From: Colombian Labor Monitor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Mon, 28 May 2001 16:06:59 -0500 (CDT)
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: COLOMBIA: Weekly News Update #591, 5/27/01
WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS
ISSUE #591, MAY 27, 2001
NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK
339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012
(212) 674-9499 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[.....]
2. Colombia: 12 Killed in Bombings
[.....]
12. US: Contragater Reich a "Goner"?
[.....]
[.....]
*2. COLOMBIA: 12 KILLED IN BOMBINGS
Around 10pm on May 17, a powerful car bomb exploded at Parque
Lleras, a park bordered by upscale clubs and cafes in the wealthy
El Poblado sector of the Colombian city of Medellin. The blast
killed eight people and injured at least 138 others. [El Nuevo
Herald 5/19/01; El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 5/19/01 from Associated
Press] Two days later, on May 19, Colombian police deactivated
two powerful car bombs in the suburbs of Medellin: one near a
park in the municipality of Bello, to the north of Medellin; and
another at a busy metro station in Itagui, to the south. [ENH
5/21/01 from Reuters] Several weeks earlier, on May 4, a car-bomb
exploded outside the upscale Torre hotel in the city of Cali,
injuring 36 people. [Hoy (NY) 5/22/01 from AP; Xinhua News Agency
5/20/01]
Responding on May 18 to the bombings, Colombian President Andres
Pastrana Arango announced the creation of a new "Elite Anti-
Terrorist Group," made up of 10 officers and 90 others chosen
from army, police and secret service ranks. The same day,
Colombian army commander Gen. Fernando Tapias said Colombia needs
stiffer anti-terrorism laws, comparable to the "Spanish laws
against ETA, similar legislation against IRA in Britain, the same
laws that Germany, France and the United States apply to
terrorists." [EFE 5/19/01]
On May 21, another car-bomb was deactivated outside the offices
of the weekly newspaper Voz, published by the Colombian Communist
Party. The 500-pound US-made MK-82 missile-shaped bomb with tail
fins--rigged up with sticks of dynamite shoved into its tail
section--was found under a pile of oranges and bananas on the
back of a pickup truck outside the Voz offices. The MK-82 is used
worldwide as an aerially dropped bomb. Interior Minister Armando
Estrada said on May 22 that the bomb was harmless and probably
meant to scare people; he said experts had concluded that it had
no chance of exploding as rigged, even if the dynamite sticks had
been lit. [Hoy (NY) 5/22/01 from AP; Xinhua News Agency 5/20/01;
AP 5/22/01]
On May 25, two package bombs exploded in Bogota, killing four
people and wounding 23 others. [Clarin (Buenos Aires) 5/26/01]
The latest wave of bombings comes as Colombia prepares to host
the Americas Cup soccer championship, with matches scheduled to
take place July 11-29 in seven Colombian cities. [Xinhua News
Agency 5/20/01] An office for the Americas Cup was housed in the
Torre hotel in Cali at the time of the May 4 explosion there, and
at least one of the invited soccer teams planned to stay there
during the Cup events. [CNN en Espanol 5/5/01 from AP]
*3. COLOMBIA: BOMBS REVEAL DEATH SQUAD FIGHT
A May 17 bombing that killed 8 people in a wealthy neighborhood
of Medellin took place less than 24 hours after at least 20 armed
men, wearing armbands like those of the Attorney General's
Technical Investigation Squad, dragged Roman de Jesus Arroyave
(alias Ronald) out of his home in the Los Angeles neighborhood of
Medellin and executed him in the street. Arroyave was a leader of
the Medellin-based criminal gang of sicarios (hired killers)
known as "La Terraza," whose 3,000 members have traditionally
worked for drug traffickers and rightwing paramilitaries.
Arroyave had been an associate of Carlos Castano, top leader of
the rightwing paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia
(AUC). Police said Castano had offered some $350,000 for "the
head" of Arroyave because he had "failed a job" ordered by the
AUC. [EFE 5/17/01; El Nuevo Herald 5/19/01]
The conflict between La Terraza and the AUC first became public
last December, when several La Terraza "dissidents" told a local
television station that they had committed a series of murders at
Castano's request, including some of the most high-profile
political murders of recent years: those of journalist and
comedian Jaime Garzon in August 1999 [see Update #498]; of lawyer
Eduardo Umana Mendoza in April 1998 [see Update #430]; of
university professor Jesus Maria Valle Jaramillo in February 1998
[see Update #422]; and of human rights activists Elsa Alvarado
and Mario Calderon in May 1997 [see Update #382]. The
"dissidents" offered to surrender to authorities and turn over
the weapons used in the killings. They said Castano had promised
to give them control of a cocaine export route, but never made
good on the promise. The "dissidents" were further angered by the
assassination last Aug. 3 of La Terraza leader Luis Sanchez Mena
(alias "El Negro") and five of his lieutenants. Castano's forces
subsequently killed each of the successive leaders who replaced
Mena: Jose Rua; Carlos Mario Osorio Pulgarin (alias "El Gordo");
and finally "Ronald." With the May 16 murder of "Ronald," Castano
is reportedly attempting to solidify his control over La Terraza.
