Colombian paramilitaries brutally tortured and killed four Native American leaders of the Kuna Paya village along the Panamanian border - Ernesto Ayala, mayor; San Pascual Ayala, second mayor, and Luis Enrique Martínez, village commissioner.
Three journalists were kidnapped during the attack but have now been released - Robert Pelton, Mark Wedeven and Megan Smaker. Pelton is a freelance journalist, best known for an interview with U.S. Taliban fighter John Walker Lind (Suleyman al-Faris) in Afghanistan but also for his Travel Channel program, "Robert Young Pelton's The World's Most Dangerous Places". He was on assignment for National Geographic and the other journalists were travelling with him.
A witness stated that they were all ambushed by members of the Autodefensas Unidas Campesinas de Urabá (ACUU) - United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia.
The U.S. State Department lists the ACUU as a terrorist organization and last year, the U.S. Justice Department charged leaders of the group with trafficking more than 17 tons of cocaine into the United States and Europe, over the past six years.
Please continue for an official Kuna statement plus English and Spanish versions of the original report from Panama.
Please also see; “Colombias’s New Drug Gangs”, “ENRON and Global Poverty” and “Narco Dollars”, in our Economics section and read George Monbiot's:
"A War of Terror; The men who claim to be fighting 'evil' on behalf of 'good' are also funding one of the world’s dirtiest wars";
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0204-04.htm
Three journalists were kidnapped during the attack but have now been released - Robert Pelton, Mark Wedeven and Megan Smaker. Pelton is a freelance journalist, best known for an interview with U.S. Taliban fighter John Walker Lind (Suleyman al-Faris) in Afghanistan but also for his Travel Channel program, "Robert Young Pelton's The World's Most Dangerous Places". He was on assignment for National Geographic and the other journalists were travelling with him.
A witness stated that they were all ambushed by members of the Autodefensas Unidas Campesinas de Urabá (ACUU) - United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia.
The U.S. State Department lists the ACUU as a terrorist organization and last year, the U.S. Justice Department charged leaders of the group with trafficking more than 17 tons of cocaine into the United States and Europe, over the past six years.
Please continue for an official Kuna statement plus English and Spanish versions of the original report from Panama.
Please also see; “Colombias’s New Drug Gangs”, “ENRON and Global Poverty” and “Narco Dollars”, in our Economics section and read George Monbiot's:
"A War of Terror; The men who claim to be fighting 'evil' on behalf of 'good' are also funding one of the world’s dirtiest wars";
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0204-04.htm