GROWING EVIDENCE OF
SAMPER’S LINKS WITH
CALI CARTEL
BOGOTA, OCTOBER 1, 1995
Government
raids in August
that led to the arrests of top
leaders of the Cali cartel yielded
further evidence linking contri-
butions from the cartel to
Ernesto Samper’s presidential
campaign. While Samper point-
ed to the arrests as proof of his
will to fight the country’s drug
lords, documents found in the
raid revealed that his campaign
treasurer Santiago Medina had
accepted a $50,000 check from a
company known to be a front for
the Cali cartel. Medina was ar-
rested on July 26, and has of-
fered evidence in exchange for
reduced charges.
Medina testified that under or-
ders of Samper’s campaign man-
ager and later defense minister
Fernando Botero Zea, he solicit-
ed $2.4 million from cartel rep-
resentatives and assured them
that Samper would maintain the
1993 penal code that granted
large sentence reductions to traf-
fickers who surrendered. The
Cali cartel, according to
Medina’s testimony, gave $1.2
million for the first round of
elections in May and $4.9 mil-
lion for the June run-off. Botero
resigned on August 2 in light of
these charges, and he was for-
mally arrested two weeks later
on charges of illegal enrichment
and falsification of documents.
A third Samper associate, Juan
Manuel Avella, who served as
administrative director of the
Samper campaign and later
headed the government’s bank-
privatization committee, was ar-
rested on September 14 for his
involvement in the affair.
The Accusations Committee of
the Chamber of Deputies is in-
vestigating the president’s in-
volvement in the scandal.
Mauricio Montejo, who de-
signed most of Samper’s cam-
paign advertising, testified be-
fore the commission that he was
paid $375,000 in cash by the
“public relations head” of the
Cali cartel, journalist Alberto
Giraldo. Montejo denies know-
ing that Giraldo, now in jail, was
connected to the cartel.
In an appearance before the
Accusations Committee on
September 26, the president
staunchly denied receiving
money directly from the cartel.
He insisted that if any drug
money found its way into his
campaign treasury, it was with-
out his knowledge. The follow-
ing day, Samper’s lawyer,
Antonio Cancino, was wounded
in an assassination attempt.
Some officials have accused un-
defined “external forces”-in
complicity with the attorney
general’s office-of trying to
destabilize the government.
-NotiSur and IPS
MILITARY OFFICERS
TO STAND TRIAL IN
HONDURAS FOR HUMAN
RIGHTS CRIMES
TEGUCIGALPA, SEPTEMBER 19, 1995
A trial against 10 high-ranking
military officers accused of
human rights violations during
the 1980s is about to get under-
way in Honduras. The officers,
including seven colonels, were
part of the notorious Battalion
316, a unit financed and trained
by the CIA in the early 1980s.
The military officers were in-
dicted in July on charges of at-
tempted murder and illegal de-
tention of six university students
in 1982. The students, who were
released after intense lobbying
efforts by human rights groups,
are key witnesses in the case.
The last barrier to the trial was
brushed aside in mid-September
when the Supreme Court reject-
ed an appeal presented by mili-
tary defense lawyers charging ir-
regularities in the process. The
indictment is part of a broader
government effort to end official
corruption and impunity.
Since the charges were made
public, the military has conducted
occasional tank maneuvers in the
streets of the capital, prompting
speculation that the military
might resist submission to a civil-
ian court. Judge Roy Medina,
who is presiding over the case,
has received anonymous death
threats. On September 28,
unidentified men asked for Judge
Medina’s whereabouts in the
courthouse, and randomly shot at
the court building.
Such intimidation tactics fol-
low thinly veiled threats by
armed forces chief Gen. Luis
Alonso Discua against the judi-
cial system. “The armed forces
will take action if there is any
problem of partiality in the
courts,” said Discua shortly after
the charges were publicized. He
warned prosecutors against using
the military as “scapegoats” for
the abuses of the past, and he in-
sinuated that Medina was part of
a left-wing conspiracy seeking
revenge against the military.
Battalion 316 grew out of the
collaboration between the
Reagan Administration and the
Honduran military to support
wars in Nicaragua and El
Salvador. The U.S. government
possesses valuable classifed in-
formation about Battalion 316’s
crimes, which Clinton
Administration officials promise
to declassify for use in the up-
coming trial.
