Ivan Ramirez and the 1997 Pact with Colombian Paramilitaries
A 24-page Secret cable spent 26 years in the shadows before Colombian prosecutors used it to confront a general who looked the other way while massacres happened.
By Harlan Pryce ·
Paramilitaries
Joseph Califano and the CIA's Private Spy Network in Bogota
A 1963 report kept secret for decades details the funding of Colombian businessmen to spy on their own government and the training of U.S. assets in Cuban guerrilla camps
By Harlan Pryce ·
Herman Arias Gaviria and the State-Licensed Drug Militias
He licensed the guns that fueled paramilitary massacres, yet Bogota promoted him to national security adviser while the DIA watched from the shadows.
By Desmond Okafor ·
Carlos Castaño and the Prior Assurances of the Mapiripán Massacre
The 1997 slaughter of civilians was facilitated by a military that looked the other way—a partnership the CIA tracked in a report kept secret for decades.
By Harlan Pryce ·
Colombian Security Forces and the 'Allies' Who Killed 38 Percent of Civilians
A heavily censored report kept secret for decades confirms that Colombian state forces sheltered the very paramilitaries responsible for the highest toll of civilian blood.
By Desmond Okafor ·
30 Dead in Mapiripán and the Secret List of Colombian Army Allies
A 1998 cable kept secret for decades shows the U.S. knew exactly which Colombian officers helped paramilitaries murder civilians while plotting to send them counter-narcotics aid.
By Harlan Pryce ·
Fidel Castaño and the 2,000 Paramilitaries Who Sold the Cordoba Model
Kept secret for 25 years, a 1998 cable documents how U.S. multinationals and the DEA intersected with Colombian narco-vigilantes to cleanse the Córdoba region.
By Desmond Okafor ·
Huancayo’s Morgue and the US Embassy’s Audit of the Dead
US Embassy political officers visited the Mantaro Valley in 1991 to find a city abandoned by its police but filled with corpses, a reality preserved in a 15-page cable.
By Harlan Pryce ·
Major General Ramirez and the Colombian Proxy Price
For decades, the US funded a military that the CIA knew was entwined with paramilitary death squads, keeping the details of that betrayal secret until 1997.
By Harlan Pryce ·
Gen. Del Rio and the Bloody Reward for Arming Paramilitaries
Kept secret for 26 years, a 1998 cable shows how the U.S. Embassy watched a general arm illegal death squads to crush a guerrilla insurgency while the State Department faced a military backlash.
By Harlan Pryce ·
Robert Kistinger and the Routine Cost of Guerrilla Payments
Payment to irregular forces was billed as a routine business cost for years, a secret ledger that funded violence across the Colombian countryside.
By Desmond Okafor ·
Colombian Generals and the 1999 Blueprint for Paramilitary Impunity
A 1999 cable reveals a calculated shift of responsibility that left thousands of civilians exposed to death squads while military officers secured their own legal immunity.
By Harlan Pryce ·
Luis Meneses and the DEA’s Compromised Bogotá Hand
The interrogation and murder of Luis Meneses turned the identities of American law enforcement agents into targets for retaliation, exposing a high-stakes alliance with death squads.
By Desmond Okafor ·
General Del Rio Rojas Named Among Two Most Corrupt Army Officers
Military subordinates were ordered to cooperate with illegal death squads in Uraba while Washington tracked the rot within the 17th Brigade through confidential cables.
By Harlan Pryce ·