Colombia investigating military over 'guerrilla car bomb' (Sound familiar?)

[Judi Lynn]

It should, it's been done before, of course!

. . .

The partial investigation

The inspector general investigation is meant to find out whether army officials’ negligence allowed guerrillas to drive the alleged car bomb into the military compound.

Neither the Prosecutor General’s Office nor the Inspector General’s Office announced plans to investigate the possibility that the explosion was caused by an accident.

Contradictory claims made by Defense Minister Diego Molano and Prosecutor General Francisco Barbosa additionally fueled speculation about the possible involvement of the military in the blast.

Molano and Barbosa on Wednesday announced the first results of the investigation in a fake press conference that was not attended by any journalists.

More:
https://colombiareports.com/colombia-investigating-military-over-guerrilla-car-bomb/

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Found a relevant article on an earlier version of bogus bombing accusations only in the footnotes of the following Wikipedia article, after discovering the same Associated Press article printed in the NY Times has disappeared, along with others:

Colombian conflict
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

. . .

Background
The origin of the armed conflict in Colombia goes back to 1920 with agrarian disputes over the Sumapaz and Tequendama regions.[97] Much of the background of Colombian conflict is rooted in La Violencia, a conflict in which liberal and leftist parties united against the dictator of Colombia, Gustavo Rojas Pinilla. Colombia at the time was a banana republic, dominated by foreign monopolies specifically the United Fruit Company.

The United Fruit Company existed to buy large amounts of agricultural products in Latin America at cheap prices, then resell the crops in foreign markets for inflated amounts. Local farmers were largely impoverished and were forced to grow specific crops creating a monoculture in which farmers depended on the company for all food, products and wages. The United Fruit Company would usually pay their workers in coupons, which was worthless outside company stores, the stores would charge extravagant prices compared to what workers earned. As well as this the system of employment was usually in which farmers would be forced to sell their property to the United Fruit Company and then be indebted to the company having to work on the land and pay back the company. The United Fruit Company would hire private militaries to enforce its power, their purpose was to put down worker calls for reform, destroy unions, and put down worker revolutions. Any potential threat to the United Fruit Company would be overturned in a company backed coups, which would prop up friendly puppet politicians and support right wing militias to maintain power.

Workers would often organize and strike against these conditions, and would form local militias against the United Fruit Company. This would often lead to conflict between the United Fruit Company and the workers. This culminated in 1928 in which farmers in Ciénaga went on strike for working conditions and called for: End to temporary contracts, the creation of mandatory worker insurance, the creation of compensation for work accidents, the creation of hygienic dormitories, the 6 day work weeks, the implementation of a minimum wage, the abolishment of wages through company coupons and office stores, and the recognition of farmers and tenets as employees with legal rights. The strike quickly grew becoming the largest strike in all of Colombia's history, with many Socialists, Anarchists, Marxists and Leftists joining and organizing the strike. The United Fruit Company demanded that the workers disband and the Union should disband. The US government stated that if the Colombian government did not protect the interests of the United Fruit Company that the US would invade Colombia with the US Marines. The Colombian government sent the Colombian Army into Ciénaga for the interests of the United Fruit Company. After a standoff with the strikers, the Colombian Army shot into the crowd of strikers leading to 100–2,000 people to be massacred in what became known as the Banana massacre.

After this the Colombian Public was outraged, and it led to an explosion of Leftists and Revolutionary organizations, in Bogota leftists students protested and organized against the government of Colombia, organized to overthrow the Colombian Government. This opposition to Colombian Government exploded in 1948, upon hearing of the assassination of socialist candidate Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, many poor workers saw the death of Gaitán as political assassination orchestrated by the rich. Workers began rioting and destroying the Colombian capital Bogota, leading to the death of 4,000 people. When news of the death of Gaitán reached the countryside the local militias were furious and immediately started a civil war known as La Violencia. Joined by fellow Leftists a brutal war was fought for over 10 years leading to the death of 200,000 people and the destruction of much of the country, resulting in a peace settlement and the changing of power to the Colombian Conservative Party to the Colombian Liberal Party and the Colombian Communist Party in 1958.

. . .

