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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=tanstl@aol.com href="mailto:tanstl@aol.com">David Sladky</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=usgp-media@gp-us.org
href="mailto:usgp-media@gp-us.org">usgp-media@gp-us.org</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Sunday, June 27, 2010 11:07 AM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Leader of Death Squads Wins Colombian Election</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV><FONT face=arial color=black size=2><WBR>just a personal note...
NPR gave this story a positive spin noting that <SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-STYLE: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic"><SPAN
style="mso-tab-count: 1"></SPAN>Juan Manuel Santos was "educated" in the US.
Where??? the SOA? Also that he has been fighting the "Marxist" gorillas. has to
be a good guy. No mention of the Green Party on NPR. </SPAN><BR><BR>
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<DIV class=articleTitle><STRONG>Leader of Death Squads Wins Colombian
Election</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV class=articleSubTitle>A "Role Model" for Latin America</DIV><BR>
<DIV class=articleAuthorName>by Prof. James Petras</DIV><BR></TD></TR>
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<DIV class=bigArticleText12><A href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/">Global
Research</A>, June 27, 2010</DIV></TD></TR>
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<DIV class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" align=justify>
<DIV class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" align=justify><EM><SPAN
lang=EN-US
style="FONT-STYLE: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic"><o:p></o:p></SPAN></EM></DIV>
<DIV align=justify><EM><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-STYLE: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic"><SPAN
style="mso-tab-count: 1"></SPAN>Juan Manuel Santos, notorious Defense
Minister in the regime of outgoing President Alvaro Uribe and closely
identified with high crimes against humanity “won” the recent Presidential
elections in Colombia, June 2010.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>The major electronic and print media CNN, FOX News, Washington
Post, the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the once liberal
Financial Times (FT) hailed Santos election, as a great victory for
democracy.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>According to the
FT, “Colombia not Venezuela is (the) best model for Latin America” (FT
6/23/2010 p. 8).<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Citing
Santos “overwhelming” margin – he garnered 69% of the vote, the FT claimed
he won a “strong mandate” (FT 6/22/2010).<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In what has to be one of the most
flagrant cover-ups in recent history, the media accounts exclude the most
egregious facts about the elections and the profoundly authoritarian
policies pursued by Santos over the past
decade.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></EM></DIV>
<DIV align=justify></DIV><EM><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-STYLE: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic">
<DIV class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"
align=justify><BR><STRONG>The Elections:<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Guns, Elites and
Terror<o:p></o:p></STRONG></SPAN></EM></DIV><EM><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-STYLE: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic">
<DIV class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"
align=justify><BR>Elections are a process (not merely an event) in which
prior political conditions determine the outcome.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>During the previous eight years of
outgoing President Uribe’s and Defense Minister Santos’ rule, over 2
million, mostly rural poor, were forcibly uprooted and driven from their
homes and land and displaced across frontiers into neighboring countries,
or to urban slums.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The
Uribe-Santos regime relied on both the military and the 30,000 member
paramilitary deathsquads to kill and terrorize entire population centers,
deemed “sympathetic” to the armed insurgency, affecting several million
urban and rural poor.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Over
20,000 people were killed, many, according to the major Colombian human
rights group, falsely labeled “guerrillas”.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Santos as Defense Minister was
directly implicated by the Courts in what was called “false
positives”.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The military
randomly rounded up scores of poor urban youth, shot them and claimed a
resounding victory over the FARC guerrillas.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></EM></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" align=justify><EM><SPAN
lang=EN-US style="FONT-STYLE: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic"><SPAN
style="mso-tab-count: 1">
<BR></SPAN>Several of the most important captured paramilitary deathsquad
leaders testified that over 60 of the congress people backing Uribe –
Santos were on their payroll and they “ensured” votes from regions under
their control.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Faced with
damaging testimony, Uribe-Santos double-crossed their narco-deathsquad
comrades and “extradited” them to the U.S. where the judicial process
excluded evidence linking them to the mass killings at the behest of
Uribe-Santos.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></EM></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" align=justify><EM><SPAN
lang=EN-US style="FONT-STYLE: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic"><SPAN
style="mso-tab-count: 1">
<BR></SPAN>Over two thousand trade unionists, human rights activists,
journalists and congress- people critical of Uribe-Santos were murdered by
deathsquad hit-men serving the regime.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The world’s major trade union
confederations have sent missions and published reports condemning
Colombia as the most dangerous country for workers’
representatives.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></EM></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" align=justify><EM><SPAN
lang=EN-US style="FONT-STYLE: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic"><SPAN
style="mso-tab-count: 1">
<BR></SPAN>In other words all the social sectors with social and political
grievances against the regime were terrorized, many of their local opinion
leaders, killed, displaced or driven into exile … undermining the
possibility of sustained independent socio-political
organization.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></EM></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" align=justify><EM><SPAN
lang=EN-US style="FONT-STYLE: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic"><SPAN
style="mso-tab-count: 1">
<BR></SPAN>Pervasive state terror led to few local leaders surviving,
undermining the electorate’s capacity to exercise a free and independent
organization.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></EM></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" align=justify><EM><SPAN
lang=EN-US style="FONT-STYLE: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic"><SPAN
style="mso-tab-count: 1">
<BR></SPAN>On election day, the regime mobilized over 350,000 military and
police officials, many involved in the decade long repression, to
“oversee” the elections and to remind the voters of the force behind the
“official candidate” (La Jornada 5/30/2010).<o:p></o:p></SPAN></EM></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" align=justify><EM><SPAN
lang=EN-US style="FONT-STYLE: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic"><SPAN
style="mso-tab-count: 1">
<BR></SPAN>The electoral outcome was far from the “mandate” of the
Colombian people as claimed by the mass media.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The ‘winner’ was the
“abstentionists” with 56% of the electorate, the position advocated by the
FARC.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Now clearly the
majority of the abstentionist vote did not reflect support or sympathy for
the FARC; rather it reflected disaffection with the regime’s violent
repression, massive dispossession of millions and its total failure to
deal with the under and unemployment affecting 40% of the economically
active population.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></EM></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" align=justify><EM><SPAN
lang=EN-US style="FONT-STYLE: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic"><SPAN
style="mso-tab-count: 1">
<BR></SPAN>In fact Santos received 30% of the vote of the electorate,
hardly a mandate.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>If we
examine the social-ecological background of the voters, it is clearly a
mandate from the elite.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The
highest levels of abstention were among several distinct groups.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Among the shanty towns and rural
areas suffering from repression and neglect, abstention rose to over
80%.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In contrast, in the
middle and upper class sectors of the major cities, over 60% voted for the
candidate of the regime.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Uribe-Santos tried to explain away the massive abstention by citing
the weather (rain) and the World Cup soccer matches .However the low
turnout took place throughout the country, in dry and inclement weather.
