Colombia said to kill rebel leader (Ivan Rios, member of FARC's ruling junta, 2nd whack of the week)

AP on Yahoo ^ | 3/7/08 | Vivian Sequera - AP

[NormsRevenge]

BOGOTA, Colombia - Colombian security forces carrying out an arrest warrant Friday for a top rebel leader killed a man in a shootout, and were trying to confirm his identity, an official in the chief prosecutor's office said Friday.

The raid targeted Ivan Rios, a member of the FARC guerrillas' ruling junta. If the body is identified as his, it would be the second member of the ruling secretariat of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, to be killed in a week.

That would be a huge blow to Latin America's oldest and strongest insurgency, shaken by the death Saturday of spokesman Raul Reyes in a cross-border raid in Ecuador that has set off an international diplomatic crisis.

The official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because he was awaiting an official announcement, said Friday's raid occurred in a mountainous area of the western Colombian province of Caldas.

The State Department had a standing bounty of $5 million for Rios, whose real name is Jose Juvenal Velandia.

In a 1999 interview with The Associated Press, Rios said he joined the insurgency as a student in Colombia's second city of Medellin to avoid being killed by right-wing death squads that had attacked other student activists.

Rios became known across Colombia as one of the rebels' main negotiators in failed peace talks that ended in 2002.

He was thought to be around 40 years old.

[ElCapitanAmericaLives]

“Didn’t he realize that you can do DNA tests on strands of hair?

Significantly less messy than amputated limbs, or so I’ve heard.”

They were surrounded and in the middle of a battle. I don’t think the Colombian military would have been very impressed if a guy comes out claiming to have a hair strand from a rebel leader as proof that they killed him.

[Recon Dad]

I agree with everything above, but I would add I also think that when faced with the computer information Chavez and Correa made nice and will now wait until there is a new President in the US in January. All bets are off if the dems take over.

[Reaganite1984]

I like those dudes with the FARC brand bandannas.

Verrry inconspicuous.

[nw_arizona_granny]

Thank you for the comments and ping.

[nw_arizona_granny]

President Alvaro Uribe has not distracted even one uniformed soldier on the border from his labor of militarily defeating the FARC.<<<

I like that line.

Thank you for the translation, it is very interesting.

[nw_arizona_granny]

Thank you for your post #56, it answers a lot of questions for me.

[Founding Father]

Thank you for the translation.
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Boz posits an interesting question here. I agree with him that Rio Group made gains this last week. Your thoughts?

http://bloggingsbyboz.blogspot.com/2008/03/oas-vs-rio-group.html

I’m not sure how much I’ll be online this weekend, but I thought I’d leave with one of several questions this week’s events have me thinking about: Did the Grupo de Rio just beat the OAS?

It’s likely due to a coincidence of events that brought the presidents together, but in the short term, the Rio Group just succeeded where the OAS could not. Does this have implications for both organizations down the road?

My guess is that the OAS may not have lost, but the Rio Group definitely gained in standing.

3 comments:
Greg Weeks said...
Insulza was already responding to criticisms from Correa that the OAS wasn’t doing enough. So this may not leave him looking so great (which is annoying for him because he wants to run for president).

Richard Grabman said...
This may not be a bad thing. The OAS was sort of a hold-over from the Cold War, and is widely seen as an instrument of U.S. policy. The Rio Group has the appearance (whether the reality I don’t know) of more independence, and is PERCEIVED as more responsive to pan-American interests.

Greg Weeks said...
It is also not located in DC, which is important symbolically.
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Did you see this earlier in the week?

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/442944.html

Venezuelan pleads guilty in cash case
A second man in an alleged plot to cover up Venezuela’s campaign contribution to Argentina’s president pleaded guilty in a case that prosecutors said involves a Venezuelan spy agency.

A wealthy oilman accused of participating in an alleged coverup of Venezuela’s $800,000 campaign donation to an Argentine presidential candidate has pleaded guilty in Miami to conspiring as an illegal agent in the United States.

Carlos Kauffmann, a partner in Venezuela’s largest privately owned oil company, is described in court papers released Monday as a ‘’minimal participant’’ in the alleged plot to silence a Key Biscayne man who got caught with the money in Argentina.

TRIP TO ARGENTINA

But the money — stashed in a suitcase — did not belong to the businessman, Guido Alejandro Antonini Wilson, prosecutors said. Antonini, wanted on related customs charges in Argentina, was a passenger on a privately chartered plane that delivered the cash to Buenos Aires last summer.

