Thread: Uribe ally accused of ties with militias

Uribe ally accused of ties with militias
By FRANK BAJAK, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 20 minutes ago



BOGOTA, Colombia - A political ally of President Alvaro Uribe is under investigation for allegedly doing business with illegal right-wing militias as head of a company that sells fruit for shipment to the United States and Europe.

Juan Manuel Campo, a member of the Uribe-allied Conservative Party's executive committee, heads a company that supplies 40 tons of plantain bananas a week from land cleared of its rightful owners through intimidation by banned paramilitaries.

The federal prosecutor's office and the attorney general's office, which regulates public servants, opened investigations after residents of the fertile jungle zone just south of Panama complained to human rights organizations.

Officials in both offices told The Associated Press this week that they are trying to determine whether Campo, 30, had benefited economically from ties with the militias.

The revelation comes amid a growing political scandal in which other close Uribe allies have been jailed on charges of creating and bankrolling paramilitary militias, which have committed thousands of murders and perpetrated widescale land theft over the past decade.

Formed to protect property owners from leftist rebels, the private armies degenerated into criminal gangs that developed lucrative, symbiotic relationships with much of Colombia's rural business and political elite.

The "para-politico" scandal broke open last month with the arrest of three members of Congress for allegedly forming paramilitary groups. Now Colombia's Supreme Court is questioning lawmakers — including the brother of Colombia's foreign minister — about their alleged paramilitary ties.

To date, no major politician ally of Colombia's law-and-order president has been proven to have illegally benefited financially from ties with paramilitaries, which are deeply involved in drug trafficking and listed by Washington as "terrorist organizations."

A former congressional candidate active for nine years in the Conservative Party, Campo has been general manager since 2004 of C.I. Multifruits S.A., which human rights groups say is illegally profiting from land violently usurped from an Afro-Colombian community near the Panamanian border.

Multifruits was founded in 2001, the same year paramilitaries publicly declared themselves lords of the Cacarica river basin where its crops grow.In preceding years, paramilitary gunmen drove hundreds from the swampy jungle zone, claiming they needed to clear the area to defeat leftist guerrillas. The paramilitaries selectively killed people who resisted, and cemented near-feudal control.

Ana Carmen Martinez was forcibly displaced in 1997 from the Cacarica basin, where the communally owned land is supposed to be constitutionally protected, and has been living in the Caribbean port of Turbo, just outside the paramilitary zone.

She called the claim of a guerrilla presence "a pretext to rob us of our lands" and launch agricultural megaprojects including plantations of bananas and African palms.

Human rights groups allege that Campo and his business associates took commercial advantage of the forced exodus. Prosecutors learned of the allegations in the past few weeks and told the AP they had launched investigations.

They spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons and because of the political sensitivity of the case, which two human rights groups, the Colombian Commission of Jurists, and Justice and Peace, recently documented for a special multi-agency panel on misappropriated lands.

In April 2005, Multifruits signed a strategic alliance with a group claiming to represent the Cacarica community — even though Colombia's Constitutional Court had ruled the previous year that the group did not legally represent the community. The court ruling declared void deals the discredited group had made with logging interests blamed for rampant deforestation in the basin.

The previous August, Multifruits signed a contract with Del Monte Fresh Produce Co., a copy of which was obtained by the AP, guaranteeing the Coral Gables, Fla.-based company 52 tons of plantains a week, beginning in January 2006 and lasting through the end of 2013. They are currently able to supply only 40 tons weekly, according to Campo.

The only crop Multifruits currently produces are the plantains grown on 346 acres of the disputed Cacarica basin property, according to Campo, though the strategic alliance calls for eventual production on 50,000 acres.

Del Monte Fresh Produce did not deny that it has a contract with Multifruits. It did, however, say in an e-mail that it "does not operate farms (or own land) in Colombia" and that it "buys from many, many growers" at the port of Turbo, from which Multifruits exports.

Campo said in a telephone interview Wednesday that he was a founding investor in Multifruits. But he denied having any social or commercial relations with paramilitaries and claimed no knowledge of the Constitutional Court ruling against his partners in the basin.

"My work in that area is to make money. It's nothing other than to make money," Campo said. "I'm aware of the news of the paramilitary incursion in the zone but I don't know any details about the matter."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061215/ap_ ... y_business

In preceding years, paramilitary gunmen drove hundreds from the swampy jungle zone, claiming they needed to clear the area to defeat leftist guerrillas. The paramilitaries selectively killed people who resisted, and cemented near-feudal control.

Ana Carmen Martinez was forcibly displaced in 1997 from the Cacarica basin, where the communally owned land is supposed to be constitutionally protected, and has been living in the Caribbean port of Turbo, just outside the paramilitary zone.

hmmmmm NAU Agenda 21 et al ... could this be a glimpse into the crystal ball of "one" future we could face.

"My work in that area is to make money. It's nothing other than to make money," Campo said. "I'm aware of the news of the paramilitary incursion in the zone but I don't know any details about the matter."

Definately a familiar ring to this statement... where have I heard that before? I wonder ... or is wondering still allowed... probably not.