The front page of today’s Los Angeles Times has a huge piece of news.
The CIA has obtained new intelligence alleging that the head of Colombia’s U.S.-backed army collaborated extensively with right-wing militias that Washington considers terrorist organizations, including a militia headed by one of the country’s leading drug traffickers.
According to the story, a U.S. intelligence document accuses Gen. Mario Montoya of collaborating closely with paramilitaries in one of the signature military operations of President Uribe’s first term.
The intelligence about Montoya is contained in a report recently circulated within the CIA. It says that Montoya and a paramilitary group jointly planned and conducted a military operation in 2002 to eliminate Marxist guerrillas from poor areas around Medellin, a city in northwestern Colombia that has been a center of the drug trade.
The 2002 Medellín military offensive, "Operation Orión," took place when Gen. Montoya headed the army’s 4th Brigade in that city. It involved weeks of intense house-to-house fighting in one of Medellín’s poorest neighborhoods, and ended up ejecting guerrilla militias from the zone.
Those who praise this military operation (and usually, by extension, President Uribe) argue that it was a critical step toward making Medellín the much safer city that it is today. Critics have long charged, though, that Operation Orión benefited the paramilitary groups who now hold undisputed control over criminal activity in Medellín’s marginal neighborhoods, as CIP noted in a report last November (PDF).
The paramilitaries were not ejected by Operation Orión and other military efforts; by some accounts they even assisted in the assault. They appear, in fact, to have emerged stronger as their principal enemies were pushed out of the city.
“Operation Orión was the beginning of the installation of a new power in [the poor neighborhood known as] Comuna 13, the same one that had ruled over other comunas in the city: that of the paramilitaries,” wrote Ricardo Aricapa, the author of [a 2005 book about this zone], in a recent UN Development Program newsletter.
Note that our report had to say "by some accounts" the military worked with the paramilitaries on Operation Orión. That is a charge we heard in off-the-record conversations with a broad spectrum of analysts in Medellín – a spectrum not limited to leftists or human rights activists – but which we were unable to document with solid written evidence or firsthand testimony.
Today’s L.A. Times indicates, however, that the U.S. intelligence community has heard the same thing, and has taken it seriously: that Gen. Montoya’s men were working hand-in-glove with the paramilitary group headed by "Don Berna" – Diego Fernando Murillo, a feared paramilitary chief whom the U.S. government wishes to extradite to face drug-trafficking charges.
This means big trouble for U.S. military aid to Colombia. Gen. Montoya has been a favorite of the United States. He was trained, and even served as an instructor, at the U.S. Army School of the Americas. He headed "Joint Task Force South," the unit that coordinated U.S.-funded military operations in southern Colombia when Plan Colombia began.
We’re not talking about a rogue "bad apple" from a hard-line military faction. These allegations of paramilitary collaboration are leveled at the head of Colombia’s entire army. The L.A. Times piece goes on to allege that Montoya’s immediate superior, the head of the entire armed forces, is not beyond suspicion either.
According to the document, the attache said information from the proven source "also could implicate" the head of the Colombian armed forces, Gen. Freddy Padilla de Leon, who commanded the military in Barranquilla, in northern Colombia, during the same period.
(Note the concerns we expressed about Gen. Padilla’s record in August.)
These revelations are emerging at a crucial moment, as the new Democratic-controlled Congress begins to consider U.S. aid to Colombia for next year. Many of those involved in drafting the aid legislation are critics of the mostly military nature of past U.S. assistance to Colombia. Most have gone on record several times expressing concerns about human rights, and about allegations of military-paramilitary collaboration.
The U.S. and Colombian authorities have repeatedly assured these congressional critics that charges of military-paramilitary ties are (1) false or exaggerated; (2) something that happens at low levels but is not tolerated at the top; or (3) a problem that is rapidly disappearing as the armed forces improve. These arguments have come from ambassadors, generals, State Department officials, and President Uribe himself; as a result, members of Congress – even skeptics – have generally had to give them the benefit of the doubt.
The "benefit of the doubt" disappears when the L.A. Times’ front page can report that the military’s top leadership truly collaborated with paramilitaries on a recent, high-profile military offensive like Operation Orion. Key members of Congress will be left feeling that their longtime suspicions have been confirmed, and are likely to act accordingly.
The U.S. policy that began with Plan Colombia is in bigger trouble today than it has ever been.
