The U.S. military presence in Latin America is growing stronger and its expansionist plan is intensifying every day through the Southern Command led by General Laura Richardson, due to its growing interest in controlling lithium, water sources, Venezuelan oil, gold and copper, and of course the Amazon.
The head of the Southern Command travels from south to north of the assigned territory with the clear purpose of scaring away her eventual competitors: China, Russia and Iran. For the United States, this competition for resources is a matter of “national security.”
When it comes to a matter of “national security”, for the United States it is of the first order, as when it comes to advancing “its war against drugs”. In some cases, if it loses its sanity, if it has any, the DEA and the CIA hand out money to involve unsuspecting people or “the initiates” in drug deals and then capture them “red-handed.” There was a case in Norte de Santander, a few years ago, where the DEA gave money to a person to buy 47 kilos of cocaine in Catatumbo, the guy was left owing the seller about half of the drug; when he arrived with the drugs, the DEA agents arrested him and made him pass as a member of the ELN, when he was not, they kept the drugs and did not finish paying the other half.
How many acts of judicial barbarity occur in this case: they induce him to commit a crime, they give him money to commit the crime, they cause a person to owe money to a third party, they deprive a person of liberty induced by themselves to commit a crime, they accuse him of belonging to the ELN and to top it all off, they extradite him. But they keep the 47 kilos of cocaine, who knows what they do with that “merchandise.” They are facing a “national security” problem for the United States.
Like this guy with the 47 kilos, there are many others who have been induced “to give results”, on the other hand, the big fish who are involved in fabulous drug businesses, only remain in the confidential reports that after more than 4 decades they make public, as is the case with the documents revealed by the National Security Archive (NSA is an entity founded in 1985 as a research institute and journalism center that specializes in classifying, sorting, and disseminating a vast amount of official information that is released from time to time, thanks to the U.S. Freedom of Information Act).
On April 15 of this year, this entity revealed on its website, official documents, high-level communication between public officials of Colombia and the United States, memoranda, among other documents, that support the accusation of corruption that point to the relationship of the then candidate Julio César Turbay Ayala, who would be president of Colombia between 1978 and 1982. These documents indicate his relationship with drug trafficking through his nephew Aníbal Turbay Bernal, who belonged to the drug trafficking network of José Manuel Parra Urrea, at the time.
But, no less, these reports and documents indicate that Aníbal Turbay had the power to influence the election of the heads of the forces of order, as indicated by several official memoranda. Likewise, these documents point to the close cooperation and protection that Julio César Turbay Ayala carried out in favor of officials who had special functions and who could facilitate drug trafficking operations.
Appointing high-ranking military officials and protecting officials who would facilitate drug trafficking operations resulted in concrete issues that led to a model of criminal public management and that apparently became a sort of primer or manual for operations and de facto public administration.
One of those officials, Álvaro Uribe Vélez, a promising young politician at the time, would be appointed director of Colombia’s civil aeronautics on March 25, 1980, as reported by the newspaper El Tiempo on page 9A of that day. Such an appointment would be the best gift for all Colombian drug traffickers, who would have the permits to operate aircraft and runways for their lucrative business, during the 18 months he remained in office.
On August 2, 2004, the NSA website reported that: “A 1991 intelligence report by U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency officials in Colombia stated that the then-senator and president of Colombia was a close personal friend of Pablo Escobar and that he was engaged in collaborating with the Medellín cartel at high levels of government.”
Undoubtedly, public administration became a school of crime management. In this way, the institution of the State was translated into a great school for the promotion and support of great cartels.
The curious thing is that on the one hand, the then president served as an ally of the United States in its “war against drugs,” and on the other, if the United States knew about all this, why did it turn a blind eye? Here it is reiterated that governing with criminals submissive to the directives of the United States is a guarantee of the blind fulfillment of its interests regardless of the chaos, the social impact, the pain for the communities.
On May 25, 2018, new declassified documents present an accumulation of important documentation in which the United States again warned about the links of Álvaro Uribe, other prominent politicians and high military ranks with drug trafficking, there it is related that Senator Luis Guillermo Vélez Trujillo (1993) affirmed in the US embassy that the Ochoa Vásquez family “had financed Uribe’s campaign”.
On August 31, 2020, the NSA website reveals other details about the high-level communications in terms of the relationship with drug trafficking of the two-time president of Colombia, in addition to the formation of paramilitary groups, there they also relate to senior military officials involved in these events, both drug trafficking and the formation and expansion of paramilitarism in Colombia.
This is just a small story on a timeline, in which high-level politicians, campaign financing, influence peddling for the appointment of military personnel to facilitate these illicit businesses, businessmen, etc., are related.
In these reports, names are kept hidden, because they are still active characters of national life that the U.S. protects, which means that “the war on drugs” is not such against its “friends,” but it is used to incriminate innocent people, and it is used as part of its repertoire in the counterinsurgency struggle. Well, the paramilitaries of the Castanos were given a “privateer’s license” to finance their misdeeds with money produced by drug trafficking, so that money was blessed for the gringos, just as in other times and in other latitudes drug money was used in the counterinsurgency struggle. The devil feeding on divine hosts.
Comandante Antonio García