Three displaced leaders assassinated within 24 hours

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Colombia Reports

Three displaced leaders assassinated within 24 hours
Friday, 25 March 2011 08:28
Toni Peters

Three displaced land claimants have been killed within a 24 hour period, EFE reported Friday. Bernardo Rios Londoño, and Ever Verbel Rocha were killed on Wednesday in the departments of Sucre and Antioquia respectively while David Goez Rodriguez was killed on Thursday in the capital of Antioquia, Medellin.

Rios Londoño, was a member of the Community of Peace of San Jose de Apartado, a peasant rights organization. According to the organization, Rios Londoño was killed by two neo-paramilitaries on a motorcycle who lay in wait for him in San Jose de Apartado, an Antioquian town.

Verbel Rocha was killed by hitmen on motorcycles in San Onofre, in the department of Sucre in front of his brother and 8 year old son. His brother was injured in the attack but his son was unharmed.

Another of Verbel Rocha's brothers, Guillermo, was assassinated in 2005. Demobilized AUC member Jose Manuel Rivera, alias "El Begueta" has since been detained as the suspected perpetrator of the assassination.

Read more: http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/15136-three-displaced-leaders-assassinated-within-24-hours.html

[EFerrari]

1. I don't believe it. The State Department said Colombia is making progress

on human rights. No way can paramilitaries be running around offing people with impunity.

[Cieran_WI]

2. It's all Chavez and Castro's fault, of course. /snark

[EFerrari]

5. Welcome to DU, Cieran_WI.

:hi:

[Peace Patriot]

3. Antioquia is where Bush's boy Uribe got his start...

Three displaced land claimants have been killed within a 24 hour period... Bernardo Rios Londoño, and Ever Verbel Rocha were killed on Wednesday in the departments of Sucre and Antioquia respectively while David Goez Rodriguez was killed on Thursday in the capital of Antioquia, Medellin. --from the OP

-------

Antioquia is where Alvaro Uribe got his start, as the go-to guy for the Medellin Cartel, later graduating to president of the country and go-to guy for the Bush Cartel. He was intimately involved in creating the rightwing death squads in Antioquia. This is his legacy. And this is why he is protected and honored by the U.S. government--with prestigious appointments and with U.S. government interference in Colombia's justice system to keep him immune from prosecution: because THIS IS WHAT THEY WANT IN COLOMBIA, a terrorized, slave labor work force for U.S. "free trade for the rich." It's not just that Uribe may know where Bush Junta bodies are buried in Colombia, and is thus coddled to shut him up. It's that his work in turning Antioquia into a cauldron of death was recognized as a U.S. government asset, and thus he was elevated to expand this "cleansing" to the whole country and was given $7 BILLION in military aid to do so.

The deaths in Antioquia this week are his legacy and our legacy. They are what we paid for. They are what we, the people, in the U.S. are still paying for.

[Octafish]

4. Assassination of labor leaders is fascistic, apparently approved by Wall Street and its toadies.

Peace Patriot and DU were on the case: Chiquita death squad attorney Eric Holder floated for U.S. Attorney General!

[freshwest]

6. Wow, just went to your link, hadn't heard about that.