New - October 28, 2009
Secrets and Lies: The U.S. Embassy and Col. Plazas Vega
By Michael Evans

[The following article was published today in Spanish at Semana.com.]

The recent appearance of a declassified U.S. Embassy report blaming the Colombian Army and Col. Luis Alfonso Plazas Vega for deaths and disappearances during operations to retake the Palace of Justice building in November 1985 has stirred up heated debate on both sides of the issue. As it happens, both sides have it wrong, at least in part. As the person who first uncovered the document, the result of a declassification request to the U.S. State Department, I submit the following points for the sake of clarification and in the hope that the real significance of the document is not lost in the confusion of the moment.

Initial reports on the matter dramatically mischaracterized the document and distorted its meaning. El Espectador, for example, attributed the information to supposed “intelligence agents at the service of the U.S. Embassy in Colombia” and reported that the document had been “brought to the attention of Colombian authorities in 1998”, details that the document simply does not support. Since El Espectador also failed to publish the document itself, many other Colombian news organizations simply followed its lead, repeating the same erroneous details.

Seizing the opportunity, defenders of Col. Plazas have sought to discredit the entire document, including what are by far the most important, verifiable and incriminating details. Pouncing on these inaccuracies in a letter to the editor, the colonel’s wife, Thania Vega de Plazas, said that the original report in El Espectador was “completely false” and went on to invent some facts of her own. Her assertion that the document is merely a summary of “the affirmations of some Colombian human rights NGOs” is 100 percent wrong and a gross mischaracterization of the document. (The colonel’s son, Miguel Plazas, made the same points, in the exact same words, in a letter to El Tiempo.)

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October 8, 2009
State Department Cable says Colombian Army Responsible for Palace of Justice Deaths, Disappearances

Document Introduced as Evidence in Trial of Col. Alfonso Plazas Vega

The Palace of Justice burned to the ground during military efforts to retake the building from M-19 guerrillas. Eleven Supreme Court justices died in the blaze, along with dozens of others. [Photo: Revista Semana]

Washington, D.C., October 8, 2009 - A declassified U.S. State Department document filed in a Colombian court yesterday blames the Colombian Army, and Col. Alfonso Plazas Vega in particular, for the deaths of over 70 people during military operations to retake the Palace of Justice building from insurgents who had seized the building in November 1985. The document, a January 1999 cable from the U.S. Embassy in Colombia, was obtained by the National Security Archive under the Freedom of Information Act.

The cable states in paragraph four that Col. Plazas Vega (misspelled as “Plazas Vargas”) “commanded the November, 1985 Army raid on the Supreme Court building” and that the operation “resulted in the deaths of more than 70 people, including eleven Supreme Court justices.” The Embassy adds that soldiers under the command of Col. Plazas Vega “killed a number of M-19 members and suspected collaborators hors de combat, including the Palace’s cafeteria staff.”

Col. Plazas Vega is currently on trial for the disappearances of eleven civilians during the course of the operation, several of whom worked in the Palace cafeteria. The Palace of Justice tragedy began on November 6, 1985, after insurgents from the M-19 guerrilla group seized the building, taking a number of hostages. The building caught fire and burned to the ground during Colombian military and police force efforts to retake the Palace, killing most of the guerrillas and hostages still inside.

“The information included in this brief description of Col. Plazas Vega is the clearest, most concise statement we have seen in declassified records about the Army’s responsibility for the deaths and disappearances in the Palace of Justice case,” said Michael Evans, director of the Archive’s Colombia documentation project.

“The Palace of Justice tragedy is one of the most searing events in Colombian history,” Evans added, “and with both this case and the Truth Commission on the Palace of Justice in progress, now is the time for the U.S. government to come forward with all human rights related information it has pertaining to the Palace of Justice tragedy.”

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September 24, 2009
Conspiracy of Silence?
Colombia, the United States and the Massacre at El Salado

Declassified Documents Highlight U.S. Concerns Over Role of Colombian Security Forces in February 2000 Paramilitary Killings

Washington, D.C., September 24, 2009 - The United States harbored serious concerns about the potential involvement of Colombian security forces in the February 2000 massacre at El Salado, an attack that occurred while the two countries were hammering out the final details of the massive military aid package known as Plan Colombia, according to declassified documents posted today on the National Security Archive Web site.

Images of victims on display during the presentation of the Memoria Histórica report. Victims for whom a photo was not available were represented by blank faces. [Michael Evans]

Orchestrated and carried out by paramilitaries from the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), an illegal paramilitary army, there have long been allegations that Colombian security forces, including those from the Colombian Navy's 1st Marine Infantry Brigade, facilitated the massacre by vacating the town before the carnage began and constructing roadblocks to delay the arrival of humanitarian aid. U.S. assistance under Plan Colombia required the Colombian military to demonstrate progress in breaking ties with paramilitary forces.

The documents described in the article below—and in Spanish on the Web site of Semana (Colombia's leading news magazine)—show that U.S. officials had significant doubts about the credibility of their Colombian military counterparts and were well aware, even before El Salado, of the propensity of the Colombian military to act in concert with illegal paramilitary forces, whether through omission or commission.

These findings also complement those of Memoria Histórica, an independent group charged by Colombia's National Commission on Reparations and Reconciliation with investigating the history of the country's armed conflict. Its report on El Salado, La Masacre de El Salado: Esa Guerra No Era Nuestra (The El Salado Massacre: That Was Not Our War), was released this week before audiences in El Salado and Bogotá.

Highlights from the documents include:

• The U.S. Embassy's record of a January 1999 meeting in which Colombia's deputy army commander said that the Army "had no business pursuing paramilitaries" as they were "apolitical common criminals" that "did not threaten constitutional order through subversive activities."

• Another 1999 report from U.S. military sources found that the Colombian armed forces had "not actively persecuted paramilitary group members because they see them as allies in the fight against the guerrillas, their common enemy."

• A U.S. military source who opined that evidence indicating some of the paramilitary members were wearing Colombian Army uniforms suggested "that many of the paramilitaries are ex-military members, or that they obtain the uniforms from military or ex-military members."

• State Department talking points that pointed to the capture of a mere 11 of the 450 perpetrators of the massacre as evidence that the military had actively pursued the perpetrators and was improving its record against paramilitaries.

• A U.S. Embassy cable based on a conversation with a source apparently close to the investigation who strongly suggested that the Colombian military knew about the massacre ahead of time, cleared out of the town before the killing began and "had been lucky in capturing the eleven paramilitary members."

• A document casting doubt on the military's explanation of its role in El Salado, including the U.S. Embassy's view that it was "difficult to believe that the town of El Salado had not been subject to threats of an attack prior to the massacre, considering the town is situated in a high conflict area."

• A U.S. Embassy report on Admiral Rodrigo Quiñones, one of the military members alleged to have facilitated the massacre, noting that "an unmistakable pattern of similar allegations has followed him almost everywhere he has held field command."

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