Thread by @DanFinn95

Too much you could say here, but let's start with this: in 2008, the US authorities arranged the overnight extradition of Colombian death-squad leaders because they were about to start talking about Alvaro Uribe's support for their campaign of mass murder. 1/

https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1418266492446167045

The paramilitaries thought Uribe had betrayed them when a Colombian court ruled they would have to serve actual jail time for their crimes, so they were about to sing like canaries. The US legal system stuffed their mouths with gold in the form of absurdly light sentences. 2/

The extradition happened literally overnight when Alvaro Uribe realized his allies were about to start talking. He had them bundled out of the country before the Colombian courts could intervene. Washington jumped to assist him without delay. 3/

The US authorities made sure the paramilitaries were "handsomely rewarded", as the New York Times put it, and brushed their record of mass murder under the carpet. 4/

The paramilitary leaders and their victims both felt that Uribe had one motivation: to prevent them from testifying in a Colombian court about pervasive state collaboration with far-right death squads. Washington did everything in its power to assist him. 5/

One of the judges openly stated that he gave special treatment to these drug traffickers because they didn't just sell cocaine for profit: they used the cash to fund a campaign of mass murder to exterminate the Colombian left, "activity" which had some "positive perspectives". 6/

One of the US prosecutors in the trials of these death-squad chiefs said that all things considered, he couldn't be sure he wouldn't also have done the same thing—in other words, ordered his underlings to slaughter innocent men, women and children with machetes and chainsaws. 7/

Full details here—a brilliant piece of in-depth reporting by the NYT. Now tell us again how the US ruling class is deeply concerned about democracy and human rights in Latin America and can be trusted to do the right thing. 8/

nytimes.com/2016/09/11/wor…