Indict AUC War Criminals Castano and Mancuso
J.D. Galan | 15.10.2002 06:08
For 10 years the US knew that Castano was a deathsquad leading drug kingpin. To clean up their image the Colombain government wants to reshuffle the death squads and ship off a few token leaders to retirement in the US.The world community must just say no and invest the ICC to investigate.
AN APPEAL TO THE WORLD FROM ECOSOLIDARIDAD ANDES:
Please distribute this and encourage people to write similar letters to the International Criminal Court
FAIR TRIALS FOR HEINOUS OUTLAWS?
CARLOS CASTANO, SALVATORE MANCUSO (AUC)
US JUSTICE DEPARTMENT INDICTS AUC WAR CRIMINALS FOR DRUGS
The ICC or other Judicial Tribunals must now issue arrest warrants for Colombain AUC death squad leaders Carlos Castano, Salvatore Mancuso, Juan Carlos Sierra-Ramirez and the other paramilitary leaders. Castano and Mancuso are the greatest mass-murderer and war criminal drug lords in the history of the Western Hemisphere. Since the early 1980s Mancuso, Carlos Castano and his brother Fidel worked with drug cartels and right-wing paramilitary groups that have brought Colombia to ruin, killed more than 20,000 civilians and terrorized a million people into leaving their homes or their country. All of this was done with the full knowledge and approval of the US Embassy in Bogota, the CIA, DEA, Bill Clinton and two Bush administrations.
As early as 1991 these US agencies knew that the Castanos were drug traffickers and had formed the death squad Los Pepes. According to Mark Bowden's book "Killing Pablo," Delta Force and other US Special Forces personnel associated with and went on missions with this death squad under its "official name:" the Search Block of Medellin. They hunted down and assassinated Pablo Escobar and hundreds of his friends and relatives. Los Pepes became the core of the AUC. And everything about AUC is narco.
Twenty-five to thirty arrest warrants for Castanos and at least 10 for Mancuso sit idly on the Colombian Attorney General's desk or gather dust in some army headquarters. Most of these indictment are for murder and massacres, some are ten years old. Castano wrote a popular book, "My Confessions," where he fills in the details of his justifications and crimes. He has also bragged about and confessed to many murders on TV and radio programs.
For 12 years the DEA and CIA have devoted millions of dollars striving to find a link between FARC and major traffickers. All they could find were a couple people hardly connected to the FARC who didn't even live in Colombia. Meanwhile, Castano and his AUC associates shipped 18 to 200 tons of cocaine to New York City and the East Coast. The drug war is September 11th everyday: creating crime, death and waste that the government prefers over legalization.
Now there is chaos in the AUC over revelations of their kidnappings, atrocities and the formal reality of the US indictments for major drug trafficking. Castano said he would turn himself in - only to the US - but now he is hedging. Mancuso refuses to consider surrender and threatens to attack his former friends and the government of Colombia. Anna Carrigan (www.crimesofwar.org) has remarkable insights on this chaos in AUC that began last year when the government raided Mancuso's home in Monteria. Documents showing the business relations between hundreds of wealthy individuals and AUC were seized and an infuriated Mancuso wanted revenge - and war.
Carrigan's research comes from careful review of translated excerpts of the AUC website, www.colombialibre.org: "Then on June 6, 2001, after a four-day meeting characterized as a "Conferencia Nacional Extraordinaria," the AUC's new leadership, made up of nine regional front commanders, issued a communique confirming Castaño's resignation as Commander in Chief.
For a period the speculation sizzled: was Castaño dead; did he flee Colombia; fall in love, or been shoved aside because he refused to order reprisals against the government for the Prosecutor General's raid on Montería? Others believed Castaño's resignation was part of a strategic plan allowing him to evade responsibility for atrocities and reappear as the man of peace; the only person capable of ending the violence, and bringing the AUC into negotiations with a new, "patriotic" government.
