1. Subject: Colombian Rebels Confess To Killing 3 Americans
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999
From: GrizzledBear
Subject: Colombian Rebels Confess To Killing 3 Americans
Found the full story... So the murders were carried out by folks with the audacity to call themselves "rebels." Against what? Certainly not violence...
"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss..."
m.
Thursday March 11 12:18 AM ET
Colombian Rebels Confess To Killing 3 Americans
BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia's top Marxist rebel group admitted Wednesday that one of its field commanders and three other guerrillas kidnapped and murdered three Americans, but it defied U.S. calls to surrender them for extradition.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) said it would punish the perpetrators in keeping with its own code of revolutionary justice and that those responsible may face a firing squad.
Terence Freitas, 24, of Oakland, California, Ingrid Washinawatok, 41, of New York, and Laheenae Gay, 39, of Hawaii, were kidnapped in northeast Arauca province on Feb. 25. Their bullet-riddled bodies were found bound, blindfolded and dumped just across the border with Venezuela last Thursday.
They had been helping U'wa Indians defend their ancestral lands from plans by U.S. multinational Occidental Petroleum Corp. (NYSE:OXY - news) to explore for oil.
A FARC official identified the field commander accused in the killings only as Commander Gildardo.
``Commander Gildardo of the FARC's 10th Front ... found strangers had entered the U'wa Indian region ... and captured and executed them without consulting his superiors,'' said rebel commander Raul Reyes, a member of the FARC's ruling general secretariat.
Reading from a statement offering apologies to indigenous groups and the international community, Reyes said Gildardo had been on a reconnaissance mission with three other guerrillas when they intercepted the Americans.
Earlier this week, the FARC denied responsibility for the murder-kidnappings, blaming them on enemies of the country's fledgling peace process -- a reference to ultra-right paramilitary gangs or disgruntled sectors of the military.
The State Department issued a condemnation of the FARC after the killings and called for those responsible to be sent for trial in the United States.
Reyes, however, ruled out that possibility, saying: ``None of our combatants will be handed over to another state.'' He said Gildardo was in the custody of his comrades in Arauca and would face a rebel war council.
``Firing squads are used in extremely serious cases ... Given the gravity of this case, it's possible that this is the mechanism that will be used,'' Reyes said.
Contrary to FARC claims that Freitas, Washinawatok and Gay did not have permission to visit U'wa territory, an international aid worker said Freitas received rebel authorization to carry out his work with the Indians last November.
Gen. Fernando Tapias, head of the armed forces, welcomed the FARC claim of responsibility, but said that Gildardo was being used as a scapegoat while rebels who really ordered the crime would escape punishment.
In the days after the Americans were murdered, the army released a series of radio intercepts in which the overall commander of the 10th Front, German Briceno, allegedly ordered his men to take the Americans into Venezuela, kill them and burn the corpses.
Briceno is the brother of the FARC's No. 2 commander and top military strategist Jorge Briceno, alias ``Mono Jojoy.'' As head of the FARC's Eastern Bloc division, Mono Jojoy has ultimate command over the region where the Americans were snatched.
The FARC's belated admission came the day after President Andres Pastrana, in a televised speech, called on the FARC to admit its responsibility in the crime, which sparked an international outcry.
Pastrana was due to hold talks with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on the border of the two countries Thursday. The killings and their impact on the future of Colombia's fledgling peace process, in which Chavez has offered to act as mediator, had been expected to be the main topic of conversation.
But Foreign Minister Guillermo Fernandez announced the abrupt cancellation of the border meeting late Wednesday, citing what he referred to vaguely as Chavez's alleged meddling in Colombia's internal affairs.
``Any (foreign) participation in Colombia's peace process should be in strict adherence to the principle of non- intervention,'' Fernandez told reporters.
Political analysts say the murders could scuttle Pastrana's peace policy and spark calls for an all-out military offensive against the country's estimated 20,000 rebels, who control up to 50 percent of Colombian territory.
In its statement, the FARC said it was not its policy to ''disappear'' Colombians or foreigners. But the FARC and Colombia's two smaller rebel groups have traditionally used kidnap ransoms to finance their three-decade uprising against the state.
Tuesday, the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN) released the body of French geologist Claude Steinmetz, who died of a heart attack after a 100-day kidnap ordeal.
