Parapolitics [i.e., the paramilitaries in the political life of the country—SC]

"El Alemán" links Santiago Uribe Vélez (brother of the ex-president Álvaro Uribe Vélez)

with the "Casa Castaño"

(Translated by Steve Cagan, a CSN Volunteer Translator. Edited by Teresa Welsh, a CSN

Volunteer Editor. )

Thursday, March 17, 2011

What the ex-paramilitary leader points out is added to what has been indicated by the ex-

members of the AUC [Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, "United Self-defense units of

Colombia, "the paramilitaries"—SC] like Juan Carlos Sierra (aka "El Tuso Sierra") and

Francisco Villalba Hernández, as well as what has been summarized by the ex-officer of

the National Police, Juan Carlos Meneses Quintero.

A new scandal arose in the Justice and Peace tribunals [Justice and Peace is the

controversial legal structure for reintegrating demobilized paramilitaries and guerrillas—

SC] because of the story told by the ex-paramilitary leader Fredy Rendón Herrera,

aka "El Alemán" ["The German"—SC]. This time, the former paramilitary leader said

that Santiago Uribe, brother of the ex-president Álvaro Uribe, had a close relationship

with the so-called "Casa Castaño" ["Castaño House"—SC], the nucleus of the

Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC).

The declarations by the ex-commander of the Elmer Cárdenas Bloc [i.e., Rendón—

SC] were made this Thursday in the tribunal of Justice and Peace in Bogotá, where in

previous weeks he had made explosive declarations against the demobilization process of

the Cacique Nutibara Bloc of the AUC in Medellín.

The Uribe Vélez Family:

This time, he referred to the Uribe Vélez family. According to Rendón Herrera, "the

brothers of the ex-president Uribe are not sons of Mother Theresa." To support his

assertion, "El Alemán" insisted that Santiago Uribe was the person who connected the

banana planter Raúl Hasbún Mendoza with Vicente Castaño. "If you ask Hasbún, who is

a banana man of the highest class, he will say that the brother of Álvaro Uribe introduced

him to Vicente Castaño in a house in El Poblado [an upper-class barrio of Medellín—

SC]," affirmed the ex-paramilitary.

If what "El Aleman" said is true, the introduction that he referred to would have

happened in the middle of the decade of the nineties, since Hasbún Mendoza, who is

known by the aliases of "Pedro Ponte" and "Pedro Bonito," has stated in his personal

statements before prosecutors of the Justice and Peace Unit that he started to have contact

with the brothers Vicente and Carlos Castaño at the end of 1994 and early 1995: "In the

beginning, it was a relationship of friendship, not of subordination in the work. I began to

have a place in the structures of the Autodefensas Campesinas [Rural Self-defense—SC]

of Córdoba and Urubá in the year of 1996."

The accusation made by "El Alemán" can be added to a series of accusations that have

been made for several years now against the cattleman Santiago Uribe Vélez. The most

recent was by Juan Carlos Sierra, whose alias was "El Tuso Sierra," a drug trafficker and

paramilitary extradited to the United States en May of 2008 together with 13 leaders of

the AUC.

Before the Supreme Court:

Before investigators of the Supreme Court, Sierra asserted that Santiago Uribe had drug

trafficking business with the brothers Santiago and Pedro Gallón Henao, the former

tried and convicted of financing paramilitary groups. "You know that [trafficking] trips

were controlled. Nobody took a "tour" who was not paying taxes to the guerrillas or

the self-defense groups. In the area of "El Alemán," the "tours" of the Gallón brothers

were the priority. When they took out their boats and ships, the people would become

nervous because they said they would turn in those that were not theirs in order to take

theirs away." And he added, "Everyone knew that "El Alemán" and Santiago Uribe were

included in the "tours" of the Gallón brothers. There was a relationship with "El Alemán"

and the Gallón brothers."

Another accusation became known in May of last year, when Juan Carlos Meneses

Quintero, a retired major of the National Police, accused him of having created a

paramilitary structure known as "the twelve apostles," in the sub-region of Northern

Antioquia, where the Uribe Veléz family owns great extensions of land.

Meneses Quintero recounted the story in Buenos Aires, Argentina, before a group of

representatives of international organizations that monitor human rights violations in

Colombia, among whom was Nobel Peace Prize laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel.