Salvatore Mancuso, a wealthy, Italian-born cattleman was Castaño's military strategist and collaborator since the early 1990's has taken control of AUC. Until 1998, Mancuso was a well-regarded member of the Córdoba social and economic elite. Today he is the subject of warrants for massacres and assassinations. The forces he commands are responsible for brutal massacres in the northern states, including Chengue and El Salado.
The next AUC drama came in July 2002, when Castano announced that the AUC was reforming without the heavily drug-connected Central Bolivar Block and the group that kidnapped a Venezuelan businessman. September 2002, US indict Castano, Mancuso and Ramirez for trafficking 17 tons of cocaine in the last 5 years. Gary Leech (www.colombiareport.org) sums up the moves by Castano since his US indictment: "… Somewhere along the line the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) may have reached a deal with Castaño that would allow him to turn state's evidence. In return for handing the DEA a treasure trove of information about Colombian drug trafficking, the death squad leader would be offered total impunity or an insignificant amount of jail time.
Could the Bush administration possibly have entered into such a Faustian deal with Castaño? History says yes. After all, it is no more far-fetched an idea than the Kennedy administration arming and training a group of Cuban exiles to try and overthrow the Castro government. Nor is it any more inconceivable than the Reagan administration secretly and illegally selling arms to Iran in order to covertly fund CIA-trained counter-revolutionaries in Nicaragua in direct violation of U.S. law."
The International community has a responsibility to take possession of these dangerous men because the US cannot be trusted in this case. Before an international tribunal Castano and others could be compelled to reveal their operatives in the Colombian government and the business elite who are equally guilty of war crimes and quite possibly genocide and crimes against humanity. The CIA and other US agencies already know much of this information, but they will continue to suppress revelations and will keep Castano quiet. Why did the US wait more than seven years to indict Castano when they knew he was a major drug dealer and terrorist?
J. D. Galan (Medellin) at:
uswarcrimes@comision.zzn.com
"DIVIDE UP THE LAND TO
MULTIPLY THE BREAD"
- A girl in Puerto Alegre,
Brazil, the World Social
Forum
Please distribute this and encourage people to write similar letters to the International Criminal Court
FAIR TRIALS FOR HEINOUS OUTLAWS?
CARLOS CASTANO, SALVATORE MANCUSO (AUC)
US JUSTICE DEPARTMENT INDICTS AUC WAR CRIMINALS FOR DRUGS
The ICC or other Judicial Tribunals must now issue arrest warrants for Colombain AUC death squad leaders Carlos Castano, Salvatore Mancuso, Juan Carlos Sierra-Ramirez and the other paramilitary leaders. Castano and Mancuso are the greatest mass-murderer and war criminal drug lords in the history of the Western Hemisphere. Since the early 1980s Mancuso, Carlos Castano and his brother Fidel worked with drug cartels and right-wing paramilitary groups that have brought Colombia to ruin, killed more than 20,000 civilians and terrorized a million people into leaving their homes or their country. All of this was done with the full knowledge and approval of the US Embassy in Bogota, the CIA, DEA, Bill Clinton and two Bush administrations.
As early as 1991 these US agencies knew that the Castanos were drug traffickers and had formed the death squad Los Pepes. According to Mark Bowden's book "Killing Pablo," Delta Force and other US Special Forces personnel associated with and went on missions with this death squad under its "official name:" the Search Block of Medellin. They hunted down and assassinated Pablo Escobar and hundreds of his friends and relatives. Los Pepes became the core of the AUC. And everything about AUC is narco.
Twenty-five to thirty arrest warrants for Castanos and at least 10 for Mancuso sit idly on the Colombian Attorney General's desk or gather dust in some army headquarters. Most of these indictment are for murder and massacres, some are ten years old. Castano wrote a popular book, "My Confessions," where he fills in the details of his justifications and crimes. He has also bragged about and confessed to many murders on TV and radio programs.