Role of the United States

The United States has been heavily involved in the conflict since its beginnings, when in the early 1960s the U.S. government encouraged the Colombian military to attack leftist militias in rural Colombia. This was part of the U.S. fight against communism.[50]



In October 1959, the United States sent a "Special Survey Team", composed of counterinsurgency experts, to investigate Colombia's internal security situation.[209] In February 1962, a Fort Bragg top-level U.S. Special Warfare team headed by Special Warfare Center commander General William P. Yarborough, visited Colombia for a second survey.[210] In a secret supplement to his report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Yarborough encouraged the creation and deployment of a paramilitary force to commit sabotage and terrorist acts against communists:

A concerted country team effort should be made now to select civilian and military personnel for clandestine training in resistance operations in case they are needed later. This should be done with a view toward development of a civil and military structure for exploitation in the event the Colombian internal security system deteriorates further. This structure should be used to pressure toward reforms known to be needed, perform counter-agent and counter-propaganda functions and as necessary execute paramilitary, sabotage and/or terrorist activities against known communist proponents. It should be backed by the United States.

The first paramilitary groups were organized following recommendations made by U.S. military counterinsurgency advisers who were sent to Colombia during the Cold War to combat leftist political activists and armed guerrilla groups.[51]

One multinational corporation has also been directly tied to paramilitary death squads. Chiquita Brands International was fined $25 million as part of a settlement with the United States Justice Department for having ties to paramilitary groups.[51] In 2016, Judge Kenneth Marra of the Southern District of Florida ruled in favor of allowing Colombians to sue former Chiquita Brand International executives for the company's funding of the outlawed right-wing paramilitary organization that murdered their family members. He stated in his decision that "'profits took priority over basic human welfare' in the banana company executives' decision to finance the illegal death squads, despite knowing that this would advance the paramilitaries' murderous campaign."[214]

In December 2013, The Washington Post revealed a covert CIA program, started in the early 2000s, which provides the Colombian government with intelligence and GPS guidance systems for smart bombs.[215]

As of August 2004, the US had spent $3 billion in Colombia, more than 75% of it on military aid. Before the Iraq war, Colombia was the third largest recipient of US aid only after Egypt and Israel, and the U.S. has 400 military personnel and 400 civilian contractors in Colombia.[4][5] Currently, however, Colombia is not a top recipient of U.S. aid; while it was under the first five years of the Plan Colombia, Colombia today no longer ranks among the top ten.[216]

In March 2015, it was revealed DEA agents were participating in drug cartel-funded sex parties with prostitutes.[217] Agents were provided with expensive gifts, weapons and money from drug cartel members.[218] The head of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, Michele Leonhart announced her retirement. Leonhart's tenure as DEA Administrator was marked with controversy and scandals including a prostitution scandal.[219]

More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colombian_conflict

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(I knew the total US Gov't taxpayers' $$$ spent on Colombia is far beyond the number stated in the Wikipedia article, looked at their source, saw it in the footnotes and it's far off by now, having been compiled using numbers from 2008 and 2012." )

(You may have noticed the very rough US involvement in Colombia started in 1959, during Dwight D. Eisenhower, with the determined involvement of his State Department and CIA heads, John Dulles, and Allen Dulles, John Foster Dulles, who represented United Fruit while he was a law partner at Sullivan & Cromwell, and Allen, "Allen Welsh Dulles. . . was the first civilian Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), and its longest-serving director to date. As head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the early Cold War, he oversaw the 1953 Iranian coup d'état, the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état, the Lockheed U-2 aircraft program, the Project MKUltra mind control program and the Bay of Pigs Invasion. He was fired by John F. Kennedy over the latter fiasco." )

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The United States and Colombia: From Security Partners to Global Partners in Peace
By Dan Restrepo, Frank O. Mora, Brian Fonseca, and Jonathan D. Rosen February 2, 2016, 9:01 am

(Article starts with a photo of former President Obama with the least murderous, greedy Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos,
"Juan Ma," in many years.)

