International
Uribe Reacts to Mancuso’s Return: “Accused of Paramilitarism While Extraditing Them,” States Former President
Former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe reiterated on Wednesday that he has been accused of paramilitarism throughout his life, but pointed out that he was the one who extradited the top leaders of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) to the United States, in reference to the return of ex-leader Salvatore Mancuso to the country.
“I know I must make a greater effort to combine my defense with my task of argumentative opposition and the fight for Colombia’s future. How strange, they accuse me of being a paramilitary and yet I extradited them, and the only paramilitary who claims to have met with me is Mancuso,” Uribe said in a video posted on his social media.
Mancuso arrived in Bogotá on Tuesday from the United States, deported after serving a sentence for drug trafficking, and stated that he will comply with “the restrictive conditions” imposed by Colombian justice.
The former AUC commander arrived on a chartered flight of deportees that landed at the Military Air Transport Command (Catam) in the Colombian capital and will now have to appear before justice for dozens of crimes committed during the armed conflict.
He then entered La Picota prison in southern Bogotá and was placed at the disposal of the judge in charge of executing sentences of Justice and Peace in the Colombian capital and the magistrate of Guarantees Control in Barranquilla (north), who are the competent authorities to make decisions about his freedom, according to the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP).
Dangerous Relationships
Last year, the former paramilitary leader stated during a truth-telling hearing before the JEP that the AUC supported political candidates seeking to reach the Colombian Congress in the March 2010 elections and also provided backing for the campaigns of former Presidents Uribe and Andrés Pastrana.
“In 2002, the United Self-Defense Forces directly intervened in the congressional elections on March 10, 2002, and also the presidential elections in May 2002 (won by Uribe),” Mancuso said at the time.
In response, Uribe stated that Mancuso is lying: “He never met with me. We greeted each other a few times because of my connection to Montería (capital of the department of Córdoba). We did not have conversations. During the presidential campaign, I refused to meet with him, as was publicly established, and I also publicly disavowed his support in Barrancabermeja.”
“Mancuso has made a point of accusing me, lying. I have faced everything,” he added.
Mancuso’s Criminal Life
Mancuso laid down his arms in 2006, along with the majority of the AUC members, a group responsible for most of the crimes committed during the armed conflict according to the Truth Commission.
His demobilization took place following negotiations with Uribe’s government (2002-2010), which extradited him to the United States in 2008 along with 13 other paramilitary leaders because they remained involved in drug trafficking.
In the United States, Mancuso was sentenced in 2015 to 15 years and 10 months in prison for drug trafficking.
However, in March 2020, the US judge who sentenced him considered the sentence fulfilled by validating the two years he spent in prison in Colombia as part of the sentence, as well as the time he spent in prison in the United States awaiting trial.
As part of the agreement between the AUC and the government, the paramilitaries availed themselves of the Justice and Peace Law, which provided for maximum sentences of eight years in prison in exchange for collaboration in clarifying crimes.
International
China shows at the UN its “condemnation” of Israel for the “violation of Iran’s sovereignty”
The Chinese ambassador to the United Nations, Fu Cong, showed the “condemnation” of his country against the “violation of the sovereignty, security and territorial integrity of Iran” after the air attack launched by Israel against multiple targets in that country, the official newspaper Diario del Pueblo reports this Saturday.
That media echoes Fu’s speech to the UN Security Council on Friday, in which he demanded that Israel “immediately stop all its military actions.”
“China (…) opposes the expansion of conflicts, and is deeply concerned about the serious consequences that may arise from Israel’s actions. The intensification of regional tensions does not interest any of the parties involved,” said the Chinese emissary.
Beijing called on Tel Aviv and Tehran to “resolve their disputes through political and diplomatic means, and maintain peace and stability at the regional level jointly.”
In Fu’s view, the Israeli attack will have a “negative impact” on the negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program: “China has always been committed to the peaceful resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue through dialogue and consultations, and opposes the use of force, illegal unilateral sanctions and armed attacks on peaceful nuclear facilities.”
This Friday, China had already expressed its willingness to “play a constructive role” to curb the escalation of tensions and facilitate conciliation, in line with its traditional position of active neutrality in the region’s conflicts.
The Israeli attack, which according to Tehran caused dozens of deaths, including senior military commanders and at least six nuclear scientists, targeted key facilities such as the uranium enrichment plant in Natanz. Numerous civilian casualties were also reported.
Israel justified the offensive by claiming that the Iranian regime is secretly developing a program to manufacture nuclear weapons.
For his part, Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, promised a “severe response” and assured that the attack would reveal the “evil nature” of Israel.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres also expressed concern about the bombing, at a time when Iran and the US The United States is holding talks about the Iranian nuclear program.
International
Donald Trump’s government pauses its program of indiscriminate raides against migrants
The government of US President Donald Trump has decided to pause its campaign of discretionary roundings against migrants in certain areas due to its apparent concern about the growing unpopularity of these methods, according to The New York Times newspaper on Friday.
According to an email to which the newspaper has had access and the confirmation of US officials, the Executive has ordered the Immigration and Customs Control Service (ICE) to pause the beatings that affect the agricultural industry and the hospitality industry.
The spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, confirmed in a statement that “the president’s instructions” will be obeyed and the portfolio will also continue to “work to get the worst illegal foreign criminals out of the streets of the United States.”
The decision points out that this campaign of discretionary arrests to try to deport large-scale immigrants is harming industries and electoral constituencies whose support Trump wants to retain for next year’s legislative elections.
The new instructions were transmitted to ICE in an email sent last Thursday asking that “all investigations/law enforcement operations be suspended in work centers in the agricultural sector (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and hotels.”
These new guidelines come in turn after more than a week of intense protests in Los Angeles against this immigration policy and that Trump himself admitted that the raids seem to be affecting the agricultural sector, which in states like California, where beatings have intensified, depend almost exclusively on immigrant labor.
Since his return to the White House in January, Trump has implemented an aggressive policy of hard hand against immigration and as a sample of his Cabinet officials recently held a meeting with the ICE leadership to order them to carry out 3,000 arrests a day, a mandate that seems to be behind the intensification of the raids.
International
Trump says he knew “everything” about the attack on Iran and assures that the dialogue remains open
US President Donald Trump said on Friday that Washington “known everything” about the Israeli attack on Iran and that the dialogue on Tehran’s nuclear program “is not dead.”
“We knew everything and I tried to avoid Iran all this humiliation and death. I tried hard to avoid it because I would have loved to see an agreement,” Trump said in an interview with Reuters.
The US president insisted on what he wrote today about the attack on social networks, where he said he gave an ultimatum of 60 days to Tehran to reach an agreement.
“We knew practically everything. We knew enough to give Iran 60 days to reach an agreement and today it is already 61 days,” he explained in the interview, in which he said he did not know what the current situation of the Iranian nuclear program is after the attack launched by Israel, which also ended the lives of key military leaders of the Persian country.
Regarding the dialogue between the US and Iran about the nuclear program of the ayatollahs, Trump assured that “he is not dead”, that “an agreement is still possible” and also recalled that on Sunday a sixth round of dialogue is scheduled in Muscat (Oman) that they consider is now in the air.
“We have a meeting with them on Sunday. Now, I’m not sure if that meeting will take place, but we have a meeting with them on Sunday,” he said.
The United States and Iran have held five rounds of talks on the Iranian nuclear program since April, with Washington demanding that Tehran discard its capabilities both to manufacture an atomic bomb and to enrich uranium, something that the ayatollahs considered unacceptable.
Both Israel and Trump himself had warned of possible preventive attacks on the Persian country due to this refusal by Iran.
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