Colombia learns from strife
Armored vehicles and security expertise gained in its civil war are in demand abroad, especially in Iraq.
By Chris Kraul, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 31, 2007

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA --
Security is big business in Colombia, where a four-decade civil war has spawned a cottage industry of manufacturers and service firms whose mission is to keep their clients alive.

Firms such as armored car manufacturer Blindex and armored clothing maker Miguel Caballero, both based in Bogota, have even earned international renown. With security improving since President Alvaro Uribe took office in 2002 -- murders and kidnappings are down -- demand has been declining at home. But export sales are making up the difference. And the U.S. government is a big client.

Security in Colombia has become a $100-million industry, with exports accounting for about half of all revenue, according to the superintendent for Vigilance and Private Security, which regulates the industry.

The industry's growth rate is about 10% annually, according to government statistics, with armored cars and clothing among the fastest-growing segments, said Superintendent Felipe Munoz. Security consulting by Colombians is also on the rise.

Blindex "up-armors" 350 Toyotas and other sport utility vehicles each year, selling the majority of them to the U.S. for use by soldiers and government employees in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although most of its sales five years ago were to Colombian clients worried about kidnapping, robberies or murder, the company now ships 70% of its cars -- which cost as much as $140,000 each -- overseas.

"Luck always plays a role, and once the Iraq war began, the U.S. government was quickly overwhelmed by the demand for products like ours," Blindex Vice President Laurent Fossaert said. "The Americans found us, we weren't looking for them."

Fossaert's company is one of only four firms worldwide whose up-armoring work is accepted by the U.S. departments of State and Defense. U.S. government security experts pay regular visits to Blindex factories in Bogota and Barranquilla to review requirements in the face of ever-changing security threats.

Blindex says the key to the durability of its automobiles is not the materials, which include high-quality steel, but the design, perfected over nearly three decades of trial and error in Colombia's high-risk environment.

"Colombia is our laboratory," Fossaert said. "The trick is to build a car that is totally secure but not so heavy that it won't still move fast if necessary. You can build a car impervious to blasts but so ponderous that it won't brake."

Iraq and Afghanistan, however, are posing enormous challenges as insurgents' weapons become increasingly lethal, he said.

Blindex cars have proved capable of withstanding blasts from improvised explosive devices, the leading cause of death of soldiers and government workers in Iraq. Passengers have survived bombs made with as many as four pounds of plastic explosives and with 105mm and 155mm mortar shells.

But Fossaert acknowledges that the company is at a loss to up-armor against the newest IEDs, which incorporate so-called explosively formed devices. These are made with a copper shell that, upon explosion, becomes a high-speed, molten copper projectile that can penetrate even tanks.

Fossaert said that "armies from various countries" have asked his firm to make military vehicles, a request that Blindex has so far refused on philosophical grounds.

"It's nice to know our vehicles save lives. It would not be so agreeable to know that, as offensive weapons, they helped kill people," Fossaert said.

Mayhem also has been good for armor maker Caballero, which manufactures a broad line of military, police and civilian clothing that can withstand shrapnel and large-caliber bullets. The company's clients include Prince Felipe of Spain, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, King Abdullah II of Jordan and Hollywood star Steven Seagal.

Caballero uses a patented weave of nylon and polyester to make fabrics that can stop a .38 caliber bullet, said Miguel Caballero, 39, founder and president of the 300-employee firm. His showroom features products including bulletproof vests, minesweepers' gear and armored ties and shirts that look perfectly normal. A big seller is an armored version of the tropical shirt called the guayabera that Mexican President Felipe Calderon recently ordered.

"Products such as these," said Caballero, "could only develop here because of what we have been through in this country for 40 years."

Colombian paramilitary warlords vow to rejoin peace process, resume confessions

The Associated Press

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Sunday's reversal came six days after leaders of the paramilitary umbrella group known as the AUC, from its initials in Spanish, halted testimonies in protest of a Supreme Court ruling disavowing the 2003 peace pact that led 31,000 right-wing irregulars to disarm.

AUC spokesman Antonio Lopez said from the western city of Medellin that the paramilitaries will rejoin the process to demonstrate their "unflinching commitment" to the country.

On July 11, the Supreme Court ruled the AUC was a criminal — not a political — organization and right-wing fighters were not entitled to amnesty.

President Alvaro Uribe scrambled to woo back the paramilitaries, accusing the high court of having an "ideological slant" — a move interpreted by political observers as a dangerous encroachment on the independence of the judicial branch.

