The “False Positives”: How The Colombian Military Inflated Its Body Count

Reality-testing the press release: Billboard for the Colombian Army’s Fourth Brigade, Medellin. “I feel protected because I can count on my Fourth Brigade.” “The brigade, patrolling alongside AUC units, is accused of killing dozens of civilians, dressing their bodies in camouflage and presenting them as guerrillas killed in combat” in areas outside Medellin, according to a report from the CIP

… the pressure from some generals to produce enemy casualties … also contributed to making the production of corpses an end in itself, because promotions and leave days depended on producing them

Semana (Colombia) this week on the progress of investigations into “false positives”: kidnappings and summary executions by Colombian military units whose victims would then be dressed in fatigues and counted as “rebels killed in action.”

Your tax dollars at work. The story has been heavily covered in recent weeks there in the Colombian press. More and more stories of young men with no militant or guerrilla connections, promised jobs in another province by soldiers, then showing up later, dressed in fatigues, to be accounted for as “rebels killed in action.”

Got to keep that efficiency index up to keep the funding rolling in!

In El Tiempo (Bogotá) today, the headline is “Uribe declares that the armed forces were infiltrated by terrorists!”

Uribe is shocked! shocked! to learn that military units cooperated with paramilitaries who were committing atrocities while also making sure that candidates of Uribe’s own political base in Congress got elected!

Hasty translation:

Indiferencia ante las denuncias y laxitud a la hora de hacer las operaciones, fueron algunos de los hallazgos de la Comisión que investigó los casos de militares involucrados en el escándalo de las ejecuciones extrajudiciales. ¿Ahora qué viene?

Indifference in the face of the accusations and negligence when it came time to act, these were some of the findings of the commisssion investigting the case of Colombian soldiers involved in the scandal of extrajudicial executions. What next?

La explosiva noticia de que el gobierno había resuelto, de un tajo, mandar a 24 oficiales y suboficiales del Ejército a vestir el Everfit, como reacción al escabroso caso de los desaparecidos de Soacha tiene a muchos haciendo una pregunta preocupante ¿Todos esos generales y coroneles tenían que ver con semejante asunto tan oscuro?

The explosive news that the government had decided to fit 24 officers and noncoms for the leisure suits of retirement as a reaction to the disgusting case of the Soacha disappearances has many asking a worrying question. Were all these generals and colonels involved in this same sort of dark business?

La respuesta es: no se sabe aún, y su salida no implica que se haya comprobado que tengan responsabilidades disciplinarias y muchos menos penales en estos macabros casos. Por eso es tan importante explicar por qué se creó la Comisión Especial de Investigación del Ministerio de Defensa, cuál fue su misión, y cuáles sus recomendaciones. Y por qué de ahí, el presidente Álvaro Uribe y su comandante en jefe de las Fuerzas Armadas, general Fredy Padilla de León, resolvieron sacar a estos pesos pesados.

The answer is: We do not know yet, and the mass departure does not mean that any administrative, much less criminal, charges against these officers have been proven in these macabre cases. That is why it is so important to explain that a special commission of inquiry was created by the Ministry of Defense, what its mission was and what its recommendations were. And why President Uribe and his armed forces commander, General Freddy, decided to take out this heavy hitters.

Globo Critic: “The Silencing of Sidney Rezende and Operation Toucan 2010″

"Positive, negative, balanced and ambiguous coverage of each São Paulo mayoral candidate in 5 newspapers." Source: Observatório Brasileiro de Mídia. Click to zoom.

The Brazilian journalist does not feel free to write. More than just having to follow the editorial line of the publications they work for, the complaints principally have to do with coercion by political or business groups.– “A Profile of the Brazilian Journalist”

Rodrigo Vianna, the ex-TV Globo reporter, now with the rival TV Record, comments on the firing of iconic Rio de Janeiro radio announcer Sidney Rezende by Globo. On Vianna’s recent online crusade of sarcasm against his former employer, see also

• V Is for Vianna (and Vendetta): Notes from the Globo-Record Wars

According to Vianna, the firing is part of a series of politically-motivated ratfinks orchestrated by Globo journalism director Ali Kamel (whom Vianna refers to, sardonically, as “the Ratzinger of Globo”) in order to install journalists willing to comply with Globo’s bid to influence the 2010 president elections in favor of José Serra of the PSDB.

