E-mail to NYT' Simon Romero

This is an e-mail sent today to Simon Romero, NYT regarding his article "Colombian Leader Disputes Claim of Tie to Cocaine Kingpin".

Dear Simon,

I read with great interest your excellent but incomplete misive "Colombian Leader Disputes Claim of Tie to Cocaine Kingpin" in the NYT.

I say incomplete because you state "Mr. Uribe, the Bush administration’s closest ally in South America, has been dogged by claims of his links to Mr. Escobar since his political star began to rise in the 1990s, claims that became pronounced during his presidential campaign in 2002" and you then go on to mention only a DIA report from 1991. You stop there.

I'm interested to know why you didn't mention the rest of the evidence against Uribe?

1. His father, Alberto Uribe Vélez, was himself subject to an extradition warrant to face charges of drug trafficking in the US.

2. Uribe Jr grew up with the children of Fabio Ochoa, a key player at the time in the Medellín cocaine cartel.

3. After being elected Mayor of Medellín, the second city of Colombia, at the age of 26, he was removed from office after only three months by a central government embarrassed by his public ties to the drug Mafia.

4. He was made Director of Civil Aviation, where he issued pilots’ licences to Pablo Escobar’s fleet of light aircraft flying cocaine to Florida.

5. In April 2002, Noticias Uno, a current affairs programme on the TV station Canal Uno, examined alleged links between Uribe and the Medellín cocaine cartel. After the reports were aired, unidentified men threatened to kill the show’s producer, Ignacio Gómez.

6. Noticias Uno told the story of how in 1997 the US Drugs Enforcement Agency (DEA) seized 50,000 kilos of potassium permanganate from a ship docked in San Francisco. Permanganate is a chemical used in the production of cocaine. The cargo was bound for a company headed by Pedro Juan Moreno Villa, President Uribe’s campaign manager, and was sufficient to produce cocaine with a street value of $15 billion. Morena Villa’s company was Colombia’s biggest importer of potassium permanganate between 1994 and 1998. When Uribe was Governor of Antioquia, Moreno Villa was his chief of staff and Medellín was the world’s cocaine capital. (I presume you are also aware of the mysterious death since of Pedro Juan Moreno Villa, who was killed last year, Feb 2006)


Now, if you cry ignorance of these facts, then why not investigate them yourself? If your country is granting enormous sums of money to a Colombian administration that is in cahoots not only with narco-terrorists AUC but also the cocaine drug cartels, don't you think your readers deserve to know the whole truth? However, I find it difficult to believe that you know nothing of what I have commented in this e-mail.

I would be interested to receive your comments if you can spare the time.

Best wishes
...

Links:

Tom Feiling of Justice for Colombia: Álvaro Uribe Vélez Links to cocaine cartels?

Al Giordano of Narco News: Uribe's Rise from Medellín: Precursor to a Narco-State
His Campaign Manager, the DEA, and the Case of the 50,000 Kilos


DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE Drug Enforcement Administration: January 17, 1998 Shipment of 10,000 Kilograms of Potassium Permanganate, December 16, 1997 Shipment of 20,000 Kilograms of Potassium Permanganate and November 17, 1997 Shipment of 20,000 Kilograms of Potassium Permanganate; Suspension of Shipments

The New Colombia News Agency (ANNCOL) 11.04.2006 Que todo parezca un accidente