WHERE IS CARLOS CASTANO?
As Colombia's Brutal Paramilitaries Get Their Own Autonomous Zone, Rumors
That Their Warlord is Hiding in Israel
With the May 13 signing of the so-called Fatima Accords at talks near
Monteria, capital of Cordoba department, the notorious United Self-Defense
Forces of Colombia (AUC) have been granted their own de facto autonomous
zone. The so-called Zone of Location, covering 368 square kilometers in
Cordoba's Tierralta municipality, is now in the hands of ten paramilitary
commanders and an estimated 400 gunmen--officially as a prelude to their
disarmament and "demobilization." Under the plan, the zone is to serve as a
safe haven for demobilizing AUC paramilitary fighters to gather before
surrendering their weapons. (El Tiempo, May 14; Colombian Presidency press
release, May 13)
The problem is that the paramilitary reign of terror in Colombia's
countryside and barrios has hardly abated. The day after the accord was
signed, three street vendors and a young girl playing in the street were
killed by heavily armed gunmen--identified by witnesses as paras--in
Espinal, Tolima department. Also that day, authorities discovered the
corpses of three of six local men kidnapped by paramilitaries in La Guajira
department, apparently in dispute over local sales of contraband Venezuelan
gasoline. (El Tiempo, May 15)
Another problem is that the great grand-father of the paramilitary
movement, Carlos Castano, was not at the signing of the Fatima Accord, and
is not believed to be in the Location Zone. His whereabouts have been
unknown since at least February.
A May 19 story in the New York Times speculated that Castano had been
assassinated by rivals in the paramilitary movement after, in the course of
disarmament negotiations, he admitted his fighters and commanders had been
responsible for assassinations and massacres--and that 70% of the AUC's
funding comes from the cocaine traffic. Castano himself faces drug charges
in the US, and 18 AUC commanders--including his older brother Vicente
Castano--were recently classified as major drug dealers by the US Treasury
Department. An unnamed DEA official said that Colombia's leftist guerillas
are also involved in the drug trade but that "they pale in comparison" to
the AUC.
See also WW3 REPORT #97
The first possible answer to the Castano mystery emerged June 1, when an
AFP report in the Israeli daily Haaretz claimed he is hiding in Israel. The
article claimed Castano was first secretly moved to Panama under US guard
in mid-February, and then smuggled to Israel. The AFP account suggested
Castano's life was threatened after he agreed to cooperate with US efforts
to crack down on drug trafficking.
The Colombian government refused to confirm or deny the AFP report. But an
accompanying article in Haaretz said Israeli Foreign Ministry and Interior
Ministry officials found no evidence that Castano had entered Israel--while
conceding he may have entered the country under a different name.
Israeli intelligence is said to have played a key role in establishing the
Colombian paramilitaries. In his best-selling book of autobiographical
interviews with journalist Mauricio Aranguren Molina, "My Confession:
Carlos Castano Reveals His Secrets," the elusive warlord says that he
arrived in Israel at the age of 18 in 1983, when he was first building his
paramilitary movement in Cordoba, for clandestine military training. Under
cover of studying science at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, he joined a
group of other Latin Americans for one year at a "private school" where, in
a secret program code-named 562, Israeli Defense Forces veterans gave
instruction in warfare, geopolitics, the international arms trade, "how to
purchase rifles," "psychological operations," "terrorism and
anti-terrorism" and "the fundamentals of atomic weaponry."
Castano is effusive in his praise for the Israeli military, saying that the
AUC's entire "concept of armed self-defense is a copy of the Israelis;
every citizen of this nation is a soldier in potential... This, without a
doubt, is a visionary people and an example of mastery."
See also WW3 REPORT #s:
63,
42
(Bill Weinberg)
---------------------
Special to WORLD WAR 3 REPORT, June 5, 2004
Reprinting permissible with attribution
WW3Report.com
Current Issue