“Godfather” of Colombian Army Intelligence Convicted in Palace of Justice Killings

This report provides basic information about the military career of Iván Ramírez, who was then a colonel and the head of the Colombian Army’s Intelligence Directorate (E-2). Under “International Training/Travel” the report lists an “intelligence course” in Munich, Germany (1972), an “advanced course in engineering” in the U.S. (1979) and a “combined strategy” course in Washington, D.C. (1983). The only prior military position listed in this redacted document is as the B-2 intelligence “section chief” for the Army’s 2nd Brigade during 1982.

The March 4, 1988, killing of banana workers in Urabá was the work of “military members of the B-2 (intelligence) in Uraba” who had “identified people belonging to the support network for the EPL” insurgent group to be assassinated, according to a report by the DAS intelligence group, parts of which were published in Semana magazine. In a comment, the Embassy notes that military “commanders in rural areas with high rates of violence” are “prone to use the resources at hand, which may be local ranchers (including narcos) who, in the absence of legally constituted authority, pay ‘self defense’ groups to protect their interests.” Army commanders “may view cooperation with local groups” such as these “as the only solution to the problem,” according to the Embassy.

A U.S. military source dismisses the theory that Iván Ramírez may have been behind the assassination of Gen. Carlos Gil Colorado, the former joint forces intelligence chief who was gunned down in 1994. Although doubtful that Ramírez had anything to do with the crime, the reports says that “Ramirez’s reputation for having helped narcotraffickers is well known” in the Colombian Army and that Ramirez was seen “as a person capable of doing just about anything when money is involved.” He had also “hit the guerrillas hard” and was “suspected of ‘looking the other way’ when troops under his control committed human rights violations.” It was Ramirez’s “notorious reputation for abusing guerrilla human rights and associating with narcotraffickers” that made him “an easy target on which to pin the assassination” of Gen. Gil Colorado, according to the unnamed source cited in this report.

The Embassy’s long review of information about paramilitary groups and their links to Colombian security forces notes that the CIA (“recent ROAL reporting”) “has described apparent links between First Division commander Major General Ivan Ramirez and [Carlos] Castano.” The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation had told the Embassy “that he believed Ramirez” and other military commanders “at a minimum tolerate, and even encourage, paramilitary activity in their zones.” This document is one of several to have been used by magistrates from Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) during its examination of Ramírez in May 2023 (at 3:17:30).

The CIA has found information linking Iván Ramírez to “Colombia’s most notorious paramilitary leader,” Carlos Castaño.

In a report about the dismissal of hardline Army commander Harold Bedoya, the Embassy says that Iván Ramírez, as the director of Army intelligence, “oversaw the Twentieth Intelligence Brigade, suspected of narco, paramilitary, and death squad ties.”

A heavily redacted report from the CIA on recent personnel changes among top Colombian military officials has a picture of Gen. Iván Ramírez beneath the heading, “Portrait of a Corrupt General” and alongside a picture captioned, “Drug Trafficker-Backed Paramilitary Forces.”

U.S. Ambassador Myles Frechette tells the new Colombian defense minister that “there is now more evidence suggesting that [Ivan] Ramirez is passing military intelligence to the paramilitaries, and that the intelligence is being used against the guerrillas.” Frechette adds that, “if Ramirez were to attain higher rank or position, it would seriously complicate the [U.S. government’s] ability to cooperate with the Colombian military.”

“Prospects for concerted action” by the Colombian military against paramilitaries “appear dim,” according to this CIA report, which cites, among other things, the continuing presence of officers “like Major General Ramirez in key positions.” The persistence of officers like Ramírez in top posts suggests that “achieving results against the guerrillas—rather than rooting out paramilitary links—remains the top priority for the Colombian military.”

A recently retired Colombian Army colonel told the U.S. military attaché that Iván Ramírez, as head of the First Division in Santa Marta, “has gone far beyond the passive phase with paramilitaries and is actively supporting them.” The unnamed official “is concerned about the potential direction the [Colombian Army] could take if Ramirez abuses his position as [Army Inspector General] or, worse, if he is allowed to rise to even higher positions in the armed forces hierarchy.”

The Colombian Army has “an official policy of treating paramilitaries as criminals,” but “many officers turn a blind eye to paramilitary activities in their areas of responsibility,” according to this State Department intelligence report. But some, including Gen. Iván Ramírez, “actively collaborate with paramilitaries by providing intelligence and other support.”

The U.S. military attaché expects that Iván Ramírez, characterized here as the “godfather” of Colombian Army intelligence, will soon be retired from the Army following the revocation of his U.S. tourist visa and the disbanding of the Army’s 20th Intelligence Brigade. “More than a few officers are uncomfortable with the rumors of Ramirez’s alleged links to paramilitaries and narcotraffickers,” and “most [Colombian Army] officers are smart enough to see the handwriting on the wall and are doing whatever is necessary to distance themselves from Ramirez.” 

On August 11, 1998, The Washington Post detailed the paramilitary ties of Iván Ramírez and revealed that he was a “paid informant for the Central Intelligence Agency,” among other allegations. In a cable about the article and the response from Ramírez, the Embassy says that the State Department had found evidence of Ramírez’s “complicity in repeated, grave human rights violations” and that his removal from the Army would “contribute to its ongoing professionalization.”