The ex-officer narrated how in 1993 he was promoted to lieutenant of the National Police

and named commander of the Police District 7 of Antioquia, with headquarters in the

municipality of Yarumal: "I got the command of the then captain, today retired colonel,

Pedro Manuel Benavides. He received me and said to me: "Look, Meneses, there is a

special situation here, here there is a group of persons that caries out cleansing, that is

social cleansing; that is, they disappear persons identified as guerrillas, as thieves, as

kidnappers, extortionists, or just drug sellers or drug users. The only thing you have to

do is, when this group goes to do a task, you have to cooperate with them. The group

has a leader who is called Santiago Uribe Vélez, who is the brother of the (then) senator

Álvaro Uribe. He is a cattleman from the area and he owns the hacienda near Yarumal,

the hacienda La Carolina."

The Massacre of El Aro:

To these accusations is added that made by the ex-paramilitary Francisco Enrique

Villalba Hernández, the only member of the AUC who was tried for the massacre

perpetrated between the 25th and 28th of October of 1997 in the rural community of

El Aro, in the municipality of Ituango in Northern Antioquia, where 15 peasants were

murdered, in the period in which Álvaro Uribe Vélez was serving as Governor of

Antioquia.

Testimony that Villalba Hernández gave before the Interamerican Court of Human

Rights, and reproduced in the newspaper El Nuevo Heraldo in April of 2008, contains

allusions to the Uribe Vélez brothers. "Álvaro Uribe told us that whatever needed to be

done, that we should do it," declared Villalba in describing a meeting to prepare for the

incursion into the settlement, in which supposedly leaders of the AUC, soldiers and the

brothers Álvaro and Santiago Uribe participated.

Villalba Herneandez was murdered on April 23 of 2009 near his place of residence in the

municipality of La Estrella, in the southern part of the Aburrá Valley [the valley in which

Medellín is located—SC] ten days after leaving prison under probation.

Santiago Uribe Vélez (brother of the ex-president Álvaro Uribe Vélez):

All these accusations have been rejected by both Santiago Uribe Vélez and his brother,

the ex-president Álvaro Uribe Vélez. Time and again they have declared that they are

innocent of these accusations.

With respect to the declarations of "El Alemán," the lawyer Jaime Granados, who

represents the interests of the Uribe Vélez brothers, announced that he will accuse the ex-

paramilitary of false testimony, and further will ask that he be excluded from the benefits

granted by the Law Justice and Peace, since the affirmations against the brother of the ex-

president are false, which would suppose a violation of the principle of truth that the law

demands.

A source close to Rendón Herrera, who asked that his name be withheld, asserted that

he believes what was said by the ex paramilitary would not be made up, "among other

reasons," he said," because with them, he does not receive any additional benefits; on the

contrary they could prejudice him."

This person called attention to this new episode against Santiago Uribe Vélez and the

reaction of the lawyer, Granados: "one way to disqualify these people within the process

is, when they touch certain powers in the country, well how can we believe a criminal?

But notice that with the lies, in quotes, that Fredy Rendón Herrera has said, there are

around 25 politicians, among them several members of congress, under arrest, some of

them have been summoned to trial, others have taken advantage of a plea agreement and

some have already been convicted."

Among the members of congress who had links to "El Alemán," and who have been

tried by the Supreme Court are Antonio Valencia, de Alas Equipo Colombia [a former

conservative political party that was a member of Álvaro Uribe's coalition—SC] y Luis

Humberto Builes, of Cambio Radical ["Radical Change," an important conservative

party, and one of the bulwarks of the Uribe coalition—SC].

In this sense, the source asserted that the statements according to which "the

paramilitaries are criminals and therefore they cannot be believed, is a story that

Colombians are not prepared to accept, especially because it is used as an argument when

[the accusations} touch certain circles of power."

About what has been said by the ex-soldier Rendón Herrera, it will be the justice system

that has the last word.

With information from the newspapers El Espectador, El Tiempo and VerdadAbierta.com

Nancy Fiallo Araque

Assembly of Women of Civil Society for Peace

nancyfiallo@hotmail.com

www.asambleaporlapaz.com

Bogotá. DC, Colombia, South America

Campaña Defensores Colombia [Colombia Defenders Campaign]