WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS
ISSUE #434, MAY 24, 1998
NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK 339
LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012 (212) 674-9499
*5. PARAMILITARIES HIT COLOMBIAN OIL TOWN
At least 11 people were murdered and some 40 others abducted by
paramilitary groups on the night of May 16 and early morning of May 17 in
four working class neighborhoods in the central northeastern Colombian
city of Barrancabermeja, located in Santander department just across the
Magdalena river from Antioquia department, in Colombia's vast Magdalena
Medio region. Some 50 hooded and heavily armed men arrived in the town by
river and went through the neighborhoods of El Campestre, 9 de Abril, El
Campin, and Maria Eugenia, selecting their victims from a list; any who
refused to "accompany" the paramilitaries onto trucks were shot to death.
Eight people were executed in a public square, and three others were later
found dead. Others were strung up from trees in rural areas outside the
town, according to an official of the oil workers' union who spoke on
Colombian radio. Many of those shot also had their throats cut or were
decapitated. Among those killed were a six-year old and a 13-year old,
according to regional defender of the people Julio Cesar Ardila. Colombian
police and military had set up checkpoints in Barrancabermeja just before
the raid, and as the killings took place troops carried out sweeps in the
same southeastern sector, between Campestre and 9 de Abril. The troops
made no efforts to stop the killings. [El Diario-La Prensa (NY) 5/18/98 from
AFP; Agencia de Noticias Nueva Colombia (ANNCOL) 5/18/98; New York
Times 5/20/98; Human Rights Actions Network - Derechos Human Rights
5/19/98]
Santander police chief Gen. Tobias Duran said that police patrols do not
normally enter the neighborhoods where the attacks took place because
those neighborhoods are controlled by urban militia groups linked to the
leftist rebel groups Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and
National Liberation Army (ELN). "If they go in they don't come out, because
they burn them or the police agents are attacked with gunfire," said Duran.
Several of the victims lived in a heavily populated neighborhood called
Boston; neighbors there charge that the assailants are part of a
paramilitary group that has sworn to eliminate leftist guerrillas and their
civilian supporters from the Magdalena Medio. [ED-LP 5/18/98 from AFP]
Barrancabermeja is at the heart of Colombia's oil-producing region and has
long been a bastion of political opposition and union movements, especially
the combative Workers Trade Union (USO), which represents workers at the
state-owned oil company Ecopetrol. [ANNCOL 5/18/98] USO members went
on strike on May 18 to protest the massacre and demand that those abducted
be returned alive. The strikers shut down the oil pipeline leading from the
country's principal refinery, and a fuel shortage was starting to be felt in
Bogota by the end of the week. [El Universal (Caracas) 5/23/98; El Nuevo
Herald (Miami) 5/22/98 from AP] The strike affected the production of
British Petroleum (BP); a BP spokesperson said USO demonstrators
prevented operators for the Ocensa pipeline from entering pumping stations.
[Reuter 5/21/98]
Some 30,000 people attended the funeral for the massacre victims,
according to a communique from the Colombian Communist Party (PCC).
Barrancabermeja residents began a "permanent" civic strike to protest the
killings. [PCC Communique 5/21/98] On May 21 police agents deactivated
two bombs placed by unknown individuals in front of the oil workers union
offices in Barrancabermeja. [ENH 5/22/98 from AFP] The civic strike and
the USO strike were called off May 22 to allow the government time to take
action to track down the killers and obtain the release of the hostages. [ED-
LP 5/23/98 from AFP]
The United Self-Defense Groups of Colombia (AUC) claims it has expanded to
include operations in three new areas of the country, the Bogota daily El
Tiempo reported on May 22. At a secret weekend meeting May 15-17,
leaders of the AUC welcomed new member organizations from Santander,
Casanare and Cundinamarca departments, according to minutes of the
meeting obtained by the newspaper. The Santander group--Self-Defense
Groups of Santander and southern Cesar--is the one that carried out the
recent massacre in Barrancabermeja, according to El Tiempo. AUC leader
Carlos Castano also sent his organization's peace proposal to the two
leading presidential candidates for the upcoming May 31 elections, Horacio
Serpa Uribe of the Liberal Party and Andres Pastrana Arango of the
Conservative Party. In the proposal, the AUC demands to be considered a
political group and to participate in three-way talks with the government
and leftist rebels. [ET 5/23/98; Miami Herald 5/23/98 from AFP]
Concerned people can write to Colombian president Ernesto Samper Pizano
(fax #571-284-2186; email ) and other
officials to protest the killings, demand the safe return of the disappeared
and demand a full investigation and punishment of those responsible. For
more information see the Derechos Human Rights web site at
http://www.derechos.org/human- rights/actions/ [Derechos 5/19/98]
The Barrancabermeja killings were only the latest in a long string of
paramilitary massacres which seem to have intensified in recent months.
