When the fourth-most-circulated newspaper in the United States makes serious charges in a story on the front page of its Sunday edition, the response over the next few days is crucial. So far, how has the Colombian government sought to dispel allegations in a leaked CIA document, which claim that the chief of Colombia’s army, Gen. Mario Montoya, has worked closely with paramilitary groups?
1. Deny the charges and demand to see the proof. Reasonable enough, and that is what Gen. Montoya and President Uribe said in their first public statements.
The government of Colombia asks of foreign intelligence agencies that any accusation based on evidence against members of Colombian institutions be presented to the competent justice and administrative agencies.
Some of the subsequent steps have been much less effective, though.
2. Return to the scene of the allegations and bask in a spontaneous display of the population’s gratitude. The documents revealed by the Los Angeles Times allege that Gen. Montoya, during his time as head of the MedellÃn-based 4th Brigade, worked closely with paramilitaries under the command of alias “Don Berna†– a longtime narcotrafficker who remains one of the most powerful figures in Colombia’s second-largest city.
Specifically, Gen. Montoya is accused of enlisting Don Berna’s support for “Operation Orión,†an all-out offensive in late 2002 that ejected guerrilla militias from Comuna 13, a violent slum on MedellÃn’s western outskirts. Operation Orión was widely considered one of the first major victories of President Ãlvaro Uribe’s security strategy, and a key step in the dramatic reduction of MedellÃn’s crime rate during the past four years.
On Tuesday, Gen. Montoya returned to Comuna 13, where he made a public appearance before hundreds of grateful citizens of the poor neighborhood. MedellÃn’s main newspaper, El Colombiano, gushed effusively about the population’s passionate support for the general.
The officer arrived at the Las Independencias high school at around 2:30 yesterday afternoon, where 200 people awaited him, many of them young people who violated the security cordon in order to touch General Montoya. …
“I ask the press that when they are going to publish something, that it be because they have precise information. The general has come today to the community that supports him,†said one of the community leaders who participated in the event.
The high school was filled with posters bearing messages of support for the general’s work, and one of the attendees carried a small sign on which a message in English, directed toward U.S. journalists, could be read.
“The media should generate peace and not violence. If what they said was the truth, there would still be paramilitaries here. There is greater tranquility after Operation Orión,†said Byron Ortiz, a conciliator from the zone who carried the small sign, and who shouted “viva†to the general every time a soldier put the megaphone in front of his mouth.
All was not as it seemed, however, according to this morning’s edition of Bogotá’s El Tiempo:
Instead of helping, the event that took place in the high school in the Independencias barrio, right in Comuna 13, raised questions about who really convened the meeting and who brought the nearly 200 people that attended it.
Montoya most certainly didn’t know it, but many of those who were there had no idea what they had come for.
“It must be some recreation,†answered several elderly people as they emerged at noon from a car that had transported them from La Divisa. They noted that they had been invited by the permanent Army post that functions in their barrio.
Several leaders confirmed that the call to attend was received through the Fourth Brigade.
By 12:00 noon soldiers were seen carrying street banners with messages like: “Many thanks for your support Señor General Mario Montoya.â€
Other soldiers prepared the high school’s auditorium and received the first invitees.
It is also troubling that the microbuses [vans that brought many of those in attendance] were from Bellanita de Transportes and Tax & Col Ltda., businesses owned by Albeiro Quintero, who is justifiably questioned for his presumed ties with the “paras†of Diego Fernando Murillo, alias “Don Berna.â€
An article on the website of the Colombian newsmagazine Semana also found that much of the audience did not know what they had been called to attend:
“I’m here to see what they’re giving. I hope they give me some roof tiles for my house,†said MarÃa del Rosario Usuga, minutes before General Mario Montoya arrived at a high school in MedellÃn’s El Salado barrio. [The Semana report refers to the same event; El Salado is adjacent to the Las Independencias barrios.] Like her, many were confused about what was to happen at 2:00 Tuesday afternoon at the education center. In addition to roofing tiles, some also came asking for food: “Is this where they are giving out chicken?†asked an elderly woman who had come from the 20 de Julio barrio.
The Semana article adds further information about paramilitary collaboration with the 2002 Operation Orión military offensive. It borrows much from testimonies of demobilized paramilitary fighters gathered by the Popular Training Institute (IPC), a MedellÃn-based human-rights organization. (Read in Spanish the IPC’s more extensive excerpts from demobilized paramilitaries’ testimonies about Operation Orión. Also read in Spanish the IPC’s vivid account of Gen. Montoya’s Tuesday visit to Comuna 13.)
According to these testimonies, some members of the former Cacique Nutibara bloc carried out coordinated actions with the authorities to re-take that sector of the city, which was being held by militias of the FARC, the ELN and the CAP [Armed Commandos of the People, an old organization of guerrilla-linked, putatively leftist street gangs.] These actions lasted for more than two months, during which they implemented a strategy of terror that left at least fifty disappeared.
