On Sat, 8 Sep 2001, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> It's No Secret: Israel's Military Involvement in Latin America
>
> By Milton Jamail and Margo Gutierrez. Belmont, MA: AAUG Press. 1986.
> 117pp. $7.95 (paper).
>
> Reviewed by Ike Nahem
>
> March 1989, Page 41
>
Here's some more recent history.
-d ----------------- Israeli Mercenaries Sentenced by Weekly News Update On The Americas on March 05, 2001
On Feb. 28, three years to the day after they were indicted, four Israeli mercenaries were sentenced to 14 years in prison each by a court in Manizales, Colombia, for the crimes of instruction and training in military and terrorist tactics, techniques and procedures, and conspiracy to commit crimes.
Training courses for civilians working for paras Yair Gal Klein, Isaac Shoshani Meraiot, Abraham Tzedaka and Terry Melnyk were sentenced for actions carried out in Colombia in 1987, when they led three training courses in the Puerto Boyaca municipality for civilians working for rightwing paramilitary groups in the Magdalena Medio region. The four Israelis were also fined an amount equivalent to 25 minimum monthly salaries. [El Colombiano (Medellin) 3/1/01]
The first school for Colombian hit squads
Klein, a former colonel in the Israeli army, is said to have formed the first school for Colombian hit squads in the 1980s with the backing of Medellin drug lords Pablo Escobar Gaviria and Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha; he later trained the early US- backed paramilitary squads of Escobar's enemies in the Cali cartel [see Update #472]. [El Nuevo Herald 1/12/01; El Tiempo (Bogota) 5/28/00; El Colombiano (Medellin) 6/11/00] More recently, Klein was linked to an arms scandal involving the Peruvian military in weapons sales to the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) [see Update #553]. [ENH 1/12/01; ET 6/28/00]
Whereabouts Unkown
[Although the Colombian government had made some effort toward his extradition, Klein is presumably living comfortably in Israel, Africa or elsewhere. Sources did not indicate the whereabouts of any of the four who were sentenced.]
"I was in Colombia by invitation of the Americans"
In a June 2000 interview in Israel with the Israeli daily Maariv, a translation of which was published by the Medellin daily El Colombiano, Klein warned that his silence about his involvement in Colombia is the only thing that guarantees his life. "I can only tell you one thing that until now I have never said: I was in Colombia by invitation of the Americans, period," said Klein. "Everything the US can't do because it's prohibited for them to intervene in the affairs of foreign governments, they do, of course, but through others. I acted with license and permission in Colombia."
"...enough material to show who paid me to train and work in Colombia."
After implying that the US was behind his January 1999 arrest in Sierra Leone, Klein warned: "They know that if anything bad happens to me, there are several people who have in their posession enough material to show who paid me to train and work in Colombia." [EC 6/11/00]
[ http://www.locombia.org/983798889/index_html ]
[Note that Puerto Boyaca mentioned has for a long time been known as the capital of paramilitarism in Colombia. Note too that the groups the Klein is associated with -- Escobar's thugs for hire -- were the seedbed for the AUC. -d]