Nexus - 0224 - New Times Magazine-pages

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— Dope, Incorporated — nally headed by former Panamanian Among the casualties racked up to the . President Eric Delvalle. marriage of the cocaine cartel to the CIA- back from the Israeli Defence Ministry: That program, which was part of the Israeli intelligence were thousands of inno- The guns had been sold to the government Reagan-Bush anti-Noriega effort, also cent Colombian nationals who were vic- of the tiny Caribbean island-nation of involved high-powered Republican Party tims of cartel gunmen and bombers. Antigua, in a deal brokered by an Israeli operators, including John Zagame and During one particular bloody week in June national named Maurice Sarfati. Richard Bond. Zagame, a former aide to 1990, according to Colombian Government eccording oie origina! israel version, Sen. Alfonse D'Amato (R-NY), set up a reports, over 640 people died violent arfati, a resident of Antigua, had suppos- consulting firm and hired himself out as an deaths, the vast majority at the hands of the edly brokered the deal for the Antiguan adviser to the Delvalle group to the tune of cartel. In one November 1989 airline National security adviser"—a nonexistent US$15,000 per month. The funds came bombing that has been linked to Israeli- av hs and ies | from the same accounts that bought the trained cartel terrorists, 117 people per- 1 east ” embl ance ofthe tuthecame cut Israeli Uzis, Galils and other weapons dis- ished. As we already reported, one of the Israeli intelligence—through a string of covered at the Rodriguez Gacha ranches. guns provided by the Israeli arms mer- front companies—had been providing Zagame, the last time we looked, was run- chants was used in August 1989 to assassi- weapons and terrorist training to the ning a public relations firm called nate Colombia's front-running presidential Medellin Cartel's assassination squads in PanAmerican which had only one major candidate, Luis Carlos Galan. Had he sur- collaboration with British mercenaries, lient:_ Oliver North. : vived the armed assault against him at a And the entire program had been run by At the same time that Zagame was hired campaign rally, Galan would have surely senior officials at the Reagan-Bush White © to the anti-Noriega program, the same _ been elected President of Colombia, and he House and administered by the CIA and funds were also going to another ‘consult- was committed to an anti-drug policy dra- Project Democracy. ing’ firm, Bond Donatelli, which shared matically in contrast to the total capitula- In fact, the funds to purchase the Offices with Zagame in Alexandria, tion that has occurred as the result of his weapons found at Rodriguez Gacha's farm Virginia. Richard Bond was Vice- murder. had been provided by the US State President Bush's Deputy Chief of Staff and The trainer of Rodriguez Gacha's killer Department through a program personally a former Deputy Chairman of the squads was a reserve Israeli Army colonel run by Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Republican National Committee. He was named Yair Klein. His company, Abrams, who pleaded guilty on 7 October asked in 1991 to become RNC Chairman Spearhead, Ltd (Hod Hahanit in Hebrew), to Iran-Contra crimes. The weapons were by George Bush, but turned down the offer. set up shop in Colombia sometime in the ostensibly bought to arm a fictitious Frank Donatelli was at one point Political late 1980s. Besides the Israelis, in a paral- "Panamanian government in exile", nomi- Director of the Reagan White House. lel operation, a group of British mercenar- 80 * NEXUS SSS a | Nae FEBRUARY - MARCH 1995 ae NETS A nc