By Brendan Oliver Bergh
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

SANTIAGO, Colombia — Last month, retired General Mauricio Santoyo, a former security chief to ex-president Álvaro Uribe, pled guilty to aiding paramilitary groups in Columbia. New evidence has also surfaced that shows that he did not act alone, supporting a theory previously put forth by representative from the 2nd  Chamber of the Colombian House of Representatives, Iván Cepeda. Cepeda claimed that this was “not an isolated incident” and was part of a “criminal structure” that included numerous officers and NCOs who operated within the Antioquia Police in the ‘90s and had links to the presidency from 2002 to 2010.

General Mauricio Santoyo. (Photo Courtesy of el Heraldo).

General Santoyo, who has been extradited to the United States for ties to drug trafficking, entered his plea before the Eastern District Court of Virginia for aiding the paramilitary organization United Self-Defense of Columbia (Spanish Acronym AUC). During his plea, General Santoyo identified at least seven other senior officers of the Colombian Army and Officers of the police, including two ex-directors of that institution.

During his confession, Santoyo confessed to receiving “substantial bribes” from the AUC in-exchange for helping them “achieve acts of terrorism and drug trafficking.” Santoyo continued by explaining that he intercepted communications that provided relevant information and then relayed that information to officers of the AUC. Santoyo then admitted that he would notify the AUC of imminent arrests against members of the organization. Most of these information intercepts were made by members of the police who were specifically employed to fight against paramilitary organizations.

Santoyo was promoted to Chief of Secuirty during Presdient Uribe’s administration. There, with several commissioned officers of the National Police, Santoyo was able to participate in activities that aided the AUC, and as Chief of Security he aided the rise of many officers who had been implicated for corruption by his confession.

Ex-President Uribe denies any knowledge about the ties between Santoyo and paramilitary groups as well as having influenced Santoyo’s rise to General despite Santoyo’s questionable past. Colombian Senator Jorge Enrique Robledo states “it’s extremely clear that if Col. Santoyo had not been a part of the President’s inner circle, had not been the chief of security at the presidential palace, the situation we’re discussing today wouldn’t have happened, wherever one looks.”

There have been attempts to link Santoyo’s illegal operations with officials and politicians from within Uribe’s government. This includes the former Minister of Defense, the current president Juan Manuel Santos, former national chief of police Oscare Naranjo and the former peace commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo, who is now a fugitive from justice.

 

For more information please see:

El Pais – Congressman Ivan Cepeda splashed seven police officers by the Case Santoyo – 12 September 2012

The Spectador – Iván Cepeda other officers linked to scandal Santoyo – 12 September 2012

Vanguardia – Santoyo is not an isolated case, is part of a criminal apparatus: Iván Cepeda  – 12 September 2012

Global Voices – Colombia: Former General Santoyo Admits Ties to Paramilitary Group – 26 August 2012

El Pais – To help the AUC, General (r) Santoyo ‘pike’ colleagues – 22 August 2012

By Margaret Janelle R. Hutchinson
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BRASÍLIA, Brazil – Upwards of 250 military police, backed by armored vehicles, descended on the Chatuba favela (shanty-town), located in the town of Mesquita, north of Rio de Janiero, early this morning.

The crackdown came in the wake of the gruesome discovery, Monday, of the bodies of six youths left on a street in the vicinity of Chatuba.  Police report that the boys, ages 16 to 19, had been tortured, stabbed and shot before being left naked in the road, only covered by bed-sheets.

Police blame drug traffickers, who dominate the Chatuba favela, for the deaths of the boys. The traffickers are also suspected of being behind the murders of a police cadet and an evangelical minister on Saturday, as well as the disappearance of the minister’s companion.

No shots were fired and officers launched a search for the members of the gang suspected of being behind the weekend’s violence.

Luis Ferreira de Oliveira, a suspected drug trafficker, was arrested and officers found drugs and 15,000 reais (about $7,500) at his residence, the Rio de Janeiro Public Safety Secretariat said.

The slain young men, who did not have criminal records, were heading to a waterfall near their homes and never made it there.  Their families reported them missing on Sunday.

Investigators suspect that the gang from Chatuba may have murdered the teenagers because they came from a neighborhood where a rival gang operates.

“They were tortured. It was a barbaric crime. I think that the criminals killed them in that manner to show how powerful they are,” Sandra Ornelas, a police officer in the neighboring town of Nilopolis, told reporters on Monday.

Police and the army have occupied many of Rio’s biggest favelas as part of a “pacification program” ahead of the 2014 football World Cup and the Olympics.

The authorities say their “pacification program” has managed to reduce violence and restore the dignity of hundreds of thousands of people who live in the city’s poorer quarters.

But in many cases the drug lords have moved from the wealthier central areas of the city to the outskirts, where violence was already rife.

A permanent force of 112 militarized police officers will eventually set up a permanent post in the Chatuba favela, like in other slums in Rio.

Some 5,500 police officers have been deployed in 144 Rio favelas so far.

