COLOMBIA:
The General Ingrid
Hugged
By IPS Correspondents
MONTEVIDEO (IPS) -
General Mario Montoya
Uribe, the national
commander of the
Colombian army, whom
Ingrid Betancourt
thanked on Wednesday for
rescuing her from
captivity, has a
controversial service
record.
Montoya, whom Betancourt
embraced soon after her
rescue from over six
years as a hostage of
the insurgent
Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC),
was born on Apr. 29,
1949 in the western
department (province) of
Valle del Cauca.
Throughout his army
career he has received
more than 20
decorations, including a
U.S. Army medal. He has
been in command
positions in many
regions of his country,
and holds a postgraduate
degree in higher
management from the
University of the Andes,
according to his résumé
posted on the army
Internet site.
He followed courses of
study at the National
War College, an advanced
course on armoured
vehicles at Fort Knox,
Kentucky, and was a
military attaché at the
Colombian embassy in
Britain.
A cable despatched in
1979 by the U.S. embassy
in Bogotá, declassified
at the request of the
non-governmental
National Security
Archive (NSA), a U.S.
research institute,
"reveals that a
Colombian army
intelligence battalion
linked to Montoya
secretly created and
staffed a clandestine
terror unit in
1978-1979," researcher
Michael Evans said in an
article published in
July 2007 in the
Colombian weekly Semana.
"Under the guise of the
American Anti-communist
Alliance (AAA or
Triple-A), the group was
responsible for a number
of bombings, kidnappings
and assassinations
against leftist targets
during that period," he
wrote.
Evans, the head of NSA's
Colombia Documentation
Project, also referred
to a mass grave
discovered in the
department of Putumayo
in March 2007 containing
the remains of more than
100 victims "killed over
the same two-year period
that Montoya led the
Joint Task Force South,
the U.S.-funded unit
charged with
coordinating
counternarcotics and
counterguerrilla
operations in that
region from 1999-2001."
"Declassified documents
also detail State
Department concern that
one of the units under
Montoya's command at the
Task Force, the 24th
Brigade, had ties with
paramilitaries based in
(the town of) La Hormiga,
the location of the
gravesite," he said.
Montoya was the
commander of the Fourth
Brigade of the army,
with jurisdiction over
the municipality of
Bojayá in the western
department of Chocó,
when 119 civilians were
massacred in the urban
centre of Bellavista on
May 2, 2002.
In spite of three
warnings delivered days
in advance about the
imminent danger to the
civilian population, the
army did not enter the
area or take action to
protect residents.
On Apr. 21, 2002, at
least seven motorboats
brought some 250
paramilitaries belonging
to the ultra-rightwing
United Self-Defence
Forces of Colombia (AUC)
to Bellavista and the
nearby town of Vigía del
Fuerte, through three
separate checkpoints
manned by the navy, the
police, and the army,
the latter in Riosucio,
157 kilometres north of
Bellavista.
The paramilitaries took
up positions in both
towns, observed from the
surrounding rural areas
by the FARC.
On Apr. 23, the Office
of the United Nations
High Commissioner for
Human Rights expressed
its "concern" about the
paramilitary incursion
to the Colombian
government and urged it
to take action to
protect civilians. On
Apr. 24 and 26, the
Attorney General's
Office and the Ombudsman
added their voices to
the warning.
On May 1 the battle
between the FARC and the
AUC started. More than
300 people sought
sanctuary in the
Bellavista church and
the AUC took cover
behind and around it.
The following day the
guerrillas launched gas
cylinder bombs at the
paramilitary positions,
one of which fell
through the church roof
and exploded, killing
119 people including 44
children, and leaving
over 100 injured or
mutilated.
The army showed up five
days later. Survivors of
the tragedy told IPS
last year about General
Montoya's arrival on the
scene, and how he wept
for the dead children in
front of television
cameras, holding up a
little shoe of an
expensive brand that
local children had never
seen before.
In May this year, an
administrative tribunal
issued two verdicts,
blaming the state for
not having protected the
population, and ordering
it to pay an indemnity
of 1.5 billion pesos
(870,000 dollars) to the
victims' families.
Fourteen other civil
lawsuits are still
pending.
The military justice
system and the Attorney
General's Office
investigated army
officers implicated in
the events for
dereliction of duty. But
Montoya's career was not
interrupted and he was
promoted, although soon
afterwards, in October
2002, he was involved in
another controversial
situation.
An intelligence report
produced by the U.S.
Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) was leaked
to the Los Angeles
Times, which published
it in March 2007. It
indicated that Montoya
and a paramilitary group
known as Bloque Cacique
Nutibara "jointly
planned and conducted a
military operation in
2002 to eliminate
Marxist guerrillas from
poor areas around
Medellin, a city in
northwestern Colombia
that has been a centre
of the drug trade."
What is known as
Operation Orion began at
2:00 a.m. on Oct. 15,
2002 in Medellín's 13th
district. At least 14
people were killed, and
residents and human
rights organisations
testified that about 50
more "disappeared" in
the following weeks.
On Oct. 21 that year the
presidential web site
featured a statement by
Montoya saying that "we
will continue, and what
we are doing in the 13th
district is a message to
the violent, telling
them: desist, we will go
everywhere in the
country because urban
guerrilla warfare has no
place in Colombia."
Bloque Cacique
Nutibara's actions in
the 13th district went
on for two months and,
according to demobilised
paramilitaries, were
coordinated with the
authorities.
The CIA intelligence
report included
information from other
Western intelligence
services and indicated
that U.S. officials have
received similar
information from a
"proven" source,
according to journalists
Greg Miller and Paul
Richter, the authors of
the Los Angeles Times
article.
The report was leaked to
the newspaper by a
source who would only
identify himself as a
U.S. government
employee. The CIA would
neither deny nor confirm
the information, but
asked the newspaper not
to publish certain
details.
In addition to his close
collaboration with U.S.
officials on Plan
Colombia, a strategy
financed by Washinton to
combat drug trafficking
and insurgency, Montoya
was an instructor at the
former School of the
Americas, renamed the
Western Hemisphere
Institute for Security
Cooperation in 2001.
On Wednesday night, when
the government showed on
television how the
operation to rescue
Betancourt and the other
14 hostages was planned
and executed, President
Álvaro Uribe announced
that Montoya had
commanded the successful
rescue mission, and
praised the 2002
Operation Orion in
Medellín, without
further comment.
Uribe mentioned that the
same day he had received
messages from members of
the military,
complaining that they
were "unjustly"
imprisoned and asking
him to "intercede" for
them.
In Colombia there is
freedom of opinion,
Uribe said, and he asked
human rights
organisations to
"believe in Colombia, in
this government; the
respect shown for human
rights in this operation
is no accident."
The president
"respectfully" asked
judges to review the
cases of the imprisoned
members of the army and
"if an error appears, to
correct it". |
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