The La Terraza dissidents are also believed to be responsible for
a car-bombing last Jan. 10 at a shopping center in the exclusive
El Poblado district of Medellin. That bombing killed two people
and injured 56 others. Police believe the Medellin bombings may
have been directed at economic interests of drug traffickers
linked to Castano; one of these traffickers is "Don Berna,"
described as the liaison between AUC and La Terraza and
administrator of the funds used to finance selective murders in
the paramilitaries' war against leftist activists. [ENH 5/19/01]
Don Berna was formerly a leader of Los Pepes, a paramilitary
group that targeted family members and allies of then-powerful
Medellin drug lord Pablo Escobar Gaviria ("Los Pepes" allegedly
stood for "Those Persecuted by Pablo Escobar"). Carlos Castano
and his brother Fidel (who dropped out of view around 1994) were
also leaders of Los Pepes. Reports that appeared in the Spanish-
language Miami daily El Nuevo Herald last year, and in journalist
Mark Bowden's new book Killing Pablo (serialized beginning last
November in the Philadelphia Inquirer), suggest that Los Pepes
was set up with at least tacit approval--if not outright
assistance--from the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and
other US government agencies.
The activities of Don Berna and others in Los Pepes were well
known to DEA agents working in Medellin, and to operatives of the
US Army's top secret counterterrorism unit, Delta Force, which
was deployed secretly in late 1992 or early 1993 to help hunt
down Escobar, under authorization from then-US president George
Bush. All the US operatives ultimately reported to then-CIA
station chief Bill Wagner at the embassy in Bogota. The US
Embassy allegedly rewarded "Don Berna" for his efforts by
granting him a visa to come to the US in 1994 to watch the soccer
World Cup games in Los Angeles. [ENH 10/15/00; Miami Herald
10/20/00 from ENH; PI 11/23/00]
*4. PERU/COLOMBIA: SHOOTDOWN UNCOVERS CIA SPY OPS
The US government has not yet released the results of its
investigation into an Apr. 20 incident in which the Peruvian Air
Force--acting on intelligence provided by a US Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) spy plane--shot down a civilian plane
over the Peruvian Amazon, killing US missionary Veronica Bowers
and her infant daughter Charity, and wounding US pilot Kevin
Donaldson [see Update #586].
According to a May 26 article in the Miami Herald, some US
officials believe the investigation is being slowed by the CIA's
efforts to keep secret its intelligence-gathering program in the
region, which is designed to track not only narcotics but also
weapons shipments, kidnapped US citizens and leftist rebels.
Many of the US spy operations were authorized under a string of
classified and public directives issued by former President Bill
Clinton as part of the US "war on drugs" during 1993, his first
year in office. The shootdown of the missionary plane prompted
the US government to suspend the spy program, and led some
members of Congress to call for disclosure of the full range of
US operations in the region.
"They are using secrecy so that the American people don't
appreciate how deeply we're getting into these conflicts," said
Rep. James McGovern (D-MA), a strong critic of US involvement in
Colombia. "We're getting more and more involved, but through the
back door." Even supporters of the US operations are concerned:
at a hearing earlier this month before a House subcommittee
looking into the missionary shootdown, Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN)
told government officials: "We're conservative Republicans who
have carried the ball here for the drug war, but you're making it
very difficult for us."
The Citation jet tracking the missionary flight, a corporate-type
craft equipped with an F-16 fighter's radar, was one of three or
four such jets the CIA uses to track suspected drug smuggling
planes. According to several current and former administration
and congressional officials acquainted with intelligence programs
in the region, the Citations are full of infra-red devices that
"see" through darkness and clouds, antennas that pick up the
weakest radio and telephone signals, and computers that can
pinpoint their origin within seconds. The equipment is so
sensitive it can locate jungle cocaine refineries by pinpointing
emissions from microwave ovens used to dry the powder, said a
former CIA official once based in Latin America.
The surveillance program has also used huge Air Force AWACs, mid-
sized Customs P-3 radar planes and Army DeHavilland RC-7
electronic eavesdropping aircraft--like the one that crashed on a
spy mission over Colombia in July 1999 [see Updates #495, 496]--
as well as smaller Army and National Security Agency airplanes
and even a CIA-operated unpiloted surveillance drone.
The spy planes monitor portable seismic interdiction devices (P-
SIDs) and other sensors hidden in the Colombian jungle; the
sensors are equipped with invisible laser beams which can send
off radio signals when anyone passes nearby.