Copyright © 1999 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
-----------------------
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is
distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and
educational purposes only. For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
2. COLOMBIA: The Guerrillas' My Lai?/A Mother's words
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1999
From: GrizzledBear
Subject: COLOMBIA: The Guerrillas' My Lai?/A Mother's words
This is a larger post on the recent murders of three U.S. environmentalists in Colombia. Viz. the Reuters item about FARC taking responsibility, a small LA Times report this morning referred to one of the intercepted radio broadcasts indicating that Ingrid Washinawatok had been bitten by a poisonous spider, their captors panicked, assuming she'd die and they'd be "blamed," and decided to kill everyone.
How that lessens their blame, I'm not sure, but men with guns have never been the clearest, kindest thinkers of our species.
Following the news report is a post passed along by a mutual friend, from the mother of one of the two women who were killed -- she doesn't mention her daughter by name, so I'm not sure who. In any case, she asked that perhaps these words be passed along to people who've been following this outrage...
Take care,
Mark
Colombia sees rebel cover-up in Americans' murders
01:08 p.m Mar 11, 1999 Eastern
By Karl Penhaul
BOGOTA, March 11 (Reuters) - A confession by Colombia's top guerrilla group that one of its mid-ranking field commanders kidnapped and killed three Americans backfired on Thursday as the government accused the rebel high command of a cover-up.
Defence Minister Rodrigo Lloreda said the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) were using a little-known guerrilla as a ``scapegoat'' to protect the man who really ordered the murders -- German Briceno, brother of the FARC's No. 2 leader Jorge Briceno, alias ``Mono Jojoy.''
German Briceno, known by his nom de guerre ``Grannobles,'' is one of the top regional commanders in northeastern Colombia where the U.S. citizens were seized on Feb. 25. His brother Jorge is also the FARC's top military strategist.
In the days after Terence Freitas, 24, Ingrid Washinawatok, 41, and Laheenae Gay, 39, were abducted, the army intercepted a series of radio conversations in which a voice authorities identified as that of Grannobles ordered other guerrillas to kill them.
The bullet-riddled corpses of the American trio, who had been helping the U'wa Indians defend their ancestral lands from plans by a U.S. multinational to explore for oil, were dumped just across the border in Venezuela last Thursday.
``We must press ahead in the search for those who are really responsible for this crime, not just scapegoats ... All the information suggests that he (German Briceno) would have been consulted about the decision,'' Lloreda said.
``If the aim of the FARC is to protect him then that is due to the importance that Grannobles' brother has within the FARC,'' he added.
In a communique issued on Wednesday, the FARC said a guerrilla identified only as Commander Gildardo of the 10th Front, who was on a reconnaissance mission with three other rebels, captured and killed the Americans without consulting his superiors.
Military intelligence said, however, that they have no record of a senior commander of that name, raising the likelihood that Gildardo was merely head of a 12-man guerrilla unit or squad.
Given the strict command hierarchy that exists within the FARC, it is unlikely that a mid-ranking commander would have been allowed to kidnap the Americans let alone assassinate them without orders from above, possibly even from the group's ruling General Secretariat itself.
A public admission that the brother of one of the FARC's seven-man Secretariat was behind the killings would be a severe embarrassment at a time when the group is striving to boost its political image at home and abroad.
Armed forces chief Gen. Fernando Tapias called on Thursday on the FARC to stop hiding ``those really responsible'' and hand the killers over to the authorities.
The FARC, however, has defied U.S. calls to surrender the killers for extradition and said it will try them in a rebel war council that could ultimately send them before a firing squad.
Colombian officials have handed over to the U.S. State Department numerous tape recordings of what they say are radio intercepts of guerrilla leaders talking about the Americans.
Lloreda said two of those tapes had been classified top secret and has declined to give any hint of what fresh information they may contain.
Extracts of one of the recordings published in Thursday's edition of the El Tiempo newspaper indicates that Grannobles ordered another guerrilla known only as Rafael to buy cyanide and poison Gay, Freitas and Washinawatok.
``Go to that fertiliser factory and buy cyanide and give it to those three,'' said Grannobles in the recording.
Lloreda said U.S. intelligence agencies, which have sophisticated listening posts throughout the region, may have gathered additional evidence incriminating senior FARC commanders.
The murders could sound the death knell for President Andres Pastrana's centre-piece policy to negotiate a peaceful end to Colombia's three-decade-old war that has claimed 35,000 lives in just 10 years.
The United States, which is set to donate $240 million in counternarcotics and military aid to Colombia this year, has backed the peace process but the slayings could spark renewed calls in Washington and Colombia for an all-out offensive against the rebels.