For 12 years the DEA and CIA have devoted millions of dollars striving to find a link between FARC and major traffickers. All they could find were a couple people hardly connected to the FARC who didn't even live in Colombia. Meanwhile, Castano and his AUC associates shipped 18 to 200 tons of cocaine to New York City and the East Coast. The drug war is September 11th everyday: creating crime, death and waste that the government prefers over legalization.
Now there is chaos in the AUC over revelations of their kidnappings, atrocities and the formal reality of the US indictments for major drug trafficking. Castano said he would turn himself in - only to the US - but now he is hedging. Mancuso refuses to consider surrender and threatens to attack his former friends and the government of Colombia. Anna Carrigan (www.crimesofwar.org) has remarkable insights on this chaos in AUC that began last year when the government raided Mancuso's home in Monteria. Documents showing the business relations between hundreds of wealthy individuals and AUC were seized and an infuriated Mancuso wanted revenge - and war.
Carrigan's research comes from careful review of translated excerpts of the AUC website, www.colombialibre.org: "Then on June 6, 2001, after a four-day meeting characterized as a "Conferencia Nacional Extraordinaria," the AUC's new leadership, made up of nine regional front commanders, issued a communique confirming Castaño's resignation as Commander in Chief.
For a period the speculation sizzled: was Castaño dead; did he flee Colombia; fall in love, or been shoved aside because he refused to order reprisals against the government for the Prosecutor General's raid on Montería? Others believed Castaño's resignation was part of a strategic plan allowing him to evade responsibility for atrocities and reappear as the man of peace; the only person capable of ending the violence, and bringing the AUC into negotiations with a new, "patriotic" government.
Salvatore Mancuso, a wealthy, Italian-born cattleman was Castaño's military strategist and collaborator since the early 1990's has taken control of AUC. Until 1998, Mancuso was a well-regarded member of the Córdoba social and economic elite. Today he is the subject of warrants for massacres and assassinations. The forces he commands are responsible for brutal massacres in the northern states, including Chengue and El Salado.
The next AUC drama came in July 2002, when Castano announced that the AUC was reforming without the heavily drug-connected Central Bolivar Block and the group that kidnapped a Venezuelan businessman. September 2002, US indict Castano, Mancuso and Ramirez for trafficking 17 tons of cocaine in the last 5 years. Gary Leech (www.colombiareport.org) sums up the moves by Castano since his US indictment: "… Somewhere along the line the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) may have reached a deal with Castaño that would allow him to turn state's evidence. In return for handing the DEA a treasure trove of information about Colombian drug trafficking, the death squad leader would be offered total impunity or an insignificant amount of jail time.
Could the Bush administration possibly have entered into such a Faustian deal with Castaño? History says yes. After all, it is no more far-fetched an idea than the Kennedy administration arming and training a group of Cuban exiles to try and overthrow the Castro government. Nor is it any more inconceivable than the Reagan administration secretly and illegally selling arms to Iran in order to covertly fund CIA-trained counter-revolutionaries in Nicaragua in direct violation of U.S. law."
The International community has a responsibility to take possession of these dangerous men because the US cannot be trusted in this case. Before an international tribunal Castano and others could be compelled to reveal their operatives in the Colombian government and the business elite who are equally guilty of war crimes and quite possibly genocide and crimes against humanity. The CIA and other US agencies already know much of this information, but they will continue to suppress revelations and will keep Castano quiet. Why did the US wait more than seven years to indict Castano when they knew he was a major drug dealer and terrorist?
J. D. Galan (Medellin) at:
uswarcrimes@comision.zzn.com "DIVIDE UP THE LAND TO
MULTIPLY THE BREAD"
- A girl in Puerto Alegre,
Brazil, the World Social
Forum
J.D. Galan
e-mail:
USWarCrimes@Comision.zzn.com
Homepage:
www.crimesofwar.org