Paramilitary death squads were also believed responsible for the murder of
four campesinos in the Caribbean coast towns of Zambrano and Carmen de
Bolivar on May 16-17. [ED- LP 5/18/98 from AFP]
Students at the Colombian National University (UNC) Bogota campus charged
on May 22 that they are being threatened by the AUC. On May 13 Radio Net
broadcast a communique in which the AUC expressed interest in
strengthening actions in urban areas and "cleansing" the public
universities--especially the UNC--of "subversives." Student activists
recently started getting telephone threats; on May 21 a person linked to
paramilitary groups warned that the paramilitaries are preparing an
incursion onto the UNC Bogota campus. The students are asking for letters
to Samper (see fax and email address above) and other officials demanding
protection for students, teachers and staff at UNC and an end to repressive
actions against human rights organizations. [Students' Urgent Action
Statement 5/22/98]
*6. COLOMBIANS STAGE PROTEST FOR PEACE
On Apr. 19, two days after the Barrancabermeja killings, some five million
Colombians participated in actions as part of a national "Day of Protest
Against Violence and Impunity," initially organized by the Broad Social
Front, a coalition of civic, nongovernmental and political organizations [see
Update #430]. May 19 was chosen for the protest to mark the first
anniversary of the murders in Bogota of human rights activists Mario
Calderon and Elsa Alvarado [see Update #382], whose killers remain
unpunished. The protest included a half-hour civic strike before noon that
shut down commerce and industry. People participated by waving white
handkerchiefs, joining hands in a human chain and shouting and honking car
horns in a symbolic move to drown out the sound of bullets. Some 15,000
people took part in the protest at Plaza Bolivar in central Bogota. Even
street children participated, emphasizing demands for an end to impunity
for human rights violators. Students at the Pontific Bolivarian University in
Medellin joined hands and surrounded the campus. [ED-LP 5/20/98 from EFE;
Clarin 5/20/98; CNN en Espanol 5/19/98 with information from AP, Reuter]
In the coast city of Cartagena de Indias, government ministers and
delegates from more than 100 countries participating in a meeting of the
Non-Aligned Movement observed a minute of silence- -at the urging of the
Venezuelan delegates--in solidarity with Colombia's desire for peace. The
national police headquarters in Bogota observed the day by flying its flag at
half-mast in memory of the nearly 3,000 police agents killed in recent
years. National Police director Rosso Jose Serrano ordered his troops to
sound their sirens for the noise-making part of the protest. Police flew five
helicopters over the Plaza Bolivar protest, dropping yellow and red rose
petals on the crowd. On the underside of the helicopters the word "peace"
was painted in green, the official color of the police. [ED-LP 5/20/98 from
EFE; CNN en Espanol 5/19/98]
Local television journalist Bernabe Cortes was shot to death in a taxi at
midday on May 19 in Cali as he prepared special coverage of the actions for
peace. The taxi driver was also killed. [ED-LP 5/20/98 from EFE; Clarin
5/20/98]
Meanwhile, Colombia's leading presidential candidates are preparing for the
May 31 elections. Recent voter intention polls show Pastrana narrowly
leading over Serpa; in the likely event that no candidate wins more than 50%
of the vote, a runoff will be held on June 21. Independent candidate and
former foreign minister Noemi Sanin is rising in the polls and warns of a
"big surprise"--she predicts she will beat Serpa to go to a second round
against Pastrana. [ENH 5/22/98 from AP] Nobel literature laureate Gabriel
Garcia Marquez shocked many Colombians on May 22 by issuing a statement
endorsing the Conservative Party candidate, Pastrana. [El Universal
5/23/98]
*7. COLOMBIAN INTELLIGENCE BRIGADE TO BE DISMANTLED
On May 19 Colombian army commander Gen. Manuel Jose Bonett announced he
would immediately begin dismantling the 20th Intelligence Brigade, which
has been accused by human rights groups of involvement in human rights
violations and assisting rightwing paramilitary groups. The move came just
nine days after the Washington Post ran a report charging that the US
government was investigating the brigade's possible connection to recent
political murders in Colombia [see Update #433]. The move also followed a
decision by the US State Department earlier in May to revoke the visa of
Gen. Ivan Ramirez Quintero, a former commander of the 20th Intelligence
Brigade who is suspected of involvement in human rights abuses. In
announcing the decision to disband the 20th Intelligence Brigade, Bonett
said studies about the brigade's fate had been under way for several months
as part of a "total and profound" restructuring of the army command. He said
each of six intelligence units that make up the brigade would be placed
under separate regional commands. Defense Minister Gilberto Echeverri said
the brigade's dismantling had been under study since September and denied
it was taken in response to international pressure. [Dallas Morning News
5/20/98] Current and former brigade officers have been accused of
nurturing rightwing paramilitary death squads. "Some wink and nod and
maybe secretly encourage the paramilitaries," a senior State Department
official told the Miami Herald. "In other areas, they are obviously ferrying
them around in trucks and facilitating their travel." The State Department
and international rights monitors cautiously praised the decision to disband
the 20th Intelligence Brigade.
