Colombian Air Force to Strike “Non-Existent” Neo-Paramilitaries

May 8th, 2016

Awake Goy

Christof Lehmann (nsnbc) : The Colombian government announced that it would launch air raids against criminal gangs involved in drug trafficking and illegal mining. The decision to use the Air Force against “criminals” comes after a row between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP that almost ground the peace talks in Cuba to a halt. The FARC-EP demanded that the government would target right-wing neo-paramilitaries while the government insists they don’t exist, and all that does exist are common criminal gangs.

Colombian Defense Minister Luis Carlos Villages said that the government would use the full force of the state, including the military and air force against criminal gangs involved in illegal mining and drug trafficking operations. The minister noted that this strategy would particularly be aimed at the Clan Usuga, Los Pelusos and Los Puntilleros, but that the strategy will allow to use this force against all criminal gangs, without exception.

Clan Usuga is the largest one of the three explicitly mentioned groups. It is widely known for cocaine and other drug trafficking throughout Latin and Central America and to the United States. Los Pelusos has strong ties to the notorious Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico while Los Puntilleros are mostly operating in Colombia’s Catatumbo region. Last week President Juan Manuel Santos announced that the United States would provide help for operations against criminal gangs.

The Colombian government has previously suspended air strikes against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – Peoples’ Army (FARC-EP) as part of the initiative that led to the implementation of a bilateral ceasefire on January 1, 2016. The government and the FARC-EP are expected to sign a final peace accord later in 2016.

Official peace talks have also been launched between the government and the country’s second-largest leftist guerrilla, Colombia’s National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN.

An informed source from Norway told nsnbc that the government and the ELN have implemented an unofficial and tentative strategy that aims at avoiding direct military confrontation until the parties agree on implementing a ceasefire. Norway functions as guarantor of the talks between the government and the FARC-EP as well as the ELN.

Semantics and Air-Strikes of Genius?

Los Urabenos, Colombia’s non-existent neo-paramilitaries. Some say that one has to be a Colombian to understand how it feels when one’s family has been massacred by a nobody.

Not mentioning the most notorious right-wing neo-paramilitary may indeed have been a strike of genius. Last month the peace talks between the FARC-EP and the government almost ground to a halt. The FARC-EP insisted that the government begins to launch campaigns against neo-paramilitaries, most notably against Los Urabenos.

The administration of President Juan Manuel Santos, for its part, rejected that neo-paramilitaries exist and designates them as common criminals.

Santos, the FARC-EP, the ELN, the UN, as well as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry have, however, previously and repeatedly agreed that the greatest threat to peace and security in Colombia today emerges from drug traffickers, organized crime and “neo-paramilitaries”.

The Colombian government’s Victims Unit confirmed that 332,149 persons had been registered as victims of neo-paramilitaries since Colombia’s AUC was discontinued in 2006. The government designates these persons os victims of “BaCrim” to dissociate right-wing paramilitaries like Los Urabenos from the ultra-right-wing AUC.

It is a position that severely complicates the process of peace and reconciliation, providing just compensation to all victims of the 52-year-long civil war, and not least justice and assurances of non-repetition. The policy and strategy of Los Urabenos, the connections to Colombia’s right-wing oligarchy including circles around the family of former President Alvaro Uribe, as well as circles within the Colombian Armed Forces are, however, identical with that of the AUC.

One of the problems for the administration of Juan Manuel Santos is that his power base and the power-base of former president Alvaro Uribe, who was Santos’ mentor, overlap to a large degree. That is, the power-base within Colombia’s political, economic and military oligarchy.

Santos and his administration have, in other words, to tread carefully so as not to lose a grip on power and by implication, the possibility to fulfill the peace mandate that helped Santos win the presidential elections with the help of left-wing parties. Santos has recently included several leftist party members in his Cabinet to consolidate his power and to marginalize Alvaro Uribe’s Democratic Center party.

CH/L – nsnbc 08.05.2016

Source Article from http://nsnbc.me/2016/05/08/colombian-air-force-to-strike-non-existent-neo-paramilitaries/