The next level in the crackdown on favela crime may involve the use of drones to monitor criminal activity.

Reports indicate that the Brazilian government recently started testing the drones, which were manufactured using Israeli technology.  Drones could be used to support security forces operations in favelas controlled by drug gangs.

The “VANTS,” the Portuguese acronym for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), would “see what soldiers can’t see,” according to Montenegro Magalhaes Neto, from the Military’s Engineering Institute.

For more information, please see:

 iol news – Brazil slum stormed after bodies found – 12 September 2012

BBC News – Rio police occupy slum in hunt for teenagers’ killers – 11 September 2012

Fox News Latino – Brazilian police occupy shantytown after massacre – 11 September 2012

In Sight Crime – Brazil Tests Drones to Monitor Rio Favelas – 11 September 2012

Merco Press – Rio police begins to use drones to control drugs and crime in the city’s shanty towns – 10 September 2012

inforsur hoy – Six missing youths found dead in Brazilian slum – 9 September 2012

 

By Brendan Oliver Bergh
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

SANTIAGO, Chile – While 3,500 Chileans marched on Sunday in memory of the estimated 40,000 casualties of the Pinochet dictatorship, a hundred masked figures used the opportunity to riot.

Chileans March in Support of Former President Allende. (Photo Courtesy of Cooperativa)

On the 39^th anniversary of the military coup that overthrew President Salvador Allende in 1973 and installed General Pinochet; thousands marched through the streets of Santiago. Beginning in in the Hero’s Square in the center of Santiago, marchers placed lit candles to places that were used as detention centers by agents of the Pinochet dictatorship. Many of the marchers carried photos of missing relatives who disappeared during the 17 year reign of the dictatorship. Officials estimate that more than 3,000 people were killed during the 17 years of military occupation, and another 37,000 were detained as political prisoners, or were the victims of torture or exile.

General Augusto Pinochet was eventually arrested and kept under house arrest for two cases of human rights violations, but died in 2006 before receiving any conviction for the thousands of victims who died under his dictatorship. Today more than 700 retired military officers face trial for human rights violations and some 70 have been convicted and 67 of them have been incarcerated for their compliance with the military dictatorship. The Chilean courts still have over 350 open cases of concerning the disappearance of political opponents, and incidents of torture dating back to the period of the dictatorship.

Lorena Pizarro, president of the Association of Relatives of the Disappeared used the opportunity to lay a wreath on the grave of Salvador Allende and criticize the current ruling party and in light of reports of police repression, demand an “end impunity and advance truth and justice.”

While overwhelmingly a peaceful rally, there were incidents of hooded and masked individuals who rioted. There are reports of vandalized public offices and community property as rioters clashed with police and barricaded intersections and lit fires near the general cemetery. Police met the rioters’ stones and firebombs with water cannons and gas canisters.

The riots resulted in eight arrests for the destruction that occurred in the building that housed the regional secretary for education, the looting of a bank, and for the possession of Molotov cocktails.

The march ended peacefully at the general cemetery where marchers laid wreaths on the graves of the executed and disappeared. The general cemetery houses the Memorial of the Disappeared, which stands in remembrance of the victims of the dictatorship.

 

 

For further information, please see:

Univision Noticias – Chile recordara a Salvador Allende – 9 September 2012

Cooperativa – More than five thousand people marched through the disappeared – 9 September 2012

Fox News Latino – Procession by relatives of Chile dictatorship victims ends w/ incidents – 9 September 2012

Google – Thousands march in Chile in memory of victims of the Pinochet dictatorship – 9 September 2012

Terra – Thousands march in Chile in memory of victims of the Pinochet dictatorship – 9 September 2012

Cooperativa – With eight detainees ended up in memory of the disappeared – 9 September 2012

By Brendan Oliver Bergh
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

BOGOTÁ, Colombia – Peace talks began this week between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, also known as the FARC Rebels. The FARC are Latin America’s oldest guerrilla army and have been active for nearly 50 years. FARC Leader Rodrigo Londono confirmed that talks had opened up in a video released on the FARC website.

FARC Rebels marching on patrol. (Photo Courtesy of The Telegraph)

This will be the first time that formal peace talks have commenced between the Colombian government and the FARC Rebels since 1999, which ultimately disintegrated after the rebels regrouped and continued to carry out attacks and kidnappings against government and civilian targets.

While FARC proposed a ceasefire during these peace talks, Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos refused the proposition, announcing that until talks have proceeded, combined military and police forces will continue assaults on FARC camps. The bi-lateral cease fire is expected to be reintroduced as FARC has announced it will reprise the issue during talks in October.

The rebels are likely to address issues such as the distribution of government held land to the people. The Colombian government, on the other hand, will likely address the rebel’s link to drug trafficking and the reincorporation of guerrilla members into society, a sensitive topic considering the large amount of Colombian citizens still thought to be held hostage by the rebel army.