The charges brought against
the military officers have pro-
voked intense debate about the
broader issue of who bears re-
VOL XXIX, No 3 Nov/DEc 1995 1 VOL XXIX, NO 3 NOV/DEC 1995 1NEWSBRIEFS
ponsibility for the human rights
violations, including 184 disap-
pearances, committed during the
1980s. The military argues that
the civilian regime is ultimately
responsible. “We acted only in
fulfilling our duty, following the
orders of our superiors,” said re-
tired Gen. Daniel Bali, military
chief in the 1980s. Former mem-
bers of the civilian regime, how-
ever, maintain that they were
powerless to control the military
during that decade.
Others argue that the United
States bears ultimately responsi-
bility. Former president of
Congress Carlos Montoya ar-
gues that Honduran sovereignty
all but disappeared under the
weight of U.S. Cold War policy
in Central America. “The real
power in Honduras during that
time,” he said, “was the military,
led by Gen. [Gustavo] Alvarez
Martinez and the security agents
of the United States, particularly
the CIA.”
-NotiSur and IPS
DEATH SQUADS
REEMERGE IN
EL SALVADOR
SAN SALVADOR, AUGUST 20, 1995
T hey kill their victims at night
with a single shot to the
head. After an execution, they
inform the press and local au-
thorities. Their emblem, which
appears on their announcements
and threats, is the Salvadoran
national shield and a mask that
forms the words “Black
Shadow.” Four years into the
postwar era, death-squad activity
is on the rise again in El
Salvador. This time around,
however, the principal victims
are not leftist activists, but sus-
pected criminals and other “non-
desirables.”
Fueled by the large number of
firearms in civilian hands, the
high rate of unemployment
among ex-combatants, and the
habits of violence left over from
the country’s 12-year civil war,
crime has reached epidemic pro-
portions. The justice system is
overwhelmed, and-despite re-
forms implemented in the peace
process-generally considered
inefficient and corrupt. The gov-
ernment’s failure to control
crime is chipping away at its
credibility and prompting death
squads to reclaim their place in
El Salvador as vigilante “crime-
control” forces. In the name of
“social cleansing,” these groups
execute petty thieves, small-time
drug-traffickers, beggars, prosti-
tutes, street children, and young
gang members.
The operatives are suspected
of being former members of the
military and old National Police.
Some may also be carry-overs
from the old death squads.
Others fear that members of the
newly formed National Civilian
Police (PNC) may participate as
collaborators or even organizers.
Some analysts speculate that
there may be links between or-
ganized crime and the death
squads.
Since the signing of the peace
accords in January, 1992, three
different phases of death-squad
activity can be identified, al-
though the level of violence is
not comparable to the death-
squad terror of the 1980s.
In the first phase, in mid-1992,
death-squad activity appeared
to be the violent last gasp of the
ultra-conservative sector of the
country. The death squads
threatened human rights ac-
tivists, members of the commis-
sions investigating human rights
abuses, and union leaders and
members of the Farabundo Marti
Liberation Front (FMLN) emerg-
ing from clandestine life.
Warnings from the United Nations
and threats of million-dollar aid
cut-offs seemed to quell the vio-
lence, raising suspicions of ties
between the death squads and the
government.
The second phase coincided with
the campaign leading up to the
March 1994 general elections.
Most of the victims were FMLN
political candidates who were par-
ticipating in elections for the first
time. The violence seemed to sub-
side after the conservative National
Republican Alliance (ARENA)
party swept the elections.
The third and current phase
began this year. But in contrast
with the earlier two phases, the
death squads today are principally
targeting alleged criminals and
those suspected of corruption.
From January to July of 1995,
three groups-the Black Shadow,
the Temporary Executive Anti-
Crime Commando, and Frenadia
187-have been accused of exe-
cuting more than 30 people.
At first, the government did not
seem to take the death squads se-
riously. Public Security Minister
Hugo Barrera called them “a
tasteless joke” and suggested that
they were made up of “overgrown
gang members.” National Civilian
Police Director Rodrigo Avila
complained that the media were
“making the groups out to be
more of a threat than they actual-
ly are.”
The Black Shadow catapulted to
international attention when it
threatened six Salvadoran judges
in May. In an announcement sent
to the media, the group accused
the judges of letting off drug traf-
fickers in exchange for bribes.
The threats against the judges fi-
nally prompted the government
and the PNC to launch an in-depth
investigation.
In June, the PNC captured 14
suspected members of the Black
Shadow. The preliminary investi-
gation revealed that three of the
suspected death-squad members
were PNC agents, placing in doubt
whether the purge of the old police
force was in fact a success.
The government’s response to the
general crime wave echoes El Sal-
vador’s authoritarian past. In March,
President Armando Calder6n Sol
initiated the “Guardian Plan” send-
ing 5,000 soldiers to support the
police and to patrol the highways
and rural byways. At the end of
July, the government announced
that it would organize neighbor-
hood-watch patrols, a measure that
also brought flashbacks of the
civil-defense patrols of the 1980s.
