‘Paramilitary Bloc born in Uribe’s estate’: Ex-paramilitary

A new investigation by congressman Ivan Cepeda alleges the paramilitary Metro Bloc was born on the estate of former president Alvaro Uribe Velez.

According to the investigation, former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe Velez aided the rise of the paramilitary Metro Bloc. According to several witnesses, Uribe’s Guacharacas estate served as the alleged base of operations for the paramilitaries.

In June 1983, Alberto Uribe Sierra, the father of future president Alvaro Uribe, was killed by FARC rebels on the Uribe family’s Guacharacas estate. His son Alvaro sent a helicopter to save him, but when it arrived, Alberto Uribe Sierra was already dead, shot in the head by a FARC rebel.

In 1995, 12 years after the assassination of Uribe Sierra, heavily armed rebels from the smaller ELN rebel group arrived at the Uribe family estate, burned down the main building and stole some 600 cows. Alvaro Uribe Velez, the then-governor of Antioquia, sent an elite task force from the Colombian army to hunt down the rebels.

A few months later, the Colombian police succeeded in killing “Juan Pablo,” the ELN leader responsible for the attack against the estate, in addition to three more ELN rebels, prompting Uribe to issue a triumphant statement praising the Colombian police.

According to conflict-monitoring website Verdad Abierta, the Metro Bloc was a part of the larger paramilitary ACCU coalition. Its strategy was to, step by step, takeover ground from FARC and ELN guerrillas in the countryside east of Medellin, while making a simultaneous advance to challenge both local gangs and left-wing rebels in the poor communities in the eastern slopes of Medellin.

The commercial relations between the Uribe Velez and Villegas Uribe could have begun a year after the assassination of Alberto Uribe Sierra. In 1984, the Uribe Velez investment firm, represented by Alvaro Uribe, sold a hacienda to Luis Alberto Villegas Uribe. In 1990, Santiago Uribe Velez sold another estate to Gloria Elena Cano López, the wife of Luis Alberto Villegas.

In 1996 Alvaro Uribe, the then-governor of Antioquia, legalized the creation of Convivir el Condor, making Luis Alberto Villegas Uribe leader of the organization. During this year, reported Nuevo Arco Iris, there were four cases of disappearances in the San Roque municipality, two massacres of in total eleven people in the area of Providenica and the massacre of eight people in Maceo, in addition to the assassination of three people in San Jose del Nus.

In San Roque, Luis Alberto Villegas Uribe, who had by then begun using the alias “Tubo,” started a form of “gasoline cartel” with the aim of securing finances for himself and for the Metro Bloc. In late 2005, two armed men entered the office of Villegas Uribe and shot him to death. A few years later, the commander of the AUC’s Central Bolivar Bloc, alias “Julian Bolivar,” admitted having ordered the assassination of Villegas Uribe due to the ongoing fight between the Metro Bloc and the Central Bolivar Bloc over land outside of Medellin.

Commercial relations between the Uribe Velez family and the Gallon Henao family were initiated in 1987. In this case, the former family sold a large part of the Guacharacas property to Gallon Henao. According to Nuevo Arco Iris, it was “no secret” that Santiago Gallon Henao had links to both paramilitaries and drug trafficking.

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