Venezuela Dismisses Interpol Presentation, Computer Experts Question Report’s Reliability

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez speaks during a press conference at the presidential palace in Caracas, Thursday, May 15, 2008. Chavez is denounced as 'ridiculous' an Interpol report on documents that Colombia says were retrieved from the computers of slain rebels. At background, a painting depicting Venezuelan independence hero Simon Bolivar. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

By Gregory Wilpert

Venezuelanalysis.com

May 16, 2008

Excerpts from report:

Various computer experts around the world have examined the Interpol report more closely and many are saying that the press conference by Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble that appeared to support the Colombian government’s claims of authenticity contradicted some of the findings within the report itself.

The main problem with the computer files, according to these experts, is, as the Interpol report itself concedes, that between March 1 and 3 the Colombian anti-terrorism unit that had the files under its control did not follow standard forensic procedures for safeguarding electronic evidence and accessed the files without first making a copy of them. As such, the results of the analysis are not particularly reliable.

For example, Computer science professor Emilio Hernandez of the Simon Bolivar University in Venezuela said to Venezuelan state radio station RNV that Interpol failed to “explain that it is perfectly feasible to change files and change their dates.” That is, in the two days between the apprehension of the computer equipment and when it was turned over to forensics experts, when standard practices for preserving evidence were not observed, it could have been altered without such alterations being detectable.

Similarly, computer expert Sascha Meinrath, who is President of the Acorn Active Media Foundation, points out that the reason Interpol says it “found no evidence of tampering,” rather than that “there was no tampering” is because Interpol “cannot determine whether or not this happened, they can only look for evidence of the tampering. A smart computer administrator can reset a computer's internal clocks and make changes that would be indiscernible from actual use. As paragraphs 92-96 [of the Interpol report] make clear, this isn't particularly hard to do.”

The Interpol report notes that “one laptop computer (exhibit 28) and the two seized external hard disks (exhibits 30 and 31) contained files with erroneous date stamps, set in the future.” According to Meinrath, this fact alone puts into question whether the date stamps set in the past are accurate (before March 1, when the FARC camp was raided).

...

Colombia specialist Forrest Hylton, who is the author of the recently published history of Colombia, Evil Hour in Colombia, also expressed doubt about the authenticity of the released documents because of the language these used, which does not correspond with typical FARC communications.

For example, in one of the released documents the identity of a pseudonym is revealed. “No one would begin an important letter by identifying someone in relation to his/her pseudonym. That is not how clandestine organization works,” said Hylton.

“I can imagine this as part of a captured document that was later doctored significantly. As far as we know, these are printed documents scanned into a laptop. Why would the FARC’s second-in-command scan internal correspondence onto a laptop? To compile an archive for future historians? To write his memoirs in the future? For the benefit of the Colombian government?” added Hylton.

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Washington Post Issues Weird Fatwa Against Human Rights Watch

BoRev.Net

May 15, 2008

Laptops aside, remember how President Uribe shuttled all those terrorists out of Colombia the other night just as they were threatening to implicate his entire administration as death squad collaborators—wasn't that weird? Anyway this morning the serious thinkers at the Washington Post knew exactly who the bad guys are in all this, and they weren't afraid to do something about it. So piss off, uh, Human Rights Watch, for raising questions about it all...

(click here to view entire report)

Does U.S. threaten Venezuelan national security with proposed base?

President Hugo Chavez, seen here in April 2008, said Sunday on his radio talk show that neighboring Colombia is trying to provoke Venezuela into a war so as to draw in and "justify" an armed intervention by the United States. (AFP/File/Juan Barreto)

By CHRISTOPHER TOOTHAKER, Associated Press Writer

May 15, 2008

[Editor's Note: AP reported the following: "Washington's ambassador to Colombia, William Brownfield, said in a recent newspaper interview that Colombia might be considered as the site for a U.S. drug base if the Manta base is closed, but he did not mention La Guajira."]

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez on Wednesday warned Colombia not to allow a U.S. military base on its border with Venezuela, saying he would consider such an act an "aggression."

Chavez said he would not permit Colombia's U.S.-backed government to establish an American military base in La Guajira, a region spanning northeastern Colombia and northwestern Venezuela.

The Venezuelan leader said if Colombia allows the base, his government will revive a decades-old territorial conflict and stake a claim to the entire region.

"We will not allow the Colombian government to give La Guajira to the empire," Chavez said, referring to the U.S. during a speech to a packed auditorium of uniformed soldiers. "Colombia is launching a threat of war at us."

(click here to view entire report)

Extradition of Paramilitary Leaders Undermines Para-Politics Investigation

Colombia's Machiavellian President looks to save himself and his political allies

Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe gestures as he speaks during a ceremony to mark the anniversary of the founding of the Nueva Granada Military University in Bogota, May 6, 2008. REUTERS/John Vizcaino (COLOMBIA)

By Garry Leech

Colombia Journal

May 13, 2008

[Editor's Note: For more context, see Justice for Colombia's report, President Attacks Human Rights Defenders.]

In the early hours of May 13, Colombian security forces transported 14 high-ranking paramilitary leaders from their prison cells to an aircraft that whisked them out of the country and to the United States. Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe had ordered that the paramilitary leaders be extradited to face drug trafficking charges in the United States because, as Interior Minister Carlos Holgumn stated, “In some cases they were still committing crimes and reorganizing criminal structures” from their prison cells. The paramilitary leaders were engaged in a demobilization process that called for them to confess their crimes in return for reduced jail sentences. In their testimonies, several paramilitary leaders revealed links between the right-wing militia organization and elected officials and multinational corporations. By extraditing the paramilitary leaders, President Uribe has ensured that they will do no further harm to himself and his political allies as he has effectively stymied future investigations into the so-called para-politics scandal...

(click here to view entire report)

The Labor Movement's Principled Position on Colombia FTA

By Dan Kovalik

Huffington Post

April 30, 2008

Lately, in numerous news sources, including the New York Times, Miami Herald, and New York Post, the U.S. labor movement has been accused of "lying" about the violence confronting unionists in Colombia.

Really, while the articles in these papers claim the union movement is telling untruths, the heart of their argument is that labor is overstating the problem. Thus, their argument goes, "only" 39 unionists were killed last year in Colombia, a much better figure than previous years.

The commentators in these articles claim that the union movement, to make its case about how bad the labor situation in Colombia is, relies upon "outdated" statistics, such as numbers from prior years which, when totaled, show that over 2,300 unionists have been killed since 1991.

As an initial matter, the U.S. labor movement believes, not incredibly, that 39 unionists killed in a year is way too many. It remains the worst level of anti-union violence in the world.

Commentators who use "only" and "merely" to describe 39 murders, we believe, do not value the sanctity of human life.

In addition, they ignore the important fact that, even while union killings declined in 2007, the Colombian military's share of such killings actually rose. Thus, while only two unionists were killed by the military in 2006, the Colombian military was responsible for at least five union killings in 2007...

(click here to view entire report)