That Globo attempted to influence the 2006 elections with a mostly fabricated “October surprise” scandal is a more than credible charge, I think.

Imagine a news environment in which you could only get information from Fox News, or The Huffington Post, but not both, and with very, very few alternatives that spout the factoids of neither gabblingly partisan camp.

The degree of concentrated media ownership and political control of media in Brazil approaches that dystopian nightmare, I truly believe it’s fair to say.

Measuring the extent of media bias, as I was commenting to a friend the other day, is becoming a standard activity of election monitoring missions, such as the EU mission to Kenya last year.

That mission, for example, found that state-owned, BBC-trained public broadcasting service KBS blatantly shilled for the incumbent, in terms of the amount of exposure provided and the tone of coverage. KBS, it turned out, had the journalistic independence and impartiality of a fake news and astroturf artist on the payroll of Edelman Worldwide.

Rio: “Flash Mob by Gabeira Supporters to Protest Election Result”

THE PRO-DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT: "Adhering to our ideals of democracy, spontaneity, nonpartisanship, and pacifism, come join our struggle against electoral crimes!" Click to zoom.

The Rio mayoral elections were won by a very, very tight margin (55,000 votes, or a little over 1% of votes cast) by Eduardo Paes of the PMDB — the party of the establishment in Rio, given that the last several governors were PMDB, and Mayor Maia started out there as well before flipping to the PFL — over Fernando “I Kidnapped The American Ambassador” Gabeira, the former PT activist turned dissident and PSDB-backed oppositionist for the Green Party.

(Green parties all over the world have taken a notable turn to the right in recent years, don’t you tend to find?)

A concerted online “viral marketing” marketing campaign is reportedly underway to question the legitimacy of the result.

Outgoing Rio mayor Cesar “The Naked” Maia has already been furiously at work on his “ex-blog,” trying to undermine the credibility of the established polling institutes, IBOPE and DataFolha, which predicted a tight race, tipping toward Paes. See

• Rio’s Naked Mayor: The DataBlog Proves Polling Institutes Were in on Election-Rigging!

The item is from the Jornal de Commercio of Rio — 90% wire service copy, 10% gossip columns. The “Pro-Democracy Movement” blog is currently offline for — says the Blogger Web site — “possible violations of the terms of service.”

The campaign has many of the features associated with “astroturf” — phony “grassroots” — campaigns, such as the careful maintenance of plausible deniability when it comes to linking the spontaneous upwelling of righteous indignation and concern for universal values with any merely partisan interest! But who knows at this point?

File under “Orkut, youthful Brazilians are absolutely bonkers over …”

Simpatizantes do deputado Fernando Gabeira, candidato derrotado do PV à Prefeitura do Rio, estão usando a internet, instrumento estimulado por ele durante a campanha, para organizar um protesto, na sexta-feira, contra o resultado da eleição. Gabeira perdeu para Paes por apenas 55 mil votos, num segundo turno marcado pela campanha negativa de panfletos apócrifos e flagrantes de boca-de-urna.

Supporters of federal legislator Fernando Gabeira, the defeated Green Party mayoral candidate for Rio de Janeiro, is using the Internet, a tool used extensively during the campaign, to organize a protest Friday against the result of the election. Gabeira lost to Eduardo Paes by just 55,000 votes in a runoff election marked by negative campaigning through irregular pamphleteering and flagrant illegal campaigning activity at voting precincts.

Logo após a apuração, no domingo, amigos criaram uma página no site de relacionamentos Orkut para discutir os flagrantes de boca de urna do segundo turno, que favoreciam Paes em sua maioria. Em três dias, a comunidade já contava dez mil adeptos. Um manifesto do intitulado “Movimento Pró-Democracia” se espalhou pela internet em blogs, messengers e correntes de e-mails.

As soon as the results were tallied, on Sunday, friends created a page on Orkut to discuss illegal campaigning during the runoff voting, most of which favored Paes. In three days, the community had attracted more than 10,000 members. A manifesto titled “Pro-Democracy Movement” was spread by blogs, IMs, and e-mail chain letters.

Rio: Things Get Messy for Maggessi?

Marina Maggessi: Diehard. Authorized hagiography. Editora Objetiva (Grupo Prisa-Santillana, Larry Rohter’s publisher), 2008.