In one of the army's radio intercepts, Jorge Briceno talked to his brother German about the devastating political impact the killings were going to have on the rebel group and told his brother to come up with ``any name'' to put forward as the murderer of the Americans.
``This is the biggest political screw-up of all. This is a mistake from hell,'' he said.
Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited.
-----------------------
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is
distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and
educational purposes only. For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
I want to share this e-mail from Tia with you. Maybe you can pass it on if that seems appropriate. love, c
Wed, 10 Mar 1999 11:42:24 -0800
From: Tia Oros
Subject: Time to act
To: antoinette claypoole, Christy Wagner, The Seven Senses
antoinette claypoole writes: "....as we all move forward. relinquishing nothing."
Over here we are just beginning to get it together. I have come nearly completely unglued. . Christy knows this..she has been a voice to cry to. Today, though I must act. In the process of recovering myself from deep mourning I am completely recommitted to what must happen - -we must retake this land with its memory of fresh blood, we must retake our families and assure the safety and well being of those we love, we must retake a strong unified position - - establishing a firm and an unrelenting position that we shall survive this and any horror. And, we will not become the oppressor, or a tool of the oppressor, in this journey.
If we are anything, we, the peoples of the Americas, we, the ravaged bodies, we, the Indians shall survive and succeed and sustain our relationships to eachother, the land, and to Spirit. This is the meaning of community, when the worst happens, are we there to stand together afterwards?
And it is all of us who are in this together. . . once we were all tribes, once we were all Indigenous to a place, somewhere.
We can bring back their tortured bodies, due to return today in their homelands.. . what has not died with their flesh is the hope inherent in each of their lives, the transformation in the universe that created their individual and collective beauty. This hope lives in their last breaths and lives in our responsibilities here. WE WILL WIN. They are martyrs, but not in vain. My hands are not bound.. I am going to write. today I am writing letters of outreach for action on this matter. I will email this to Antioch CAFE and Seven as soon as I can draft it. I urge replication of this letter, this call for action on these tragic horrible deaths.
Tia
3. Memorial for slain activist/Statement from Terence Freitas' mother
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999
thankx2: GrizzledBear
Subject: COLOMBIA: Memorial for slain activist/Statement from Terence
Freitas' mother
For anyone in the L.A. area, there will be a memorial for slain activist Terence Freitas on Sunday, March 21st, 1999 -- the Spring Equinox -- at 2:30 pm, to be held at Highland Hall, 17100 Superior Street, Northridge.
For more information phone (818) 766-8060. "Bring your songs, words, rhythm and spirit."
STATEMENT FROM JULIE FREITAS, MOTHER OF SLAIN ACTIVIST TERENCE FREITAS:
To the Colombian and international media, to governments worldwide, to non-governmental representatives of the international community, and to youth everywhere:
I have received the latest news accounts reporting that leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas have attributed the killings of my son Terence Freitas, 24, Ingrid Washinawatok, 41, and Lahe'ena'e Gay, 39, to a local rebel commander.
I stress emphatically that the family members and friends of Terence are not interested in any more bloodshed in Colombia. I understand the FARC frequently administer internal justice in cases like these by executing those allegedly responsible. I beg the FARC leaders not to destroy any more young lives. I do not want any mother to have to experience what I have experienced with the tragic loss of my son. If members of the FARC are indeed responsible, I would like to talk with them about the roots of their anger, about the source of this rage that prompted them to commit such a senseless act -- the killings of people they obviously knew not enough about. I would like them to know that my son worked passionately in his short and tragically interrupted life to bring peace and tolerance and life to Colombia, following the example of the U'wa, the "thinking people."
I have learned from the U'wa elders that my son Terence sent his spirit to them in a dream this week. In this dream, Terence gave the elders a snail shell, which to the U'wa symbolizes peace and problem solving. Let this urgent plea from my son spread from the sacred land of the U'wa, from Kajka Ika, the heart of the world, throughout Colombia, throughout the international community. Let people everywhere respond to this tragedy by working to bring peace to Colombia so that communities like the U'wa may continue to preserve human life and the dignity of the land.
Before his death, Terence helped write a report about the U'wa people called "Blood of Our Mother." The report prophetically states: "Colombian President-elect Andres Pastrana has a tremendous opportunity in this crisis. A promising peace process between the guerrillas and the government may allow the space for cooler heads to prevail. Human rights may yet triumph over multinational corporate interests" Following my son's example, I request:
Julie Freitas
Mother of Terence Freitas
March 11, 1999
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Last updated March 20, 1999
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