Circumventing the ruling, he introduced legislation that would grant paramilitaries the legal status of subversives, putting them on the same playing field as leftist rebels who have been battling to topple the state for almost a half-century.

"Looking at a cadaver that has been tortured and mutilated, I don't understand what difference it makes to say the assassin was a guerrilla or a paramilitary," Uribe said Friday. "The impact on the victim, a family and society is the same."

The proposed legislation angered the militias' victims, who say the government is being too lenient toward fighters accused of some of the conflict's worst atrocities: hundreds of massacres, widespread extortion and the theft of millions of acres (hectares) of land.

Under the Justice and Peace law governing the peace process, paramilitaries must confess their crimes and hand over illegally obtained assets to compensate the 70,000 victims who have so far come forward with reparation claims. In exchange, they are entitled to maximum jail sentences of eight years and protection from extradition to the United States.

But the warlords have surrendered only a sliver of their vast fortunes and confessed to only a few crimes — most of which have already been well-documented by prosecutors.

Created in the 1980s by wealthy ranchers to combat the rebels, the paramilitary groups later took a leading role in Colombia's lucrative drug trade while evolving into mafias that corrupted politics at the highest levels.

A number of paramilitary leaders have been indicted for drug trafficking by U.S. courts, and the U.S. State Department declared the AUC a foreign terrorist organization in 2001. To date, Uribe has suspended five extradition orders approved by Colombia's Supreme Court.

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General colombiano ve ''difícil'' mejorar imagen de su país

NESTOR IKEDA / AP

WASHINGTON

Los esfuerzos de Colombia para mejorar su imagen en Washington seguirán siendo ''muy difíciles'' mientras la Casa Blanca y el Congreso estén controlados por diferentes partidos, declaró un militar retirado que fuera estratega clave del presidente Alvaro Uribe.

''Hay un problema de percepción'', dijo el general Carlos Alberto Ospina Ovalle, quien comandó las fuerzas militares colombianas entre el 2004 y el 2006.

''La percepción de la imagen de Colombia en Estados Unidos se asocia con la propia política interna estadounidense'', agregó Ospina en una entrevista con AP el fin de semana. Agregó, sin embargo, que es necesario mantener los esfuerzos para mejorar la imagen de su país. ''El lobby es importante'', dijo. ``Ahora, de ser difícil [la gestión], yo lo veo muy difícil precisamente por esa percepción''.

''Como el presidente Bush tiene una posición, el partido contrario, el Demócrata, tiene que tener una posición contraria a la del presidente'', dijo.

Uribe tiene un prioritario interés en mejorar la imagen de su gobierno y Colombia ante el Congreso en Washington para sacar adelante el tratado de libre comercio y la segunda etapa del Plan Colombia de lucha contra las drogas y grupos armados.

El gobierno del presidente George W. Bush y los republicanos respaldan a Uribe. Los demócratas, que ahora controlan ambas legislativas, han exigido a Uribe como condición para el tratado ''pruebas concretas'' sobre un avance en los derechos humanos, el control de la violencia --especialmente contra sindicalistas--, y la pacificación del país.

Ospina, profesor desde hace medio año en el Centro de Estudios de Defensa Hemisférica de la Universidad Nacional de la Defensa en Washington, afirma sin embargo que la situación en el país ha mejorado.

''Definitivamente'', dijo. ``Eso no quiere decir que se haya sobrepuesto a los problemas; quiere decir simplemente que está mejorando y tiene que mejorar mucho todavía''.

Declaró que el caso de los sindicalistas asesinados estaba siendo tratado por las autoridades y han disminuido en número, los crímenes de los paramilitares están siendo esclarecidos, y que el gobierno está en diálogo para una desmovilización de todos los grupos armados.

''Se dice que el problema colombiano lleva ya 40 años, lo cual es relativamente cierto'', declaró. ``Pero la intención del gobierno de terminar con ese problema es relativamente corta, de cinco años''.

Recordó que en 1998, la Agencia de Inteligencia de la Defensa dijo que las fuerzas armadas colombianas ``serían derrotadas en cinco años a menos que el gobierno recupere su legitimidad política y las fuerzas armadas sean drásticamente reestructuradas''.

Desde esa época, los colombianos no sólo no han visto la derrota de su aparato militar sino ``han visto un cambio de situación, una reestructuración, un cambio de vida''.