Marina Maggessi investigada (O Dia): Marina Maggessi, a senior state police intelligence official from Rio, currently serving as a federal legislator, is investigated over an intercepted conversation in which she is overheard recommending that a fellow police officer be, ahem, whacked out in a hail of bullets.

Maggessi currently serves on a special commission in the federal congress investigating alleged excesses in the use of court-authorized wiretaps in criminal and corruption investigations.

Go figure. See also

• Rio: “Marina Maggessi Is a Victim of the Police State and the International Communist Conspiracy”

Rio – A conversa gravada pela Polícia Federal em que a inspetora de polícia e deputada federal Marina Maggessi (PPS) diz que o delegado Alexandre Neto deveria ser alvo de “um monte de tiros nos cornos” pode acabar em demissão. É que a Corregedoria Geral Unificada (CGU) abriu processo administrativo disciplinar no dia 20 sobre o caso. O diálogo, de 2006, foi entre Maggessi e o inspetor Hélio Machado da Conceição, o Helinho, que está preso em Bangu 8.

The conversation recorded by the federal police in which police inspector and federal legislator Maggessi said that police official Alexandre Neto should be targeted for “a whole bunch of bullets in the head” could end in her dismissal. The unified internal affairs division (CGU) opened a disciplinary proceeding in the case on 20 October. The conversation, recorded in 2006, was between Maggessi and Inspector Hélio Machado da Conceição, aka “Helinho,” who is currently incarcerated in Bangu 8.

Someone later actually did try to outfit Alexandre Neto with a whole bunch of bullets in the head. He survived. See

• Rio de Janeiro: The Copacabana Serpico?

Rio: “Batman Ran, and the Man Already Knew of the Plan”

The existence of a plan to break Batman out of prison had been cited it at least five intelligence reports from the state judicial and military police. There were reports that the escape would cost R$2 million and that the former military policeman would walk out the front gate, as actually happened.

Secretário de presídios admite impotência diante da corrupção: “State prisons secretary of Rio de Janeiro admits impotence in the face of corruption.”

Jorge Antonio Barros of O Globo Online, who writes the Repórter do Crime blog, reports.

A notorious “militia” member known as Batman walked out of the front gate of the Bangu 8 prison earlier this week, climbed into an official prison administration car with a uniformed escort, and disappeared. According to a report by the Extra tabloid of Rio today, his “escort” for a fictitious trip to a prison hospital were uniformed as an elite prison guard unit and used an official car.

“Militias” are paramilitary extortion and black-marketeering rackets run by Rio state police, firemen … and prison guards. They elect their own candidates to city, state, and possibly federal legislatures through voter coercion.

This is Rio’s version of Colombian “parapolitics” — which was why it was so odd to see Cesar “The Naked Mayor” Maia of the PFL boasting of his party’s consultations with security experts from Bogotá during the recent municipal campaign.

As I read in the Colombian press, extortion rackets of the very same kind are on the rise in Bogotá after the putative “demobilization” of the AUC paramilitaries. These, according to Colombian authorities, are not the same old paramilitary movements — which no longer exist, by decree — but rather “emerging new criminal groups.” This seems like an exercise in Humpty Dumptyism — semantic legerdemain — to me. On which more later.

The director of Bangu 3 was recently ambushed on the way to work and whacked out, as the saying goes, in a hail of bullets. On which more later as well.

O secretário de Administração Penitenciária, tenente-coronel PM Cesar Rubens Monteiro de Carvalho, assinou seu atestado de impotência diante da fuga de um dos principais matadores de uma milícia formada por políticos e policiais, Ricardo Teixeira Cruz, um ex-PM conhecido pelo sugestivo apelido de Batman (a milícia tem o nome de um grupo de justiceiros dos quadrinhos, a Liga da Justiça). Cruz saiu tranqüilamente pela porta da frente, escoltado por dois homens usando uniformes do Grupo de Intervenções Táticas (GIT), uma espécie de tropa de elite do sistema penitenciário do Rio.

The Rio state prisons secretary, military police Lt. Col. Monteiro, has ratified his own impotence in the face of the successful escape by one of the principal killers of a militia formed by politicians and policemen, Ricardo Teixeira “Batman” Cruz …

Militias are also run by firemen (who are subordinated to the state military police hierarchy) and prison guards. It seems important, given what happened, not to forget that fact.