FWD: [surgelocal] Colombian, Peruvian papers suggest CIA helped inflame

Thought people might find this interesting.

Steve Sherman


DID PERU'S CORRUPT EX-SPY CHIEF WORK WITH HIS C.I.A. SUPPORTERS TO FAN THE
DEADLY FLAMES OF WAR IN COLOMBIA?  SO SAYS REPORT...

The following report suggests that the former spy-chief of Peru, Vladimiro
Montesinos, and good ally of then-US drug 'czar' Barry McCaffrey, had a
purpose in selling small arms to Colombia's main leftist rebel
force:  inflame the war for his CIA allies so that the US could then
justify intensified military intervention through Plan Colombia and other
regional activities.  So far the CIA connections are rather tenuous though
suggestive.
- Jeff S.

From _El Espectador_, Colombia, 13 May 2001 (partial translation):
www.elespectador.com

-------------------------
A game with many players
- Bogota/Lima

The contraband operation of Peruvian weapons to the FARC guerrillas had an
additional purpose beyond fortifying the guerrillas:  generate an
escalation of fighting that would justify foreign military intervention,
due to the destablization of southern Colombia.

That is the content of two videos of the strongman of Peruvian
intelligence, Vladimiro Montesinos, filmed by himself, and that became
known after his escaping the fall of president Alberto Fujimori.

On August 21st of last year, Montesinos and Fujimori appeared in public in
a press conference to announce the dismantling of an international
arms-trafficking network which began in Jordan and ended in the Colombian
jungle of Vichada.

In the two following days it was discovered that the international arms
trafficking network was directing by the same Montesinos, that the rest of
the protagonists of this operation to buy 50,000 AK-47 rifles were close
associates of the Servicio de Inteligencia del Peru, SIN (National
Intelligence Service of Peru), and that in four airdrops they had already
delivered 10,000 arms to one FARC front in the border between the states
of Vichada and Guainia.

But the later reconstruction of the events which surrounded this gigantic
arms trafficking operation, and that essentially is due to the Peruvian
journalist Angel Paez, of the daily _La Republica_ in Lima, seeded new
inquiries.

Montesinos and the Jordanian arms-sales operator, Sarkis Soghanaglian
Kupelian, have admitted close connections with the CIA, and it was this
same agency that delivered the arms-sales contract to the SIN chief,  Rear
Admiral Humberto Rozas Bonucelli.

In two videotaped conversations, Montesinos verified that for October of
1999 there had been prepared a military invasion of Colombia, that had
been generated by the escalation of the internal conflict in the boder
between Ecuador and Peru.  According to his version, the armies of the
neighboring countries occupied themselves with blocking the retreat of the
guerrillas toward those countries.

Montesinos said to Genaro Delgado Parker, owner of the Global Television
network, that a meeting directed by then-president Fujimori in the
Interamerican Defense Institute (Colegio Interarmericano de Defensa) on
February 4th, 1999, had been "coordinated by the Americans" and that this
framed the project as a demonstration for the world that the Colombian
conflict was a threat to the entire sub-region.

An investigation begun by the Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad,
DAS (Administrative Department of Security), in Colombia, rooted in the
seizure from the guerrillas of various rifles whose series corresponded to
the Peruvian army, brought to light the operation, and the spectacularity
of the press conference during which Fujimori and Montesinos unveiled the
presumed arms-trafficking operation ended with a governmental regime
initiated ten years earlier in Peru.

..

Soghanaglian, 72 years old, is a reputed arms dealer who had participated
in operations to ["apertrechar", couldn't find] Argentina during the
Malvinas war, to Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War, and in the process of
arming the Nicaraguan Contras.  Born in Turkey, he grew up in Lebanon and
for 20 years has lived in the US.  Currently he faces trial in Miami for
conspiracy to defraud a US banker.

After the meeting [in 1998 in Amman to negotiate the sale], Soghanaglian
said that he consulted with a CIA agent in Amman about the sale of the
50,000 arms, and the agent said to him that there wasn't any problem,
seeing as how the war with Ecuador [and Peru] had been concluded for four
months.  Tim Golden, of _The New York Times_, spoke with an ex-agent of
the agency, who confirmed that conversation.

..
But the seizure of Peruvian-series arms brought in the DAS and ended in
the dismantling of the project.  In a declaration before a Lima judge,
Rozas [jefe del SIN] said that in the ten first days of August of 2000,
copies of the arms-sales contracts were sent to him "by personnel from a
national intelligence service of a friendly American country... three
people arrived with this document."
..

Quote from transcribed interview, in full in the original article:

1999: Montesinos interviewed by Global TV:

Montesinos:
So, the only alternative the Americans have to solve the Colombian problem
is an invasion, that they're going to do this year.

They're preparing themselves a half million Marine infantrymen to invade
Colombia and they asked of us that the President [Fujimori] made the
declarations because they aren't able to say so themselves.  So, the
President made his declarations in the Colegio Interamericano.




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