Ospina dijo que no podía ser tajante como el vicealmirante Guillermo Barrera Hurtado, actual jefe de la Marina colombiana, cuando en noviembre del 2005 afirmó que la lucha contra el

Colombia admits high-level military corruption

By Hugh Bronstein

Reuters
Monday, July 30, 2007; 3:50 PM

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Cocaine smugglers and leftist rebels have infiltrated senior levels of the Colombian army, impeding efforts at defeating the guerrillas and fighting drugs, Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said on Monday.

Colombia's largest rebel force and the country's main cocaine cartel have bribed officials "at a high level" into sharing information that has helped bosses of both illegal groups avoid capture, Santos told reporters.

Colombia remains the world's biggest exporter of cocaine despite billions of dollars in mostly military aid from Washington aimed at stamping out the trade.

"Unfortunately, the infiltration has impeded us from capturing some of the big fish we had been investigating," Santos said.

Some military officials have been captured in the case and more arrests were expected, he said.

Earlier this month, the army discovered classified military information in computer files of guerrillas from the FARC rebel group who died in combat with state security forces. The information could only have come from a mole placed highly in the military hierarchy, officials say.

Also implicated in the scandal is Diego Montoya, head of the Norte del Valle cartel. Featured on the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted" list, Montoya is accused of exporting hundreds of tonnes of cocaine to the United States.

Investigators say he recruited army officers to provide him with protection and help plan the breakout of his brother, Eugenio Montoya, who has been in a high-security prison since the start of the year.

This Andean country is regularly jolted by revelations involving its multibillion-dollar cocaine trade.

Last year, 10 anti-narcotics police were gunned down by Colombian soldiers in the pay of drug traffickers near the western town of Jamundi, prosecutors charge.

President Alvaro Uribe's international standing has been damaged by investigations showing some of his closest allies in Congress were in the pay of drug-running paramilitary militias formed in the 1980s to help rich Colombians fight the rebels.

He remains popular at home for reducing urban crime and sparking economic growth with his tough security policies.

Colombia's spy chief: 11 lawmaker hostages killed by rebels during friendly-fire incident

The Associated Press

Saturday, July 28, 2007

BOGOTA, Colombia: A confused clash between two bands of rebels led a commander to order the death of 11 hostage lawmakers last month, the head of Colombia's intelligence agency said Saturday.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, announced in late June that the state legislators had died in the crossfire when an "unidentified military group" attacked the camp where they were being held.

Andres Penate, the head of the DAS intelligence agency, told a Bogota press conference that rebels from the FARC's 60th Front killed the hostages when they spotted another band of insurgents and mistook them for a nearby army unit.

There was no immediate response from the FARC and no way to reach its officials.

Penate said testimony from deserting guerrillas and intercepted radio communications showed that the 60th Front commander, known as "El Grillo," ordered the lawmakers killed during the clash with the 29th Front between June 10 and 16 in the southern state of Narino.

Penate presented a transcript of a radio conversation in which an unidentified guerrilla apparently asks about the sole hostage lawmaker who was not killed in the incident.

President Alvaro Uribe has accused the rebels of murdering the captives in cold blood and challenged the FARC to give the bodies to an international commission led by the Red Cross so that forensic experts can determine how they died.

The FARC has issued statements from the jungle offering to hand over the bodies, but it has not yet done so.

"It's saddening there are so many rumors floating around," said Fabiola Perdomo, the widow of a slain congressman. "All we want is the truth."

Penate said the same radio communications indicate that the FARC is trying to move the bodies before a handover to make it seem that they were in an area the rebels demand be made a demilitarized zone for talks with the government over a swap for another 50 hostages, including three American defense contractors.

"They're trying to deceive the public, pretending that the hostages were located in the proposed safe haven so they can blame the government for their deaths," Penate said.

"These FARC bandits know that the longer they delay handing over the cadavers, the more difficult it will be for forensic experts to determine how they were killed," Uribe said Saturday. "Fools! Assassins! Liars! Now they want to consummate the lie."

The 12 lawmakers were kidnapped in April 2002 in the southwest city of Cali, in a daylight raid on the state legislature by rebels dressed as soldiers.

La prepotencia de los matones

Que un presidente, en una disputa entre la Corte y los delincuentes, tome partido por estos últimos, es una vergüenza.