“All the authorities who took part in the Operation helped us,†said one of the demobilized, referring not only to the Army but to the Police, the attorney-general’s office and the DAS (the presidential intelligence service). “We received help, legally, from all the authorities. One of them communicated with ‘King Kong,’ the [paramilitary] commander in the zone. When they came to enter the neighborhood, we retreated, so that they entered and we left,†the account continued.
There are coincidences in the operation’s name, which also create suspicions of possible ties between paramilitaries and the military operation in Comuna 13. According to the IPC, the paras themselves, led by Don Berna, gave the name Orión to the military command that entered the Comuna alongside the legal authorities. In addition, Orión is the alias of Fabio Acevedo, a former mid-level leader of the Cacique Nutibara Bloc.
Acevedo, the former Comandante Orión, is now a director and one of the most visible members of the Corporación Democracia, a MedellÃn-based NGO formed by demobilized members of Don Berna’s Nutibara Bloc.
3. Threaten to sue. Colombian Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos told a radio interviewer that a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Times is an option on the table.
Santos also told “La FM†radio that the press should “be very careful about mentioning the names†of military officers who face allegations, because “the enemies of the government, the enemies of the army will do a lot of damage to us.â€
Asked by his interviewer whether he “would hold his hand over a candle flame†for Gen. Montoya, Santos said “I believe what the general says, that he did not work with paramilitaries.†When the reporter insisted, asking “would you burn your hands?†Santos replied, “I wouldn’t burn my hands for anyone these days. But I believe Gen. Montoya.â€
March 29th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
I certainly don’t believe that the allegations should be dismissed entirely nor through rather irrelevant PR moves, as the above incidents indicate.
But I do think it’s reasonable enough to ask for more information and clarification about the matter, before assuming anything about them.
The existence of indications about cooperation between the military and the paramilitaries in “Operation Orion” does not mean that everything in the specific allegations against Mr. Montoya himself is automatically true. The two issues are distinct.
For that matter, if Montoya and/or his men cooperated with paramilitaries in that operation, the particular claim of a signed document explicitly indicating this collaboration seems strange. Sloppy, even.
The Ralito document signed by paramilitaries and politicians (which is an entirely different animal) doesn’t explicitly talk about the nature of the relationship between the signatories, just about political generalities that were supposedly intended to “re-found the nation”.
To think that a General would place himself in an even more awkward position doesn’t immediately seem logical. Again, even if we assumed that he was in fact willingly collaborating with the paramilitaries in “Orion”.
March 30th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
The Colombian government’s response fits nicely into its campaign of some years now to portray things as other than what they are, all in order to enlist international support, and especially US military support. This sophisticated campaign has been diabolically effective.
That Colombia’s armed forces, anonymously backed by regional and national political and economic elites, should at the highest levels (and not just on the fringe, where a few “bad apples” operate) be in league with right-wing paramilitaries comes as no surprise to anybody who knows Colombia “on the ground.”
One hopes that enough people in the US Congress (other involved entities seem to be hopelessly at sea) will at long last stop indulging this seductive campaign and will ask the right questions. Above all, one hopes that they will shift US policy away from what until now has been its tragic neglect of human rights and the welfare of impoverished and socially marginalized peoples. In so doing, maybe they can rescue their land from its sad drift away from values that Americans have historically professed to hold dear. Maybe they can rescue Americans from themselves.
March 30th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
Camilo Wilson: “This sophisticated campaign has been diabolically effective.”
This doesn’t seem that sophisticated, diabolic nor that much effective either. There’s been plenty of doubt and criticism about this and other rather transparent, sloppy moves, though of course some do fall for them.
“That Colombia’s armed forces, anonymously backed by regional and national political and economic elites, should at the highest levels (and not just on the fringe, where a few “bad apples” operate) be in league with right-wing paramilitaries comes as no surprise to anybody who knows Colombia “on the ground.”
At the conceptual level, of course not. That is not surprising.
But what matters here is, IMHO, the details. Not everything that is easy to imagine as going on automatically makes all accusations and all their ramifications equally true in each and every case.
In other words, I think that general statement is fine, for what it is, but not that useful as far as specific cases are concerned. That would be too much of a generalization, and by lumping everyone together, allows the real culprits to hide all that much better.
“Above all, one hopes that they will shift US policy away from what until now has been its tragic neglect of human rights and the welfare of impoverished and socially marginalized peoples.”
I can generally agree with that as a principle.
” In so doing, maybe they can rescue their land from its sad drift away from values that Americans have historically professed to hold dear. Maybe they can rescue Americans from themselves.”
Well, I prefer not to go so far.
April 1st, 2007 at 11:19 am
Interestingly, while several papers have cited the GOC’s response to the LAT article, I haven’t seen any article which repeats, let alone corroborates, what the Times has said. The slick (and apparently, effective) GOC response to the article aside, where’s the beef? I don’t see the story expanding as, for example, has the story on the firing of U.S. District Attorneys; it doesn’t seem to be getting traction. Am I wrong on this?