<<Or to Colombian President ?lvaro Uribe, who has fought tirelessly to end the violence wrought by left-wing terrorists and drug lords in his country.>>
Well, I never heard of most of the nonentities named, but I did hear of Alvaro Uribe. Here's one good reason why he's not gonna get a Nobel Peace Prize anytime soon:
Colombian Senator: Death Squads Met At Uribe's Ranch
Scandal Over Paramilitary Ties WidensBy Juan Forero
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, April 18, 2007; A18
BOGOTA, Colombia, April 17 -- An opposition lawmaker on Tuesday alleged that paramilitary death squads met at the ranch of President ?lvaro Uribe in the late 1980s and plotted to murder opponents, an explosive charge in a growing scandal that has unearthed ties between the illegal militias and two dozen congressmen.
Basing his accusations on government documents and depositions by former paramilitary members and military officers, Sen. Gustavo Petro said the militiamen met at Uribe's Guacharacas farm as well as ranches owned by his brother, Santiago Uribe, and a close associate, Luis Alberto Villegas.
"From there, at night, they would go out and kill people," Petro said, referring to the sprawling ranch owned by ?lvaro Uribe, who served as a senator from 1986 to 1994.
The allegations, made at a congressional hearing on the "para-politics" scandal, were vigorously denied by the government. In a rebuttal, Interior Minister Carlos Holgu?n said that all manner of rumors have arisen about Uribe's farm.
Holgu?n said Petro had "abused" his position by using court documents selectively to make his points and was trying to portray Colombia "as a country of assassins, a country of paramilitaries." And he wondered aloud why Petro was not so aggressive about unearthing links between politicians and leftist guerrillas, noting that Petro had been a member of the M-19 rebel movement until his election to Congress in 1991. . . .
In a two-hour presentation in which military intelligence reports and affidavits of mid-level military officers were made public, Petro provided a detailed sketch of Colombia's fearsome paramilitary movement, from its first links with cocaine kingpins including Pablo Escobar to its use of massacres to spread terror to its liquidation of the leftist Patriotic Union party.
He spoke of how banana companies, including foreign firms, bankrolled death squads and helped paramilitary groups traffic in cocaine. And he read from a government statement provided by an army captain who was present at meetings between a former general, Rito Alejo del Rio, and paramilitary commanders. President Uribe has long been close to del Rio, who was charged in 2001 with having paramilitary ties. The charges were later dropped.
The senator said that despite a common perception, the generation-old paramilitary movement did not surge because of the lack of state presence. "Paramilitarism was founded with the help from some sectors of the state," he said.
In the hearing, Petro focused much of his time on the Convivirs and how officials who promoted them knew that paramilitary warlords ran some of the groups. The Convivirs were eventually outlawed following allegations of rights abuses.
"If these type of people made up the Convivirs and directed them, then could they really guarantee the security and tranquillity of the people?" Petro asked.
In a recent interview, a paramilitary turncoat who is providing investigators with evidence of ties between paramilitary groups and politicians said that President Uribe had strong support among paramilitary commanders, who favored him for his tough stance against guerrillas. He said, however, that he had never heard evidence of direct ties between the president and paramilitary groups.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/17/AR2007041702007_pf.htmlConsidering sirs' position on the political spectrum and the type of "news" sources he feeds off, I am pretty certain that most of the other characters named in the article are equally "deserving."
