paz
Neonovo

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juancegomez says on Mar 17, 2005, 15:38:

Another old thread, but whatever....

Look guys, it's not like I'm in love with Uribe or with Pedro Juan Moreno...why the heck would I be in love with such simplistic-minded people with a less than clean record?...but that doesn't mean that I have to go run and worship their far left equivalents either.

Just as I don't believe that the FARC can all be described as "terrorists" and nothing more , I don't simplify this situation either.

One can imagine -but not swear- that at least some of those chemicals were used for drugs, but if the DEA itself found that there was no clear and evident link in this case nor any reason to continue pushing the case, it's not an entirely clear situation that people can swear by.

"Uribe is the son of a narcotraficant, asked in extradition for USA."

IF that's true (I find the sources that mention that little fact at least slightly politized), the sins of the father don't automatically pass on to the son.

"He has been involved with narcos all his life."


"When he was in charge of Aerocivil, he allows the narcos to legalize a lot of aiports."

Uribe's office allowed the issuing of operating licenses to narcos, yes.

But that's a circumstancial, accesory charge that many, many parties and companies in the world have committed, willingly or not.

For example, the airline/airspace authorities in Venezuela allow narcos to operate there as well, not to mention that the electoral authories allowed Mr. Granda and Mr. Chiguiro to VOTE in the Chavez recall referendum.

Not necessarily because of ill-will. Their response? It's not their problem or jurisdiction to do the necessary and extensive document/background checks.

The papers that they received were apparently in order at first check, so they got the green light. It's up to the law enforcement authorities to do their own job and prosecute any criminals, but not theirs.

What's more, though this is a stretch, the 9-11 hijackers had little problem in learning how to fly the airplanes that they used as deadly weapons, for that matter.

"I have to clarify that the narco-mercenaries or paras started in 1980's
(1982 I guess)"

Yes (though the vocabulary used there isn't exact either), but my point was and remains: The AUC is only a 1997 creation. Is that a lie? Or do you think that I am making this up to favor Uribe? Come on...

If you're speaking of something else, then that's a different issue within the subject.

"nd Uribe has been acused of been related with them since the bigining, because he's politics have ever provide some sort of legal support to them."

Politics providing legal support =/= Being an organic part of a paramilitary organization (ie: "Uribe was a member of the AUC for a while").

There are plenty of reasons to ideologically link Uribe and the paramilitaries, which is what I've been admitting all along, but there's little evidence to say he's a paramilitary himself and eats babies at midnight.

"When he created the CONVIVIR, they were formed by members of the narco-mercenaries groups. It was a nice legal support for them, wasn't it?"

It's clear as daylight that the CONVIVIR had plenty of "narco-mercenaries" in them and that they took advantage of such a position, but those were not the ALL-INCLUSIVE and EXCLUSIVE members of such a program.

And as for their being a legal support, that's true, but it has to be put in a much larger and complex context.

We can go back to the era of the "pajaros" and their liberal equivalents, as Neonovo mentioned...plus there was already a 1960-something law that allowed for the creation of similar groups.

And this is important: equivalent programs had been used successfully in other countries (Peru, anyone?).

It didn't come out of nowhere, out of Uribe's evil desire to drink innocent blood and live eternally from its life giving qualities.

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