Replacement for General Montoya

By John Lindsay Poland

President Uribe announced this afternoon that the replacement for Army chief General Montoya will be General Oscar Enrique González Peña http://www.elespectador.com/noticias/judicial/articulo88095-oscar-gonzalez-nuevo-comandante-del-ejercito.General

González Peña was commander of the Fourth Brigade, based in Medellín, from December 2003 to July 2005, when the army reportedly committed 45 extrajudicial executions in eastern Antioquia, according to a report last year by a coalition of human rights organizations known as Human Rights and Humanitarian Law Observatory. (http://www.dhcolombia.info/spip.php?article362)

González Peña also commanded the 11th Brigaade in Cordoba in 2002-03, when the paramilitaries were operating freely in the area and the Army. In 2005, he commanded the Seventh Division, with jurisdiction over the brigades with among the worst human rights records in the Army: the 11th, 17th, 4th and 14th Brigades.

He attended the School of the Americas in Panama in 1980.That General González Peña also brings to the army leadership a history of extrajudicial executions under his command reinforces the observation we made earlier in the day – it is hard to identify Colombian army commanders who have not commanded units committing gross human rights violations. And most of them have received US training or assistance.

SOA Graduate Cited in Parapolitica Scandal

The government of Colombian president Alvaro Uribe continues to be plagued by the parapolítica ("parapolitics") scandal, in which some 60 members of Congress have been linked to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a rightwing paramilitary group that is now officially demobilized. The majority of these politicians are in Uribe's governing coalition, and some are in the president's extended family. On August 12, 2008, a former paramilitary, Luis Adrián Palacio ("Diomedes"), gave testimony to the Attorney General's Office linking Gen. Mario Montoya, the head of the Colombian military and a graduate and former instructor at the School of the Americas, to the AUC. Diomedes said that in April 2002 Montoya, who then commanded the Army's Fourth Brigade, personally delivered a "present" of six AK-47 rifles and an M-16 rifle to the AUC's Bloque Mineros. Montoya denies the charge.

An agreement between Uribe and the administration of US president George Bush has helped diffuse the scandal. Some paramilitary leaders are now being extradited to the US to stand trial for drug trafficking, and many analysts think this will keep Colombian investigators from getting valuable information about paramilitary links to politicians. Ever Veloza ("H.H."), former leader of the Bloques Calima and Bananero paramilitary units, has begun to talk about these ties, and Senator Gustavo Petro (himself threatened with investigation in the farcpolítica scandal) is urging Uribe to hold up Veloza's extradition until he has told his story. SOA Watch along with 25 other international organizations denounced the extraditions as a ploy by the US and Colombian governments to deny justice to the victims of crimes in Colombia. The US-based Colombia Support Network (CSN) is asking for letters to US attorney general Mukasey (AskDOJ@usdoj.gov) and Colombian attorney general Dr. Mario Hernán Iguarán Arana (contacto@fiscalia.gov.co) "urging them to place a hold on extradition until the human rights violation stories can be told."

Source: Weekly News Update on the Americas, (212)674-9499,
weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com.