Federal prosecutors in Miami stirred up a hemispheric political scandal in December when they charged Kauffmann and four others with the alleged Venezuelan coverup — including traveling to South Florida as foreign government agents. Prosecutors also said the men were allegedly directed by Venezuela’s spy agency — in cahoots with then-candidate and now Argentina’s new president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

Fernández and Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez have strongly denied the allegations.

Prosecutors have repeatedly said the cash did not belong to Antonini but rather to Venezuela’s state-owned oil company — and that it was intended as a gift for Fernández’s campaign.

Kauffmann, a partner in Venoco, which does substantial business with U.S. companies, is the second defendant to plead guilty in the controversial case. Kauffmann, 36, pleaded guilty on Friday to conspiring to act as an unregistered Venezuelan agent and faces up to five years in prison.

OTHER GUILTY PLEA

A co-conspirator who played a more prominent role, Venezuelan lawyer Moises Maionica, 36, pleaded guilty in January to charges of conspiring and acting as an unregistered agent for the Venezuelan government. He faces up to 10 years’ imprisonment.

Court papers have portrayed Kauffmann’s business partner, Franklin Duran, as the ring’s alleged leader. Duran, 40, is accused of plotting with a high-ranking official in Venezuela’s spy agency, DISIP, to pressure Antonini into keeping his mouth shut about the source and purpose of the campaign cash.

After Argentine officials seized the money on Aug. 4, 2007, Duran allegedly met with an unidentified DISIP official to hatch the coverup in South Florida.

‘’The DISIP official further stated that the government of Venezuela wanted the assistance of Antonini in concealing the source and destination of the seized funds,’’ according to a statement filed with Kauffmann’s plea agreement.

``Franklin Duran assured the DISIP official that [Duran] had Antonini under his control.’’

Duran later told Kauffmann about the plan, according to the statement.

‘TIES TO’ SPY AGENCY

In another twist in the case, prosecutors disclosed that defendant Rodolfo Edgardo Wanseele Paciello ‘’has ties to DISIP’’ through contacts with the Venezuelan intelligence service.

Wanseele, a 40-year-old Uruguayan who lives in Miami, ‘’provided transportation and counter-surveillance to a person identified as an intelligence officer with DISIP,’’ U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard wrote after denying his bond last week.

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An opposing view (as is almost every article found at this site):

http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1156/68/

Washington’s Role in Current Conflict Between Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador
Written by Cory Fischer-Hoffman
Wednesday, 05 March 2008

Uribe and BushCaracas, Venezuela — On Saturday March 1st Colombia’s Air Force carried out a military operation in Ecuador, violating the sovereignty of its western neighbor nation. The bombing resulted in at least 17 deaths. One of the people reported to be among the victims is Raúl Reyes, commander and spokesperson for the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC). This attack is the continuation and escalation of an on-going war in Colombia that has persisted for 40 years due to US military funding and training of Armed Forces in Colombia. The United States has a long history of intervention in Latin America, ranging from military occupations, to financial support for the overthrow of democratically elected presidents to economic sabotage to military trainings of state and private death squads. In Colombia, the United States has taken particular interest in the oil, land, water, and agricultural resources as well as the ports and profitable cocaine trade, and more recently Colombia’s strategic location in relation to Venezuela and Ecuador.

The United States supported and funded a coup attempt in April 2002 in Venezuela, temporarily taking democratically elected President Hugo Chávez out of power. While Venezuela has continued to sell oil to the United States, Chávez has taken a pro-sovereignty stance, demanding that the United States not intervene in their national politics. The Bush Administration has made a series of aggressive statements towards Venezuela, working to support the political opposition that launched the coup attempt and is now engaged in tactics of economic sabotage with the aims of destabilizing the Venezuelan economy. In addition to rich natural resources, Venezuela is offering an alternative to the US-led neo-liberal development model by proposing a “Socialism of the 21st Century.” The Unites States government uses its military power, technology, and wealth to threaten and to impose its culture, politics, and economies on other nations. When those nations resist, they are branded as terrorists, enemies or communists. Since September 11, 2001 the US government has used “the war on terrorism” to advance their aims of acquiring more oil, land and resources.

With the death toll in Iraq and Afghanistan rising every day, and a complicit media, which is forbidden by law to show the coffins of US soldiers who were killed in Iraq, the US people have become desensitized to the death of those labeled as terrorists. The US is employing its classic logic; that in the hunt for “terrorists” there are no rules. They have imposed this onto Colombians for many years, fueling an internal civil war, and providing the military funding and training necessary to target the FARC, the ELN, and to terrorize the Colombian people. Colombia’s civil war plays a destabilizing force within the entire region and with the recent attack of Ecuador, that process has been escalated rapidly. It is important to emphasize that Colombia has violated Ecuador’s national sovereignty and has for all intents and purposes brought its war to Ecuador. In response Ecuador has withdrawn its ambassador from Colombia and Venezuela has sent tanks to the border. While bombing another sovereign nation is standard behavior for the US government, this military operation is unprecedented and marks a calculated escalation of tensions within the region.