March 25th, 2007 at 8:18 am
…Adam, Looks like you’re serious, early morning newshound to pick this up so early in the day. I always start with LA Times (I’m from California, although I live in Ecuador). Interesting that WP and NYT don’t show this yet. In one sense, the fact that high level FAC folks are in bed with AUC et al, is no news; I lived in Colombia in the mid nineties and it was pretty much conventional wisdom, including the U.S. Embassy, where I worked. News here is that we’ve got CIA report coming out in MSM, which I hope serves as very public whack up side the head of the USG and the State Department, and as incentive to have serious heart-to-heart with Uribe and cia regarding the moral norte of the GOC and viability of continued high levels of U.S. aid to that country. These guys (the Colombians) need to start cleaning up their act..
March 25th, 2007 at 10:52 am
The LA Times piece will surely have an impact here in Washington, and elsewhere as well. Thanks for Mr. Isacson for making it available early on a Sunday morning. And thanks to the CIA leaker for what is surely a real patriotic act, in an age of misguided patriotism.
I do hope that somebody will provide a good translation into Spanish and circulate it appropriately. That way my friends, family, and colleagues to the South can read it.
March 25th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
I have rather mixed feelings about this, but to sum it up: this has to be looked at cautiously before jumping to conclusions, although I suppose that most people will do so anyways.
It is an allegation until proven otherwise. That is a word that the LA Times itself uses, and there are other statements in the article that point out that the information in it is not universally seen as absolute. In fact, it appears that some of the data in the report has been called “unconfirmed”.
Exactly how the information in the document implicates Gen. Montoya, and what is or isn’t interpretation by the LA Times or commentary by the leaker, the informant or somebody else remains to be fully determined. Especially when the document itself is not available for examination.
I can definitely see as likely a certain amount of Army-Paramilitary cooperation in “Operation Orion”, given the existence of precedents, previous allegations and now this report. That much is clear.
But there are things we still don’t know for sure: is the main topic of the report Gen. Montoya’s alleged role in this, or is it only one of the claims raised in the wider context of “Operation Orion” or even that of military-paramilitary relations?
Now then, from the article itself, apparently we do know this: there’s one informant who is the one making one specific claim against Montoya.
The informant goes as far as to claim that a document was allegedly signed by Montoya, the paramilitaries and others, if I read it correctly.
That document, if it in fact exists and is proven to be authentic, would be clear evidence of such cooperation and would make things rather bleak for that General. But if all we have on that front is an informant’s words, that is no smoking gun against the man.
What the rest of the report says, or doesn’t say, will speak volumes.
If we are to immediately and directly condemn Mr. Montoya due to the existence of that allegation, I don’t know, but I prefer to be prudent for now.
That, of course, doesn’t mean that this incident can’t be used for (hopefully) positive purposes as far as changing the focus of U.S.-Colombia relations goes and putting more pressure on this kind of issue, as a whole. I’m in total agreement on that front.
Camilo Wilson:
In addition to what I’ve typed above….
I don’t think we can easily assume that it is or isn’t a “patriotic act” by the leaker.
This world is often far more ambiguous than that, and his intentions may be more subjective and political than objectively “patriotic”.
I don’t know for sure, but neither does anyone else here. It’s a completely open debate, since we know nothing about the fellow involved and how her/his mind works.
March 25th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
While I’m waiting for my other post to show up…
There’s another question here that, IMHO, can’t be cleared up until the document itself can be read or is directly quoted.
Is the “proven source” mentioned by the LA Times the main/only source for the report? Or are there multiple sources for the claims, including the one specific claim about Gen. Montoya (that we know of)?
Although the implication is there, the article doesn’t clearly say whether the entire report is based on that one source, or if it actually had more than just one.
The statements by the CIA spokespeople and the allied intelligence agency seem to differ from the LA Times view.
Either they’re trying to cover it up, or the LA Times is simply trying to give it a certain interpretation on its own. Either is perfectly possible.
March 26th, 2007 at 5:15 am
Eveybody knew that operacÃon orion was in fact a paramilitary operation. It was widely known that the responsible police general Gallego was VERY close to parachieftain Diego Murillo Bejerano aka Don Berna.
The most cynical thing was it to call the whole farce operation Orion. As nearly everybody knew the responsible paracomander for conquering comuna 13 was Freddy Orion, the right hand of Don Berna.
March 26th, 2007 at 10:51 am
Interestingly enough, Colombian media waited for teh Government reaction before making tyhe news public. As a result, colombian readers got articles like: Government “rechaza” CIA accusations etc etc etc. How bad…
Regards, Doppiafila
March 27th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Bazkoare: I beg to differ. This isn’t simply a matter of what “everybody knew” or assumes to be the case.
Doppiafila: I think you’re generalizing a bit, as several news outlets, for example the online editions of the main dailies and magazines, did present the story by itself, albeit in summarized form. Obviously, they later had to include and report the government’s reaction, whatever it was.