The Colombian Army's Third Brigade, based in Cali, was deeply penetrated by drug trafficking mafia, according to a recent criminal investigation. "What the prosecutors' investigation has shown as it progresses," reported Bogota's Semana [2] magazine Aug. 4, "is that 'Don Diego [3]' [a drug mafia kingpin] didn't just buy these officers in exchange for one-time favors, but that many of them belonged to his organization. They were part of the mafia and put their jobs in the Army at its service." Brigade commander Leonardo Gomez Vergara resigned Aug. 16 as a result of the investigation, and a dozen other officers have been arrested or are under investigation.
Colonel Alvaro Quijano—who served as an instructor at US Army School of the Americas—was arrested on August 15, while the former chief of the brigade's operations, Lt. Colonel Javier Escobar Martinez, has also been arrested and accused of mobilizing army units to protect the drug trafficker. Javier Rico Escobar graduated from the SOA in 2003, having studied "counter-drug operations" there. Quijano, former commander of Colombia's Special Forces en Valle Department, and another accused officer, Major Wilmer Mora Daza, taught "peacekeeping operations" and "democratic sustainment" at SOA in 2003.
The Valle army 'special forces' provided security to the capo, according to the daily El Tiempo, but also guarded drug shipments that left Colombia via the Pacific Ocean from Chocó in the north to Nariño near the Ecuador border. US military officials have claimed that a reason a US military base is needed in Manta, Ecuador is to intercept increased drug trafficking in the eastern Pacific.
The commander of the Army's Third Division (Gen. Hernando Pérez Molina, another SOA grad), to which the Third Brigade belongs, was relieved of his post. The Third Division's command staff had been vetted to receive US military assistance as of July 2006, according to the State Department.
Last year, Colombian army officers from the Third Brigade ambushed an elite, US-trained anti-drug squad in the Valle town of Jamundí, killing ten policemen. The leader of the attack, Colonel Bayron Carvajal, now under arrest, was also a graduate of the SOA.
The Third Brigade's collaboration with the mafia is apparently no isolated case. Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos admitted that more than 150 military officers have been suspended in the last year, accused of collaborating with drug traffickers. Among them was the Colombian Navy's Rear Admiral Gabriel Arango Bacci [4], who is suspended and under investigation for helping drug traffickers to evade naval patrols by Colombian and U.S. ships in the Caribbean. Criminal investigators saw a red flag when last year traffickers were found with naval documents showing the locations and operations of Colombian and U.S. ships in the area. The evidence against Arango includes receipts from traffickers for $500,000, with his verified fingerprint and signature. Arango was commander of the San Andrés and Providencia Islands naval area; his unit was vetted to receive US military assistance.
John Lindsay-Poland for the FOR Colombia Program [5], Aug. 23