Each discontent expressed by the US government towards the Chávez Administration is armed with the threat of invasion. While many people that I know in the US simply roll their eyes at another nauseating comment from Bush; here, they prepare for invasion. Even within the anti-war movement, many people could not fathom the US being involved in further military operations, as the Armed Forces are currently over-stretched in their wars and occupations in the Middle East. For some time now, many analysts have suggested that US interventionism in Venezuela would come by means of Colombia; a state that has been led by pro-US regimes to protect US interests for resources. This seemed like a practical way for the US to play a destabilizing role without having to send US Forces, but instead send US trained Colombian Forces; both state and private paramilitary.

Chávez has also faced the bind of a huge, mostly unguarded western border with Colombia, in which the FARC, the Armed Forces, and paramilitaries have crossed into Venezuela, bringing their internal conflict to Venezuela’s door. Chávez has condemned the violence in Colombia, and its pouring onto Venezuelan soil. Based on Colombia’s attack of Ecuador, Chávez has sent tanks to protect its border with Colombia. Let us not forget that in the United States there are troops at the US-Mexico border, and not because the United States is responding to a military attack, but because the US government and media has attempted to equate immigration with terrorism.

While the US projects its “war on terror” towards the immigration community within its borders, it extends the war throughout the world, in an attempt to justify its military actions for more land, resources, and power. With the recent tensions that Exxon-Mobile has created in Venezuela, by claiming rights to an inflated amount of funds from Venezuela’s state oil company and furthermore, initiating various international lawsuits, resulting in the freezing of $300 million of PDVSA’s assets, US-Venezuelan relations have become even more tense. This action taken by US company Exxon-Mobile is a further escalation against Venezuela; representing not only the militaristic but the economic tactics used in an effort to discredit and destabilize Venezuela.

Now, while Colombia has attacked Ecuador, provoking a collapse in diplomatic relations and placing the region at risk of a war, the headlines in the United States read: “Chávez sends forces to Colombia’s border.” This is a calculated attempt to create the image of Venezuela as the aggressor in the conflict, when the clear aggressor is the United States, who trains and funds the Colombian Army, not only in counter-insurgency and terror but now as an imperialist army, who has violated the sovereignty of its neighbor nation and created grave tensions within the region. The US government cannot pretend to be an objective observer in this conflict.

[StJacques]

Well my first comment is that Cory Fischer-Hoffman is just shivving for Chavez. Some of those comments are really outrageous.

Take this one for instance:

" . . . This attack is the continuation and escalation of an on-going war in Colombia that has persisted for 40 years due to US military funding and training of Armed Forces in Colombia. . . ."

Really?

I thought the attack was the result of the Colombian government's desire to defeat a terrorist/kidnapping/extorting/narcotrafficking group of so-called "guerrillas" who are a genuine threat to their national security. I could also go on and on about what was left out of Cory Fischer-Hoffman's article, but I'm not going to waste my time.

Let me put up something from Martha Colmenares' web site (Wow! Does this woman ROCK!!!) on the recent murder of a group of young boys by the FARC in Colombia. I'm just translating her first paragraph.



Translation of first paragraph:

"Young boys also have been victims of the FARC terrorists, they are recruited and trained to kill, their throats are cut or they die by their bullets. When it is a case of very powerful images, it is a personal decision to look at it or not, for that reason they are compiled in this pdf, that opens when you click HERE. The original source, Secretos de Cuba, contains expansive reporting with images and reports about the crimes of this terrorist band, which can be accessed directly. These are documents which confirm acts of barbarism of these murderers who attempt to classify themselves as the "Army of the People" and they deserve to be shown. . . ."

Put that up against Cory Fischer-Hoffman's take.

I'm just soooo sick of these ignorant, uncaring, mean, deceitful leftists who keep trying to tell us that the "revolution" is for the good of humanity, we just don't see it because we're weak or god-knows-what.

The murder of young boys is murder plain and simple. Anyone who says differently can take the rest and shove it.

[MaxMax]

Hey, I killed that guy in Rainbow Six.

