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The Murder of Raúl Reyes: Border War or Wall Street Mafia Hit?

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
March 3, 2008

From Bloomberg:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s orders to close his Bogotá embassy and send tanks to the border raise tensions beyond his previous rhetoric and to the point where miscalculation could trigger a military clash.

Chavez, who ordered 10 armored battalions to the border yesterday, said Colombia’s air strike March 1 on a rebel camp in Ecuadorean territory risks a regional war. He pledged to support Ecuador under any circumstances. The raid killed Raul Reyes, reputed to be second in command of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

If we are to follow the corporate media line, Chávez and Ecuador’s Rafael Correa, both oft characterized as rotten commies, are to blame for the prospect of impending war with Colombia, even though Colombia is at fault for a violent violation of Ecuador’s national sovereignty.

After all, according to Reuters, “Colombia apologized to Ecuador for the troops crossing the frontier, but said the attack on a rebel camp was necessary after its forces came under fire from across the border.” In order to minimize this egregious violation — consisting of air strikes and the deployment of ground troops — we are told “Colombia, a U.S. ally, also said it found documents at the [FARC] jungle camp that linked the leftist government of Correa to the Marxist guerrillas — a charge Ecuador dismissed because the evidence was not presented for public scrutiny.”

It is part and parcel of an ongoing demonization process, designed to portray Chávez and Correa in league with FARC and the Devil. FARC was long ago fingered as a “narco-terrorist group” by the United States and the shadowy “revolutionary,” i.e., communist, organization plays a leading villain role in the State Department’s International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, issued this month.

Of course, all of the supposedly diligent work under the guise of the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, passed in June 2000, may be considered little more than a useless spinning of wheels — and a huge squandering of tax payer money — so long as the Drug Enforcement Administration ignores ground zero of the illegal drug trade, situated squarely on Wall Street. It should come as no surprise Wall Street has traditionally gone where the money is, no matter communism or any other distant second consideration, stuff good for Sunday school lectures but useless for investment purposes.

Back in 1999, Agencia de Noticias Nueva Colombia reported Richard Grasso, president of the New York Stock Exchange, flying off to southern Colombia to meet with the recently deceased Raúl Reyes:

Grasso was accompanied by Finance Minister Juan Camilo Restrepo and presidential commissioner for peace Victor Ricardo. The Argentine daily Clarin reported that Grasso was also accompanied by NYSE vice president Alain Murban and adviser James Esposito. The meeting took place inside the rebel-controlled peace zone in an area near the village of La Machacha, in southern Caqueta department… Local media said Grasso had asked to meet a representative of the FARC’s high command to discuss foreign investment and the future role of US businesses in Colombia.

But why would a NYSE big fish want to talk with a communist revolutionary about “foreign investment and the future role of US businesses in Colombia”?

It’s a no-brainer, really. Because the numero uno foreign investment opportunity in Colombia is anchored in the drug trade, not bananas and cut flowers. Plenty of money is to be made laundering drug money, a Wall Street specialty.

It was not reported what became of the discussion between Grasso and Reyes, but it really does not matter because Reyes is now pushing up daisies. The State Department may finger FARC as the cause of all evil in the region, but it completely ignores the group’s competitor, namely Colombia’s infamous rightwing paramilitary death squads, in the business of laundering drug money and with the assistance of DEA agents, according to Department of Justice attorney Thomas M. Kent.

Is it possible Colombia crossed over into Ecuador to assassinate Raúl Reyes in classic Tony Montana fashion? After all, the State Department has long accused Reyes of setting the FARC’s cocaine policies, including the production, manufacture, and distribution of thousands of tons of cocaine to the United States and the world.

Of course, the corporate media is not interested in the underlying dynamic of the situation in South America, as the point is to portray Hugo Chávez as a warmonger, increasingly so especially after the CIA failed to overthrow him and the Venezuelan leader takes pleasure in thumbing his nose at Bush and his coterie of neocons.