And the games did not occupy the entire day of voting. The mass media
systematically ignored the horrendous crimes under Defense Minister
Santos, his indictment in the “false positive” murders, his long term
large scale association with the death squads and <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>with the Uribe regimes promotion of
narco trafficking. <SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>They
ignored his support for de-regulating the financial system, resulting in
the defrauding of hundreds of thousands of Colombian small
investors.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></EM></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" align=justify><EM><SPAN
lang=EN-US
style="FONT-STYLE: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></EM></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" align=justify><EM><SPAN
lang=EN-US
style="FONT-STYLE: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic"><o:p></o:p></SPAN></EM></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" align=justify><EM><SPAN
lang=EN-US
style="FONT-STYLE: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic"><STRONG>Comparing
Colombia to Venezuela</STRONG></SPAN></EM><EM><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-STYLE: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic"><SPAN
style="mso-tab-count: 1"><BR>
<BR></SPAN>Yet the Financial Times (6/23/2010) favorably compares Colombia
under Uribe-Santos against Venezuela under Chavez, “Crackers about
Caracas?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Latin American
should be bonkers about Bogota instead”.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>According to the FT Venezuela
under Chavez is said to be unsafe, authoritarian and economically in
decline.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The editors of the
FT, echoing the rest of the media, claim Colombia is a prosperous
democracy, with a system of checks and balances; with safe and peaceful
neighborhoods … except when the neighborhoods of the poor protest
unemployment or the rural villagers march against land grabs by the
landlord funded gunmen.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The
FT fails to mention the resurgence of paramilitary gangs terrorizing the
Colombian countryside, (La Jornada 5/28/2010) but instead they focus on
street crime in Caracas.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></EM></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" align=justify><EM><SPAN
lang=EN-US style="FONT-STYLE: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic"><SPAN
style="mso-tab-count: 1">
<BR></SPAN>The Venezuelan government, contrary to the US media, promotes
community based social movements which would be targets of military raids
in Bogota.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></EM></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" align=justify><EM><SPAN
lang=EN-US style="FONT-STYLE: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic"><SPAN
style="mso-tab-count: 1">
<BR></SPAN>The only “paramilitary” groups in Venezuela are cross-over’s
from Colombia, pursued and punished by the Venezuelan National Guard.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In Venezuela trade unions
participate in the management of major industrial plants, unlike Colombia
where they are murdered including workers in the major Coca Cola,coal, oil
and banana industries.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></EM></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" align=justify><EM><SPAN
lang=EN-US style="FONT-STYLE: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic"><SPAN
style="mso-tab-count: 1">
<BR></SPAN>Behind the media lies and falsifications abut Colombia’s
election and its political leaders are several basic
considerations.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></EM></DIV><EM><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-STYLE: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic">
<DIV class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"
align=justify><BR>-Uribe-Santos are fervent free market advocates, eagerly
pursing a free trade agreement held up in the US Congress because of their
killing fields.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></EM></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" align=justify><EM><SPAN
lang=EN-US
style="FONT-STYLE: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic"><BR>-Uribe-Santos
are unconditional clients of the Pentagon, receiving $6 billion in aid and
handing over 7 military bases, under US jurisdiction to threaten
Venezuela, Ecuador and any other country the Obama regime deems a hostile
to US domination.<BR></DIV><o:p></o:p></SPAN></EM><EM><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-STYLE: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic">
<DIV class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt"
align=justify><BR>-Uribe-Santos recognized the Honduras regime, product of
a US backed military coup in mid 2009 – contrary to the rest of Latin
America.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></EM></DIV><EM><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-STYLE: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic">
<DIV class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" align=justify><BR>The
fact that the mass-media have so enthusiastically embraced a regime with
the worst human rights record since the fall of the military dictators of
the 1970’s<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>- 1980’s<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(La Jornada 6/17/2010) is
indicative of the right turn under the Obama Wall Street regime.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> <BR></SPAN><BR>According to the White
House and media, death squad democracies like Colombia now qualify as
“role models” for Latin America.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>The problem is that neither the vast majority of Latin America
citizens, nor most of the democratic parties in the region are buying:
they prefer democracies without deathsquads, foreign military bases and
narco-dealing Presidents.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>At
present, the White House’s three leading allies in the region, Colombia,
Peru and Mexico produce and sell 80% of the cocaine in the region.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Will this appear in the media’s
salutations to newly elected presidents?</SPAN></EM><EM><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-STYLE: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic"><SPAN
style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </SPAN></SPAN></EM></DIV></DIV></DIV></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></DIV></FONT><br />--
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