(C/NF) COLOMBIAN SENATOR CLAIMS DEATH THREATS BY URIBE

C O N F I D E N T I A L BOGOTA 003043 NOFORN SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 2019/09/23 TAGS: PGOV PTER KJUS SNAR SUBJECT: (C/NF) COLOMBIAN SENATOR CLAIMS DEATH THREATS BY URIBE REF: BOGOTA 156; 08 BOGOTA 1764; 08 BOGOTA 1535 CLASSIFIED BY: Brian A. Nichols, CDA; REASON: 1.4(B),(D) SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (C/NF) Opposition Senator Rodrigo Lara told us he received death threats that he believes emanate from influential supporters of President Alvaro Uribe. Lara - son of a crusading Justice Minister slain by Pablo Escobar's Medellin Cartel - claims his own anti-corruption efforts unearthed corruption involving shady Uribe allies in Antioquia Department with ties to the old cartel. Lara suggested that his three visits to interview former paramilitary leaders extradited to the United States revealed unspecified information about Uribe's links to the paramilitaries. He contended that the former paramilitaries would not reveal more information unless their families in Colombia receive asylum in other countries or receive protection from the GOC. To this effect, Lara planned to seek protective measures for the family members from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. A presidential advisor discounted Lara's assertions as the result of a frustrated political opposition. End Summary. DEATH THREATS -------------- ¶2. (C/NF) Senator Lara of the Uribe-allied Cambio Radical ("Radical Change") party told Polcouns on August 27 he had received several death threats. Lara, the son of assassinated Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, repeated what he had told leading daily "El Espectador" -- that he, Cambio Radical leader German Vargas Lleras, and several Supreme Court magistrates had received anonymous death threats. ¶3. (C/NF) Lara alleged that a former advisor of President Uribe, Jose Obdulio Gaviria, is one of the persons responsible for the threats. Lara said he has received threats for several years since his work as an anti-corruption official during President Uribe's first term. Lara said the threats began when he denounced an allegedly crooked bidding process for Colombia's third private television channel (ref A). Lara said that Antioquia businessman William Veliz, former Pablo Escobar pilot Guillermo "Guillo" Angel, and his brother Juan Gonzalo Angel control the two existing private stations, Cadena Radial Colombiana (Caracol) and Radio Cadena Nacional de Colombia (RCN),as well as Colombia's cable news programs. Lara claims the three keep press criticism of President Uribe to a minimum and put a blackout on reporting about Uribe's alleged links to paramilitary activities early in his political career in Medellin. Lara asserted that Gaviria conspires with these media owners at the behest of Uribe. ¶4. (C/NF) Lara's conclusion from this web of intrigue is that a much more subtle Medellin Cartel is the true "power behind the throne" of the Uribe administration. Lara focused on Guillo Angel, whom Lara claims was an informant against Pablo Escobar. He contended that Angel and Uribe have a connection that dates back to the early 1980s, when Angel was a narco-pilot and Uribe was head of Antioquia's aviation office. (Note: Lara has made these assertions publicly on several occasions. In December last year, Lara told "El Tiempo" newspaper that Angel's aviation company, Helicargo, provided transportation services for paramilitary members. Information at Post suggests Angel provided transportation to United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) leaders during the demobilization process in 2005-2006 under a contract from the GOC. However, Post is not aware of any active criminal investigations pending against Angel. Separately, Supreme Court President Augusto Ibanez told us August 27 he believes that the threats reported by Lara were connected to those received by the Supreme Court while conducting its investigation of the parapolitical scandal. End note.) VISITS TO PARAMILITARY LEADERS WITH PIEDAD CORDOBA -------------- -------------- ¶5. (C/NF) Lara said he visited the United States three times with Liberal Senator Piedad Cordoba - with whom Lara is leading a Senate committee on the parapolitical scandal -- to interview several of the imprisoned former paramilitary leaders extradited in May 2008 (ref B). He specifically cited encounters with Hebert Veloza (alias "HH"),Juan Carlos Sierra (alias "El Tuso"),and Diego Fernando Murillo (alias "Don Berna"). Lara implied to Polcouns that the extraditees had offered to provide information confirming Uribe's connections to the AUC, but deflected Polcouns's direct questions about what information he had obtained. While not directly critical of the extradition of the paramilitaries to the United States, Lara said their removal from Colombia has impeded progress in uncovering the truth about paramilitary crimes and their links to the government. Polcouns briefed Lara on the USG strategy to provide the maximum possible access by Colombian authorities to the extraditees, including by promoting the assignment of Colombian judges and prosecutors to the Colombian Embassy in Washington. ¶6. (C) Regarding Cordoba, Lara said the opposition senator and ally of Hugo Chavez has her own political agenda for putting pressure on the Uribe government and boosting her popularity. He said this complicates the work of the Senate committee. Lara said he tried to work with Cordoba but objected strongly to her inclusion of non-senators such as peace advocate and Uribe critic Ivan Cepeda. When Cepeda delivered politically slanted comments to reporters outside a jail in New York after an official visit of the commission, Lara said, he decided to abandon Cordoba and conduct his own probe. PROTECTION FOR FAMILIES OF EXTRADITED PARAMILITARY LEADERS -------------- -------------- ¶7. (C) Lara said that the paramilitaries' relatives in Colombia have received death threats. Lara asserted that paramilitary families are being persecuted in the same manner as Pablo Escobar's family in the early 1990s. He told us one paramilitary family was refused boarding at the Medellin airport recently when they tried to leave the country. He said the extradited leaders in the United States are prepared to give more information, but fear for the safety of their relatives. Lara claimed the GOC has denied protection to the relatives of the paramilitaries. He said he plans to present these cases to Inter-American Human Rights Commission and request protective measures ("medidas cautelares"), which he said would oblige the GOC to provide protection to the families. URIBE'S LEGAL ADVISOR REBUTS -------------- ¶8. (C) Edmundo del Castillo, President Uribe's legal secretary, told Polcouns September 14 that Lara's assertions and those like it are a strategy of a frustrated political minority. Del Castillo said that among the thousands of demobilized paramilitaries who have been interviewed by authorities there are no indications of Uribe's complicity in their activities. He recalled the one exception of Francisco Villalba, a convicted criminal who participated in the 1997 El Aro massacre who alleged Uribe's involvement in the incident (ref C). Villalba, Del Castillo said, was later proved to be mentally unstable and was ultimately murdered in relation to narco-activity in Medellin. Del Castillo then counted off the ample allegations of narco-collusion against previous presidents, which he said were far more severe than the allegations against Uribe. COMMENT -------------- ¶9. (C) RCN and Caracol are both publicly traded companies with controlling stakes held by two of Colombia's richest families-the Ardila-Lulle family and the Santo Domingo family, respectively. The assertion that either company is under control of Pablo-Escobar-era narcos is risible. However, the two media groups opposed both the process and the pricing for the licensing of a proposed third national broadcast TV channel. Both families have played behind-the-scenes roles in Colombian politics, contributing to the campaigns of many candidates from a variety of political parties, including Uribe. Regardless of del Castillo's denials, Lara and others have apparently received real death threats. Since the mass extradition last year, remnants of violent paramilitary networks have been vying for control of criminal activities. It is possible that Lara's efforts have encroached on the reshuffling of those networks. Still, his theory that a resuscitated Medellin Cartel is running Colombia is far-fetched when set in context of the Uribe Administration's aggressive battle against all narco-traffickers. BROWNFIELD