"Pirinolo” was the nickname that villagers from the tiny hamlet of Santiago Perez in central Colombia used for the good-humoured 34-year old Ulises, a native of the town of Chaparral. He suffered from Down’s syndrome also known as ”mongolism”.



The locals at the market used to give the strongly built Pirinolo small jobs carrying sacks of coffee and bundles of firewood. But since the evening of Saturday September 29th, the villagers have been marked by fear after witnessing the public execution of Pirinolo at the hands of the Colombian Army, writes the weekly paper Voz.



Around 23.30 that night, thirty soldiers from the Caicedo Battalion of the Colombian Army entered the village where the streets were filled with weekend revellers. As they came across Pirinolo some of the soldiers grabbed him and started beating him and kicking him around.



One of the soldiers took a machete and apparently tried to cut Pirinolo’s neck with a strong blow but only injured him badly in the back. Bleeding heavily, Pirinolo crawled to the next street corner where he collapsed. The soldiers followed him and finished him off with four gunshots in the chest before leaving the corpse in the street.



The villagers of Santiago Perez in the Tolima department told Voz’s correspondent that the possible motive for the slaughter of the defenceless Pirinolo was revenge. According to the locals, a brother of one of the soldiers in the patrol from the Caicedo Battalion was killed in the same village two years ago. The soldier’s brother was a suspected member of a right-wing death squad allied to the Colombian Army.

Leftist type tactic.

They tell the story of an atrocity committed by one side, and ignore, utterly ignore, attrocities committed by the Marxist FARC.

For example, there is no mention here or anywhere else of the church bombing in Choco, which killed 119 working people as they prayed. Why, because the bomb was planted by FARC.

FARC has been slaughtering civilians in an effort to retake the areas it has been pushed out of by the para-military units. No mention of that.

Why? Because as far as the Left is concerned, Marxists can do no wrong. 40 million dead under Mao is hardly worth a mention, since they died in the name of Marx.

...T-mex couldn't be happier about it unless he got to swing the blade himself...

....but then he might get blood on his hands...and pass out like the weakling he is...

address my comment?

Of course, it doesn't.

Of course it does, at it's rotten roots....

Once again, T-Mex has come through for us with his incisive, detailed, and scholarly analysis. Now any doubters should understand that anyone who criticizes US-supported death squads in the 3rd World is a leftist hypocrite. After all the people killed by Communist dictators, obviously any rightwing death squads are entitled to act with total impunity. It's payback time! So no one has any right to complain about the demonic lunatics of the Colombian army/AUC having their fun too. Fair is fair. Anyone who does complain is obviously just a sympathizer with Stalinism. Who can argue with such dialectical genius?

Hi,

T-Mex, I was just wondering if you could tell us at what point, if ever, it would be ok with you for someone to complain about the Colombian death squads and their US backing? Would they need to kill exactly as many people as Stalin, proportionally as many, twice as many? Or, should we just give up altogether, because murder in defense of Capitalism really ISN'T murder? Please let us know when you will authorize such criticism. Until then, I'm sure everyone here will agree to bite their tongue, to avoid being condemned for hypocrisy by your political genius. Thanks in advance.

The problem isn't drugs per se.

I wouldn't want to eliminate drugs in Colombia, because this would disrupt an important source of off-the-books funding for the CIA and friends. The problem is that some of the drug profits are being diverted by people who threaten American oil interests. Now THAT'S truly despicable. Seeing as how Colombia is the third biggest oil producer in this hemisphere after Mexico and Venezuela, something has to be done about it. Fortunately, Uncle Sam is on the case -- and, waddya know, turns out our secret agent men have discovered Al Qaeda hiding out in, of all places -- drum roll PLEASE! -- ...... you guessed it, the Colombian jungle! So, the Great White Father has now announced that those helicopter gunships that were originally planned for use in "drug interdiction" will now be used to protect Occidental's

Caño Limón pipeline.

How very handy. This is what is called these days a "public-private partnership," and it's very sexy and very fashionable. Oxy sure is happy about it. They'll save lots of money, not to mention the bad publicity they got last June when it came out that the mercenaries they were paying had been directing bombing runs against civilian villagers. So, you see, it will all work out well for everyone in the end.

you seem to unaware of the fact that the right wing paramilitary organizations in Colombia, far from receiving US backing, are on the US list of terrorist organizations.

Now, if the Left were that even handed in its position toward Colobia, it might have some claim to legitimacy.

But instead, it sanctify's massacres by Leftists with silence, while loudly denouncing any misdeed by opponents to Marxism. As such, the Left in this country simply becomes a tool for oppressors worldwide.

...the Colubian paramilitaries don't get US backing????

...an idiot, a liar....now add to that perfectly naive and gullible rube who would happily swallow any lie told to him by his masters...

...they certainly aren't AK47's these paramilitaries are murdering women and children with...

anyone who takes sides in this mess- pro-left , pro-right., or pro-government is an ideological boar.

Columbia is a mess of drug and power plays. People are caught between big boys with guns.

...accurate and fair comment...

You know, they say politics is a lot like making sausages: The end result may taste pretty good, but, ya don't really want to look too closely at how they actually make it. T-Mex and his friends are the kind of people who enjoy the labels on Farmer John's Smoked Sausages, they see the pictures of the old rustic farmhouse, the barn, and they imagine old John himself out there, beads of sweat appearing on his sinewy muscular forearms, pitching bales of hay to the friendly farm animals. Kind of a little petting zoo, and out the other end, voila!, yummy sausage.

Stick to the labels, T-Mex, enjoy them. But don't expect those of us who have been near the packing houses to share your innocent fantasies.