Por Héctor Abad Faciolince
Fecha: 07/28/2007 -1317

Cada vez que los guerrilleros cometen alguna barbaridad, el Presidente les muestra los colmillos y gruñe, iracundo, y le ordena al Ejército combatir a esos bandidos con todo el peso del aparato militar. Me parece bien. Lo que me parece mal es que cada vez que los paramilitares cometen un nuevo acto de indudable arrogancia, una bravuconada

prepotente, y nos chantajean con la amenaza de volver a su negocio de muerte, el presidente lo que pela es los dientes en una sonrisa y les ofrece otra ley para calmarlos y seguir rebajándoles las penas cada vez más y más, hasta que estas se conviertan en un parpadeo de prisión. ¿No les bastan a los matones condenas de ocho años por sus matanzas sin número, ocho años que serán cuatro y en los cuales les contarán sus meses de finca por cárcel? No, no les bastan; también quieren ser políticos, y que la sociedad los vea como héroes, como "hombres de paz", no como traficantes de drogas y de muerte sino como alzados en armas contra la iniquidad.

Los paramilitares hacen alarde de su poder, que permanece intacto en muchas regiones, y amedrentan a los civiles y al Estado con sus amenazas, pues hasta Uribe (que debería representar la dignidad del país, el poder de las instituciones), como un conejo asustado, se pone de su parte, y anuncia nuevas leyes para calmarlos. Eso significa que la prepotencia y la arrogancia de los sanguinarios siguen teniendo más peso que la autoridad de un gobierno débil, y más fuerza que la cobardía de una sociedad civil que no ha sido capaz de salir a marchar también contra los peores asesinos que ha habido en la historia de este país: los paramilitares. Que un Presidente, en una disputa entre la Corte y los delincuentes, tome partido por estos últimos, es una vergüenza que debería hacernos temblar de indignación.

Siempre se ha dicho, y hay algo de verdad en esto, que los paramilitares surgieron como una respuesta a la incapacidad del Estado para defendernos de las barbaridades de la guerrilla. Lo que no se ha dicho, y también es verdad, es que la degradación de la lucha guerrillera, el hecho de que unos campesinos con algunos ideales de justicia social se hubieran convertido en secuestradores sin hígados, en narcotraficantes y criminales sin un proyecto político, es también una respuesta al salvajismo con que los paramilitares los combatieron: arrasando pueblos, masacrando las poblaciones con las que la guerrilla tenía contacto, persiguiendo y matando a familiares que no estaban en la guerra.

Y otra cosa no se ha dicho. Es verdad que el gobierno de la Seguridad Democrática puede mostrar unas cifras que hablan bien de su gestión: en los últimos años es indudable que los homicidios han disminuido de una manera neta en Colombia. Esto es muy satisfactorio. Pero también significa una cosa clara, al coincidir con las desmovilizaciones paramilitares y con su orden de dejar de matar: los que más mataban en este país eran ellos. Si han disminuido las muertes violentas, y es verdad, es porque los más matones no están matando tanto, al menos de momento, aunque cada rato anuncian que están dispuestos a volver, y los peores de ellos ya volvieron a la clandestinidad, y se dedican a su misma rutina sanguinaria. Lo terrible es que en esta coyuntura el gobierno, en vez de apoyar a nuestra justicia, dice que debe "dialogar" con la Corte. Las Cortes no están para dialogar o negociar con el Ejecutivo sus sentencias, las Cortes imparten justicia. Y todos los ciudadanos debemos acatar sus decisiones, empezando por el Presidente de la República.

En una rueda de prensa con micrófonos, mesa, mantel, corbatas y camisas nuevas (¿no están en una cárcel? parecen en un hotel), los paramilitares anuncian que no volverán donde los jueces. Y lo más ridículo: advierten que no seguirán revelando "los lugares donde están las fosas comunes de las víctimas" hasta que se les reconozca su estatus político. Admiten implícitamente un delito atroz, fosas comunes, y al mismo tiempo se presentan como idealistas que luchan por la paz. Pero eso no es lo peor. Lo peor es que el Presidente les dé la razón, en vez de encabezar una marcha también contra ellos.

Es verdad, las Farc han sembrado de secuestros y de sangre este país. Hay que marchar contra ellos y ya se ha hecho. Pero los paramilitares no han matado menos, han matado más. Entonces también contra ellos tendríamos que marchar. Si el gobierno se inclina ante los paramilitares, entonces no tenemos Estado, sino un centauro, un animal bifronte, mitad perro que le gruñe a la guerrilla y mitad conejo que les sonríe a los paramilitares. Con un gobierno alzado con los unos e inclinado a los otros nunca podremos avanzar. Nuestra única opción para salir del espanto que es este país es marchar, al mismo tiempo, contra el terror guerrillero y contra el horror paramilitar.