[Kenny Bunk]

The real bright spot, though, is that Chavez does not possess a rationally functioning brain. Uribe does - and thus knows if he can enrage and goad Chavez enough, it will tip him into the irrationality of an actual military attack on Colombian territory.

There never was any serious probability of an attack on Colombia by Venezuela, or even more remotely, Ecuador. The first clue is the absolute absence of any military response by Colombia. Chávez is just doing his job, which is to keep the region on the boil for his CHICOM puppet masters. Idiot though he may be, Chavez has achieved a bit of a media coup and by acting on behalf of Ecuador, who after all is the only aggrieved party in the case, he has established himself, or tried to, as the heir apparent of Castro. He is seen to be leading the Marxists of Latin America in united action against US interests.

[StJacques]

". . . Idiot though he may be, Chavez has achieved a bit of a media coup and by acting on behalf of Ecuador, who after all is the only aggrieved party in the case, he has established himself, or tried to, as the heir apparent of Castro. He is seen to be leading the Marxists of Latin America in united action against US interests."

In terms of explaining Chavez's motivations for acting as he did, I am convinced you are right.

But this may be an instance of "be careful what you wish for" because you just may get it.

Chavez's actions appear to have been greeted with incredulity in Venezuela. The El Universal (Caracas) and Tal Cual (Caracas) newspapers took him to task, especially Tal Cual, which has now emerged as a true opposition voice, and the word from bloggers and newspaper sources in Colombia, Mexico, Spain, and the U.S. is that the Venezuelan army did not take Hugo very seriously in public, which suggests there must have been more to the story behind the scenes. Former Defense Minister General Raul Baduel lambasted Chavez openly in the press for "playing a dangerous game for personal political gain." In sum -- it all backfired on Chavez. His country is facing a serious problem with shortages of basic foods at supermakets and smaller grocery stores -- there have been riots; yes, riots over these shortages -- and to cut off Colombian trade, from whence they get a lot of their food, was about as smart as shooting holes in your sinking boat. Tal Cual is referring to the whole affair quite derisively as "Chacu's War" (La guerra de Chacu) in today's paper. Their editorial is a one paragraph satire that smacks of Rabelais and Garcia Marquez and finishes with the flourish of "What a great Leader!" Note: "Chacu" could be translated as "big mouth," "motor mouth," and perhaps even "trash talker."

The real genius in this whole affair was Uribe, who understood that he needed to speak directly to the Venezuelan and Ecuadoran people in friendly, courteous, even apologetic tones while simultaneously taking Chavez and Correa out to the woodshed in international affairs (remember Colombia's call for an indictment of Chavez for planning mass murder [for his aid of the FARC] before the Court of International Justice when this story broke?). Uribe made clear from the start that he wouldn't even bother sending troops to the border because he knew "the Venezuelan people are our friends." Chavez and Correa blinked, and very quickly.

Give Uribe his due. The man understands how to play the game. Chavez was taken down a notch or two in front of his own people in this affair. So what if he does have the lead role for the internationalized Latin American Left? The man is in trouble at home.

[Kenny Bunk]

Chavez was taken down a notch or two in front of his own people in this affair. So what if he does have the lead role for the internationalized Latin American Left? The man is in trouble at home.

His leftist friends who live in our home land are taking Chavez' side against America's ally, the Colombians. Imagine how they'll scream at coup time in Caracas!

[StJacques]

". . . Imagine how they'll scream at coup time in Caracas!"

There is a Venezuelan expatriate blogger named Gustavo Coronel who has been predicting in his blog, las armas de coronel (which is mostly, though not all, in Spanish), that a coup is in Chavez's future. Coronel is absolutely the hardest-hitting commentator on Chavez you will find anywhere. He is a petroleum geologist and a veteran of the oil industry in Venezuela. I wish more Americans could read what, and how, he writes. They guy is a true blogger-hero in my opinion.

[Kenny Bunk]

Coronel's blog is very good. Thanks.

It did reiterate one thing to keep in mind with Chavez,i.e., "the grain of salt," to take with all his pronunciamentos.
That is, the US, (or US-owned refineries) are currently the only places in the world where the heavy oil of Venezuela can be efficiently refined.

It's a two-way street, because those refineries would take quite a long time to adapt to other feedstocks, and if Venezuelan oil stopped, we would be short a lot of production. On the other hand, the CHICOM would need several years to build a refinery (which doubtless they probably have underway) to handle Hugo's oil.

So, in the near future, we need Chavez to keep the spigot turned on, but not quite as much as he needs us. We can take a hit, he can't. Without our refineries and market, Venezuela would collapse like a house of cards. Interesting problem, but a coup would help solve it, I hope.