Established in 1964 as a Marxist revolutionary movement, FARC has become infamous for funding itself through the drug trade, holding hostages for ransom, and for the murder, rape, extortion and torture of many people. FARC is responsible for the kidnapping and disappearing of numerous military officials, soldiers and Colombian citizens throughout its fifty years, in a war that has claimed tens of thousands of lives. FARC alleges that they are not currently engaging in kidnapping and have not done so since February. Reports from the New Hope Foundation – an NGO that collects the records of from concerning the abductions in Columbia – dispute that claim, suggesting that the FARC still hold an estimated 400-694 Colombian citizens hostage somewhere in the jungle. FARC negotiators, however, have reiterated that they are no longer actively abducting Colombians or holding them hostage for ransom.

These peace talks were announced just three weeks after Colombian FARC rebels blew up an oil pipeline in the Narino department of Columbia. This was just the latest in a series of pipeline attacks; 67 incidents have been reported between January and June 2012, compared to 84 for all of 2011.

 

For further information, please see:

El Pais – And if the FARC say they do not kidnap, what about those missing in Colombia?  – 7 September 2012

La Vanguardia – The FARC pose a bilateral ceasefire in peace talks  – 6 September 2012

The Herald Sun – FARC rebel chief confirms Colombia peace talks  – 4 September 2012

International Business Times – Colombia Holds Informal Talks With FARC Rebels In Hopes Of Ending Half-Century Of Conflict  – 30 August 2012

The BBC – Colombian “Farc rebels ‘ blow up oil pipeline in Narino – 19 August 2012

By Margaret Janelle R. Hutchinson
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

SANTIAGO, Chile – Chile’s top ranked government officials are appalled by the language of a recently exposed internal army document, which implies that homosexuals, poor people, Jehovah’s Witnesses and other groups are not morally fit to serve in the Chilean Army. Rights advocates are calling for the forced retirement of General Cristián Chateau who signed the offending memo.

The exposure of the leaked document, distributed internally on February 22, 2012, comes on the heels of Chile’s first-ever anti-discrimination law, passed in July of this year.

On Friday, Chile Vice President Rodrigo Hinzpeter condemned the document, which surfaced on Thursday, as “very serious and completely unjustified.”

“The document is completely off base from the current reality of our country and should be immediately adjusted to the norms of our anti-discrimination law, which President Sebastian Piñera’s administration enacted a few months ago,” Hinzpeter said.

The document advocated for prioritizing the recruitment of “citizens of more appropriate moral and intellectual capacities,” and excluding “those with physical or mental health problems, the poor, criminals, drug users, homosexuals, conscientious objectors and Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

Many militaries around the world have standards of physical and mental health that must be met in order to serve.  It is the suggestion of categorical exclusion of entire classes of individuals that has Chile up in arms.

Army Commander in Chief Juan Miguel Fuente-Alba condemned any systematic discrimination in the ranks and apologized for the document.

“As Commander in Chief of the army I categorically reject any document, provision, regulation or internal instructions that arbitrarily discriminate against any person or member of an institution,”

“I sincerely apologize to anyone who might have felt affected by such unfortunate language from an internal army document,” Fuente-Alba said.

“It must be guaranteed that there is no discrimination,” Fuente-Alba told the press on Friday. “And I have set the deadline of 10 a.m. Monday for all documents and similar forms to be revised. It must be clear that the Army belongs to all Chileans.”

Defense Minister Andres Allemand added that such ideas are completely opposed to government policy, and said he’s asked for a full military review of the matter to eliminate any such guidance.

The Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation (Movilh) said the army’s response has so far been “insufficient.”

“Today we are calling on the defense minister to remove Gen. Chateau from his post,” Rolando Jiménez, president of Movilh, said before the Ministry of Defense on Friday. “It cannot be possible for someone with such a level of classism and homophobia to be in charge of a military unit as important as the army’s first division.”

“And today we have to learn from this violent situation and these lessons are for a proactive policy from every branch of the armed forces and in particular the army and the defense ministry,” Jiménez added.

Movilh has called for the immediate resignation of the commander of the army’s first division, Cristián Chateau who signed the document.

Chateau told La Nación that the document was “already abolished” and “currently not valid anymore due to the recently imposed anti-discrimination law.”

“The meaning of the document was to exclude the obligation of having to join the military service if homosexuals and other mentioned groups did not wish to,” he said.

No reports yet as to whether Chateau will resign or face disciplinary action.

For further information, please see:

Al Jazeera – Uproar over Chile army discrimination – 8 September 2012

Bio Bio Nacional – Instructivo del Ejército recomienda no admitir a homosexuales, pobres y testigos de Jehová – 7 September 2012

Movilh Website – Movilh espera que investigación del Ejército termine con destitución de comandante homófobo – 7 September 2012

Santiago Times – Document suggests homosexual exclusion in Chilean army – 7 September 2012

The Washington Post – Chile criticizes army chief who says gays, poor people, Jehovah’s Witnesses are morally unfit – 7 September 2012