Salvatore Mancuso, former Colombian death squad leader, recounts squad's mayhem

By Indira A.R. Lakshmanan The Boston Globe
Published: January 18, 2007

A former chief of Colombia's rightist death squads testified in court this week about his role and the involvement of military and public officials in scores of massacres and assassinations of perceived political opponents.

The testimony by the chief, Salvatore Mancuso, in the northwestern city of Medellín is a key step toward clarifying and assigning blame for atrocities committed during Colombia's long civil war.

In two days, Mancuso, 48, detailed collusion by army generals, police colonels, a state prosecutor and politicians in planning the murders of scores of alleged leftists, local politicians and peasant organizers, according to lawyers and victims who were permitted to watch the closed-door sessions.

Dressed in an expensive suit and reading quickly in a matter-of-fact tone from a prepared statement, they said, Mancuso testified that his men had paid the army and police in one region $400,000 a month for their cooperation, and that paramilitaries had coerced voters at gunpoint to support regional and presidential candidates who favored the paramilitaries' agenda.

Mancuso's admission so far of involvement in at least 70 crimes in northwestern Colombia is part of a peace deal that promises demobilized militia leaders a maximum of eight years' incarceration, no matter the severity of their crimes, in exchange for full confessions and payment of reparations to victims.

Mancuso is among about 30,000 members of rightist militias who have laid down their arms since late 2003, and one of more than 2,000 who are expected to confess to grave crimes to take advantage of lighter sentences.

A wealthy cattleman who studied at the University of Pittsburgh, Mancuso helped found civilian militias in the 1980s, financed by rich landowners to combat attacks and extortion by leftist guerrillas. The United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, morphed into shadowy armies that tortured and massacred civilians and became major drug traffickers.

The U.S. State Department classifies the AUC as a foreign terrorist organization. Several of its leaders, including Mancuso, are wanted in the United States for cocaine trafficking, but the government peace deal shields them from extradition as long as they comply with its terms.

Mancuso, who also testified in December, is the first of 59 top militia leaders held in a maximum-security prison to give his account of extensive links with the military and police, from weapons and flight training to logistical support, selection of civilian targets for massacres, and material aid.

Human rights groups have long accused the Colombian military and police, which receive some $700 million in annual funding from the United States, of collaborating with right-wing militias. But Mancuso's testimony is the first confession to detail those links, down to the names of generals and colonels who supposedly worked hand-in- glove with illegal militias.

General Freddy Padilla, the commander of the Colombian armed forces, released a statement Tuesday denying that the military had colluded with militias and defending a decorated general, now dead, whom Mancuso accused of extensive cooperation in planning massacres.

Mancuso also cited a local prosecutor who is now a fugitive from justice believed to be in the United States, who he said had supplied names of suspected leftists to be targeted for assassination and tipped off paramilitaries to state investigations and operations against them.

He is expected to resume his testimony Jan. 25 with details of the financing of the paramilitary networks by wealthy elites and the structure of drug-trafficking networks. In an interview during his disarmament in late 2004, Mancuso said he hoped to run for Senate after serving his time at one of the prison farms where the state has told militiamen they will pay their debt to society.

Details of Mancuso's testimony have riveted the nation, coming on the heels of revelations the last two months of links between paramilitaries and politicians allied with the U.S.-backed president, Álvaro Uribe.

Victims interviewed after the proceedings said that Mancuso used his court time for political grandstanding, listing his crimes with a cold-hearted air, justifying them as acts of counterinsurgency and claiming not to know locations of hidden graves.

"He's manipulating us and the prosecutors," said Teresita Gaviria, the president of an association of victims who are demanding that Mancuso reveal the whereabouts of more than 150 missing family members.

But lawyers and human rights groups said his statements could be crucial in exposing elites who aided death squads and could help the nation heal from a traumatic period.

Gustavo Gallón, director of the Colombian Commission of Jurists, acknowledged that many senior military and police officials whom Mancuso implicated are conveniently dead, imprisoned or fugitives from justice.

But Gallón said that Mancuso told prosecutors that he could identify other military men whose names he did not know from photographs.

"Even though Mancuso's declaration leaves a lot to fill out the truth, it nonetheless narrates the complicity and the multiple links that existed between the 'paras' and the security forces," Gallón said.

But like many observers, he said he did not expect the militia leaders to reveal links to current top political and military leaders, for fear of reprisals.