The CIA gets $10 million a year just for operating the Citations,
said a former official in the Defense Department's narcotics
section. Another $55 million in classified expenditures was
included in the $1.3 billion aid package that Congress approved
for Colombia last year, according to the Center for International
Policy, a Washington think tank. According to officials familiar
with the program, intelligence efforts in Peru, Colombia, Bolivia
and Ecuador will cost at least $65 million this year and involve
a half-dozen US agencies.
The general mission of all the US intelligence aircraft in the
region is to gather all possible information and beam it via
satellite to US agencies that need it--Customs, Coast Guard, the
Defense Intelligence Agency, the Miami-based US Southern Command-
-and, when necessary, to the region's armed forces. "The CIA
planes are platforms for gathering all kinds of intelligence...
They are usually not assigned to any one program. They are
vacuums in the sky, then whoever needs it gets the take," said a
former US State Department official who worked on regional
counter-drug programs.
In Peru, the CIA air interdiction program operates under the
guise of the Regional Administrative Office in the US Embassy, so
that the Peruvian military can deny it works with the CIA. "The
use of covert operations keeps down the size of the known US
footprint in trouble areas, where we want to keep a low profile,"
explained one former US Special Forces member who served in the
Andean region.
The use of US spy planes in the Andean region is not new:
according to journalist Mark Bowden's new book Killing Pablo, a
US Army eavesdropping plane helped locate Colombian drug boss
Pablo Escobar Gaviria in Medellin in 1993; Escobar was shot to
death by Colombian police on Dec. 2 of that year, thanks to
tracking help from the US Army plane and a CIA-provided signals
direction finder [see Update #201]. A US congressional official
briefed on the case added that CIA aircraft also eavesdropped on
Peruvian guerrillas who held 72 hostages at the Japanese
ambassador's residence in Lima for four months in 1996 and 1997
[see Update #378]. More recently, one of the Washington officials
added, CIA airplanes checked out reports of a resurgence in Peru
of guerrilla activity by the Maoist Peruvian Communist Party
(PCP, better known as Sendero Luminoso or Shining Path). [Miami
Herald 5/20/01]
*5. PERU: FUJIMORI CHARGED IN MASSACRE
On May 23, Peruvian attorney general Nelly Calderon brought
constitutional charges against former president Alberto Fujimori
for his presumed responsibility in the killing of 15 people at a
backyard family barbecue in Lima on Nov. 3, 1991, in what is
known as the Barrios Altos massacre. The massacre was carried out
by the Colina group, a clandestine death squad directed by
Fujimori's top spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos. The victims, all
from Ayacucho, were alleged supporters of the Maoist Peruvian
Communist Party (PCP, better known as Sendero Luminoso or Shining
Path). Fujimori has been living in Japan since he fled the
presidency and the country last November; Montesinos remains a
fugitive [see Updates #564, 565].
According to the charges, on the day of the massacre, Fujimori
went to the offices of the National Intelligence Service (SIN)--
which Montesinos headed--to congratulate the members of the
Colina group and show his appreciation for their efficient work.
"Fujimori went to salute and recognize their actions, he
contratulated them, he decorated them and arranged payment for
special services in intelligence operations," according to the
suit. The attorney general also charges that Fujimori played a
direct role in blocking the investigation of the massacre and of
other crimes committed by the Colina group; in 1995 he granted an
amnesty to the Colina group members. [La Tercera (Chile) 5/25/01]
On May 25, Peruvian prime minister and foreign minister Javier
Perez de Cuellar announced the formation of a Truth Commission
which will seek to determine responsibility for human rights
violations in Peru between 1980 and 2000. [El Nuevo Herald
5/26/01 from AP, AFP]
[.....]
[.....]
*12. US: CONTRAGATER REICH A "GONER"?
According to Washington Post columnist Al Kamen, "the buzz" is
that US president George W. Bush's choice for assistant secretary
of state for Latin America, Otto Juan Reich, "is pretty much a
goner." Reich "was in deep trouble" already because of "his Cuba
embargo views and...his activities at State in the 1980s in
support of the Nicaraguan anti-Sandinista contras" [see Update
#580]. His hopes of winning the post were diminished sharply when
Sen. James Jeffords of Vermont bolted the Republican Party on May
24 and became an independent, giving Democrats control of the
Senate. The change means that Sen. Joseph Biden, Jr. (D-DE) will
probably chair the Foreign Relations Committee, replacing
rightwing Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC); Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT),
who opposes Reich, is expected to chair the subcommittee that
will handle the nomination.
According to Kamen, likely candidates for the post are Cresencio
Arcos, a State Department aide in the 1989-1993 administration of
former president George Bush--now working as a Florida telephone
executive--and career diplomat Anne Patterson, current ambassador
to Colombia. [WP 5/25/01]
[.....]
=======================================================================
Weekly News Update on the Americas * Nicaragua Solidarity Network of NY
339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012 * 212-674-9499 fax: 212-674-9139
http://home.earthlink.net/~dbwilson/wnuhome.html * [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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