President Ernesto Samper said on May 20 that the decision had nothing to do
with human rights concerns. "The Brigade was not functioning well," said
Samper. "It was not supporting command operations." However, Interior
Minister Alfonso Lopez Caballero acknowledged that Colombia was feeling
the heat over charges of army involvement in killings. "It seems to me that
this eliminates a point of friction with the international community," said
Lopez. [Miami Herald 5/21/98] The Bogota daily El Espectador hinted on May
17 that the 20th Intelligence Brigade might be linked to the May 12 murder
of hardline rightwing general Fernando Landazabal Reyes [see Update #433].
[BBC News 5/18/98]
*10. "I'M SHOCKED": US CHARGES MEXICAN BANKS WITH MONEY LAUNDERING
On May 18 a US federal grand jury in Los Angeles charged three Mexican
banks and 26 middle-level executives from 12 Mexican banks with
laundering tens of millions of dollars from drug profits. Attorney General
Janet Reno and Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin announced in Washington
that the charges resulted from a three-year sting operation led by some 200
undercover US Customs Service agents. Bancomer and Banca Serfin, Mexico's
second and third largest banks, were two of the banks the US charged; the
third, Banca Confia, is smaller but was acquired recently by the US
financial giant Citibank. The US has arrested 22 of the bank executives and
has frozen bank accounts worth about $122 million. The sting, which was
kept secret from Mexican officials, was code-named "Operation
Casablanca," after a popular Hollywood movie from the 1940s; Treasury
Secretary Rubin called Casablanca "the largest, most comprehensive drug
money laundering case in the history of US law enforcement." [La Jornada
(Mexico) 5/19/98; New York Times 5/19/98; Washington Post 5/19/98]
The US charges, tying 12 of Mexico's principal banks to the drug trade, come
as the Mexican government continues to bail out the banking system; the
bailout has cost at least $48 billion since the December 1994 collapse of
the peso [see Update #412]. [LJ 5/19/98] On May 21 Mexican officials
announced that they would formally protest to the US government for
carrying out part of "Casablanca" inside Mexico without informing the
Mexican government, a violation of several bilateral agreements. [NYT
5/22/98]
An editorial in the left-of-center Mexican daily La Jornada asked why no US
citizens were arrested in the sting, which involved US branches of the
Mexican banks; the branches employ a large number of US citizens. [LJ
5/19/98] Two conservative US dailies made similar points. On May 21 the
Miami Herald noted that no US banks were charged, and said the US should
"assure skeptics that it is equally diligent" about its own financial
institutions. The Wall Street Journal of May 21 suggested that "it would be
good, just once, to see some prominent lawyers, accountants, bankers,
banking institutions, federal bureaucrats and even US politicians who
facilitate the drug trade in the United States indicted and convicted." [LJ
5/22/98 from Notimex, quotes retranslated from Spanish]
The sting brings new attention to Citibank, which decided to buy Banca
Confia just before its chair, Jorge Lankenau Rocha, was indicted by Mexico
for fraud. [NYT 5/19/98] The US government has apparently never moved
against Citibank over allegations made in 1996 that Raul Salinas de Gortari,
brother of former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988-1994),
used Citibank to launder more than $80 million out of Mexican into Swiss
bank accounts [see Update #383]. Mexico formally charged Raul Salinas in
1997 with money laundering. Ironically, Salinas' lawyer announced on May
20, in the midst of the uproar over Casablanca, that Mexican federal judge
Emma Meza Fonseca had upheld a decision by Toluca district judge Ricardo
Ojeda Bohorquez to acquit Salinas of the money laundering charges. Salinas
remains imprisoned in the maximum-security Almoloya prison for illegal
enrichment and for allegedly masterminding the murder of his former
brother-in-law, Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu. [LJ 5/21/98] Switzerland will
decide in June whether to press its own money- laundering charges against
Salinas. [Reuter 5/23/98]
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