Many Salvadorans, fed up with
crime, are ready to concede the
administration of justice to the
death squads. In a recent call-in
show on YSU, a popular San Sal-
vador radio station, the majority
of the callers supported the squads
and their mission to restore “order.”
“If the police cannot deal with the
criminals, then let the Black
Shadow finish them off,” said one
San Miguel woman, quoted in the
Salvadoran newspaper El Mundo.
This popular support translates
into dangerous legitimacy for the
death squads. “When people be-
lieve their demand for justice is
not being met by the state, they
view these groups sympathetical-
ly,” says Human Rights Commis-
sioner Victoria Marina de Aviles.
“However, these killings are creat-
ing a climate of terror like we ex-
perienced in the past, which was
one of the principal causes of the
war.”
-Terry Tracy
WIDE SUPPORT FOR EZLN
PROPOSALS IN PLEBISCITE
MEXICO CITY, AUGUST 28, 1995
M ore than a million Mexicans
overwhelmingly supported
the Zapatista demands for justice
and democracy in a referendum or-
ganized by the guerrilla movement
from Chiapas.
Just under 98% of voters agreed
that the principal demands of
Mexicans are housing, work, food,
independence, democracy and jus-
tice. The proposal to unite “the
different democratizing forces” in
“a wide opposition front” received
the backing of 92.2% of voters,
while the achievement of “a polit-
ical reform that guarantees democ-
racy” had the backing of 95% of
voters. Fifty-seven percent of vot-
ers responded affirmatively to the
question whether the EZLN
“should turn itself into a new in-
dependent political force, without
uniting with other political par-
ties.” Ninety percent demanded
that women be guaranteed pres-
ence in significant posts.
The majority of voters-who
represent only 3% of Mexico’s 55
million people-were concentrated
in the capital and in the southern
states of the country. The state of
Chiapas recorded the greatest voter
turn-out. More than 70,000 peo-
ple-among them indigenous peo-
ple, priests, businesspeople, and
students as well as politicians and
ranchers opposed to the EZLN–
cast ballots.
Subcomandante Marco said the
consultation’s principal objective
was to promote the coming to-
gether of people who think that
Mexico’s political and economic
system needs to be changed.
The plebiscite, unprecedented in
the history of armed movements in
Latin America, was an autonomous
social expression that demonstrated
interest in democracy, said Sergio
Aguayo, a spokesperson for the
Civic Alliance, a Mexican NGO
which organized the voting
process.
The international community
was also invited to participate in
the plebiscite. More than 55,000
people from 28 countries, many
over the Internet, registered their
opinions.
-IPS
A PENIS NAMED BRAULIO
RIo DE JANEIRO, SEPTEMBER 25, 1995
T he Brazilian Minister of Health
Adib Jatene suspended a con-
troversial AIDS-prevention cam-
paign which dubbed the penis
“Braulio” after men named
Braulio throughout the country
called the minister’s office and
radio stations in protest.
In the television ads, an actor
holds a heart-to-heart chat with his
sexual organ, recommending that
it use condoms, and showing it-
with a candle-how to do so. The
boldness of the campaign and the
reaction of the “Braulios” sparked
a heated national debate.
“They castrated my name,”
complained journalist Braulio de
Souza in the Sdo Paulo daily
Correio do Povo. In a press con-
ference with Health Minister Adib
Jatene, he gave the minister a
penis-shaped toy with the name
“Jatene” written in red ink. The
journalist has decided to legally
change his name to Claudio Lira.
Braulio Monte Junior, a Sdo
Paulo lawyer, filed a class-action
lawsuit against the government for
moral and material damages on
behalf of a group of men named
Braulio.
The health minister indicated
that while the ads would no
longer use a proper name for the
penis, the bold “content” of the
campaign would be maintained
despite criticism from the
Catholic Church. Lair Guerra de
Macedo, coordinator of the
Program of Sexually Transmitted
Diseases, said the blunt language
was necessary to reach poor
young men. Eighty percent of the
71,000 cases of AIDS registered
today in Brazil are men between
the ages of 19 and 35.
-IPS
Sources
InterPress Service (IPS) is an international
news service based in Italy. Its dispatches
can be read on-line in the Peacenet conferences:
ips.espanol and ips.english.
NotiSur is available as a closed Peacenet
conference: carnet.Iadb. For subscription
information: Latin American Data Base,
Latin American Institute, University of
New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131;
(800) 472-0888.
Terry Tracy works at Inforpress in
Guatemala City, where she is the editor
of Central America Report.
