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[Judi Lynn]

Scoop Independent News Media

"School of Americas" Generals Charged In Colombia
Tuesday, 9 June 2009, 1:43 pm
Column: Sherwood Ross

2 "School of Americas" Generals Charged In Crimes In Colombia

By Sherwood Ross
Two Colombian generals, both of whom received training at the U.S. Army's "School of The Americas"(SOA) at Ft. Benning, Ga., have been accused by Colombian authorities of crimes involving narcotics and collaborating with criminal paramilitary groups, according to a report in the June 15th issue of The Nation magazine.

Brig. Gen. Pauxelino Latorre has been charged "with laundering millions of dollars for a paramilitary drug ring, and prosecutors say they are looking into his activities as head of the Seventeenth Brigade," investigative journalist Teo Ballve reports. He notes that criminal probes repeatedly linked his unit "to illegal paramilitary groups that had brutally killed thousands" of Colombian farmers in an effort to seize their land for palm oil production.

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Another general, Rito Alejo Del Rio, former Seventeenth Brigade leader, is in jail on charges of collaborating with paramilitaries, gangs that have been responsible for widespread atrocities. He also received training at SOA.

Various firms currently engaged in palm oil development since 2002 apparently have received $75 million in U.S. Agency for International Development money under "Plan Comombia," Ballve writes. And some of the firms appear to be tied to narco-traffickers, "in possible violation of federal law." The writer notes Colombia's paramilitaries are on the State Department's list of foreign "terrorist" organizations.

"Plan Colombia is fighting against drugs militarily at the same time it gives money to support palm, which is used by paramilitary mafias to launder money," The Nation quotes Colombian Senator Gustavo Petro, as saying. "The United States is implicitly subsidizing drug traffickers."

More:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0906/S00092.htm