In 2000, an original $1.3 billion in U.S. assistance was approved by a Republican-led U.S. Congress and signed into law by former President Bill Clinton with the goal to reduce coca cultivation, drug production, and drug trafficking by 50 percent in the first six years. Plan Colombia’s objectives shifted over time with the reorientation of U.S. national security policy after September 11, 2001, and with Colombia’s election of President Álvaro Uribe, who served from 2002 to 2010. President George W. Bush requested and received from Congress authorization to assist the Colombian government’s efforts against the FARC, ELN and AUC—all deemed Foreign Terrorist Organizations by the United States. Assistance provided to Colombia also expanded— from $276.2 billion in fiscal year 2001 to $560.4 million in FY 2002. It increased again in FY 2003 to $808.1 million before holding steady between approximately $600 million and $700 million per year through FY 2010. The elections of U.S. President Barack Obama and Colombian President Santos ushered in another rebalancing of U.S. cooperation to reflect changing realities in Colombia, with a greater percentage of U.S. assistance being dedicated to economic development and the strengthening of Colombian rule of law institutions.

By 2015, the United States had invested $10 billion in improving security and stability in Colombia. Underscoring the excellent return on investment of Plan Colombia, during roughly the same time period, the United States spent $1.6 trillion on combat and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan from FY 2001 to FY 2014, or a rough average of $10 billion every 29 days. Again crucial to Colombia’s turnaround, Colombian investment in its security far outpaced U.S. investment. Even leaving aside the fact that the hard work of enhancing Colombia’s security has been carried out by Colombians at tremendous personal sacrifice, Colombia’s financial contribution to Plan Colombia constitutes 95 percent of the total. That level of Colombian commitment was made possible, in part, by a recognition by the country’s economic elites that investing in the Colombian state and the viability of their nation through paying more in taxes was in their long-term interests.

More:
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/reports/2016/02/02/130251/the-united-states-and-colombia-from-security-partners-to-global-partners-in-peace/

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The AP article which disappeared into the NY Times" black hole after publication:

Colombia investigates army officers for deadly attack on eve of presidential inauguration

By JOSHUA GOODMAN, Associated Press
2006/09/08 13:49

The head of the army has accused his troops, including two officers, of participating in a deadly car-bombing on the eve of President Alvaro Uribe's swearing-in ceremony last month that was originally blamed on leftist rebels.
The revelations come as the army already is reeling from a series of embarrassing scandals linking troops to drug traffickers and the extrajudicial killings of civilians.
Gen. Mario Montoya, head of the army, said that initial accusations against leftist rebels "didn't correspond to the reality" of the facts, deploring the alleged actions of his subordinates in a brief statement read Thursday.
He said the army was cooperating fully with prosecutors investigating the two unnamed officers and other soldiers.
On July 31, a week before Uribe was sworn in, a car bomb exploded in heavily fortified Bogota as trucks carrying dozens of soldiers passed by, killing one civilian and injuring 10 soldiers.
The blast came as a shock to Bogota's residents, who have grown accustomed in recent years to living out of harm's way and seeing political violence related to their country's four-decade old civil war on the evening news, not their own streets.
Montoya did not say to what extent the soldiers had planned or participated in the attack.
Bogota's main daily newspaper, El Tiempo, said on its Web site Thursday that authorities have video and wiretapped phone conversations, in addition to witness testimony, linking four army officials _ including a colonel _ with the attack.
The newspaper said the officers remain on active duty even though top military officers have known about the accusations for more than three weeks.
Montoya also said corrupt soldiers were behind the high-profile seizure in recent weeks of several weapon stockpiles that authorities originally said belonged to rebels but which now appear to have been staged to impress their superiors.
The main recipient of more than US$4 billion (euro3.1 billion) in U.S. anti-narcotics military aid since 2000, Colombia's army is struggling to clear its battered reputation, with officers accused of trying to pass off as leftist rebels the bodies of innocent civilians killed extrajudicially.
An army colonel and his platoon also have been arrested for the ambush in May of an elite anti-narcotics unit near the southern town of Cali. Montoya originally classified the case as a tragic case of friendly fire, but prosecutors believe the attack was performed on behalf of drug traffickers.
Montoya was the only one of Colombia top four military chiefs to keep his job after a major shake-up last month of the armed forces that coincided with the start of Uribe's second, four-year term.

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/195490