Me equivoqu�. Pastrana no es un huev�n. �Es un granhijueputa! �Va a
continuar regal�ndole el pais a los hijueputas guerrilleros? �No hay
derecho! �Qu� ilusos con eso de la paz!
Mariano
----Original Message Follows----
From: "Ricardo Ramirez" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: "Ricardo Ramirez" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Macondo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Interesante...
Date: Wed, 12 May 1999 19:20:03 -0400
[NOTE: The stage for an all-out-war in Colombia
is being set. The "vietnamization" of Colombia
continues to unfold. -DG]
On Capitol Hill, congressional Republicans used
hearings on Panama last week to hammer Mr.
Pastrana and the Clinton administration on their
failure to take a more hard-line approach to the
Colombian rebels.
____________________ DALLAS MORNING NEWS
Tuesday, 11 May 1999
Second rebel haven offered
Colombian leader says peace
talks may require ceding land
-----------------------------
By Tod Robberson
PANAMA CITY -- Risking further dismemberment of his war-ravaged country,
Colombian President Andres Pastrana says he is willing to carve out a new
safe haven for leftist guerrillas if it will advance the cause of peace.
Mr. Pastrana already has garnered heavy criticism in the United States for
ceding a Switzerland-sized chunk of his nation to rebels of the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. U.S. officials have
labeled the group a terrorist organization that profits from Colombia's
illicit drug trade.
Mr. Pastrana told the Bogota daily El Tiempo in an interview published
Sunday that he wants to discuss creation of a separate "peace zone" for
the National Liberation Army, or ELN, Colombia's second-largest rebel
group.
"We must find a mechanism to sit down with the Liberation Army," Mr.
Pastrana said. "The government is ready to find a mechanism. It can be a
safe haven."
The FARC and ELN have spent the last 35 years fighting to overthrow
Colombia's democratically elected government. Since 1997, their combined
forces of roughly 20,000 guerrillas have gained the upper hand against
Colombia's 120,000-member armed forces and, according to U.S. assessments,
have caused the central government to lose control of 40 percent to 60
percent of the Colombian countryside.
The Colombian president also agreed last week to negotiate terms with the
FARC for expanding its current safe haven southward to include one of the
heaviest cocaine-processing zones in the world, where the guerrillas say
they hope to establish a volunteer crop-substitution program.
In addition, Mr. Pastrana agreed to extend for at least another month the
expiration date for the current FARC safe haven, which was to have
returned to government control last Friday. That concession followed an
unprecedented, face-to-face meeting on May 1 between Mr. Pastrana and FARC
commander Manuel Marulanda.
In return, the FARC agreed to move from an ill-defined series of dialogues
it has conducted with government representatives since January to
full-blown peace negotiations based on a 12-point agenda to include
judicial, political, social and economic reforms.
But the FARC reiterated its longstanding demand that the Colombian
military crack down on right-wing paramilitary groups.
Prediction of war
-----------------
"We have made clear to the government the threat posed by paramilitarism
and that fighting against these groups is one of the fundamental elements
that have kept the dialogues from dying since their start," FARC
negotiator Raul Reyes said.
He warned that if the peace process fails, "there will be in Colombia a
war of unpredictable consequences."
Both the FARC and ELN are on the State Department's list of international
terrorist groups. In January, the Clinton administration dispatched two
State Department officials to meet directly with FARC envoys in Costa
Rica. In March, FARC guerrillas kidnapped and killed three American
activists working in Colombia with an indigenous group.
The ELN is the group responsible for last month's audacious hijacking of a
Colombian commercial airliner carrying 45 passengers and crew. The rebels
forced the plane down on a jungle airstrip, where all aboard were hustled
away at gunpoint. The ELN continues to hold 25 of the hostages, including
one American, but has said through intermediaries that it is willing to
release the remaining captives.
In Washington, a Clinton administration official warned that U.S.
counternarcotics aid to Colombia, which this year will total nearly $300
million, could be jeopardized if Mr. Pastrana's peace concessions block
U.S. efforts to fight drug traffickers in guerrilla-controlled areas.
"We've laid down our clear markers as to what we expect out of the peace
process," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Territorial concessions "can't interfere with counternarcotics
operations."
The official insisted that counternarcotics efforts in Colombia have not
been hampered by the FARC safe haven, although Colombian authorities have
expressed deep frustration over their inability to pursue drug traffickers
operating in the zone. In addition, Colombian police say they have
detected efforts by the FARC to rebuild clandestine drug-trafficking
airstrips that police destroyed inside the safe haven before the
government's departure.
Independent analysts have criticized Mr. Pastrana's approach to the
guerrillas, suggesting that he has sent the wrong message by making a
lengthy string of concessions without having even won a guerrilla pledge
to honor a cease-fire.
Unsavory options
----------------
"Despite his repeated insistence that he will not trade land for peace, it
appears that is where Pastrana is heading, at least with the FARC," said a
report last week by Stratfor, an Austin-based international security think
tank.
"If a peace deal is not reached, the Colombian army may be forced either
to fight to regain control of [the zone] or to abandon control of the
region to the FARC - neither an attractive option," the report said.
Robert Pastor, a former U.S. diplomat who helped negotiate a prisoner
exchange between the government and FARC in 1997, said Mr. Pastrana
appears more to be buying time than holding a true give-and-take
negotiation with the rebels.
The danger, he said, is that when Mr. Pastrana no longer can bow to rebel
demands, all-out war will follow.
"I think that's coming," said Mr. Pastor, a political science professor at
Emory University. "I don't know if he [Mr. Pastrana] is going to be able
to hold that off much longer."
On Capitol Hill, congressional Republicans used hearings on Panama last
week to hammer Mr. Pastrana and the Clinton administration on their
failure to take a more hard-line approach to the Colombian rebels.
"The message to the FARC has to be crystal clear," said Rep. Dan Burton,
R-Ind., "that the United States and the government of Colombia are not
dealing from a position of strength but a position of weakness, down there
hat in hand, sitting across the table talking to these guys, even though
they're killing people and kidnapping them."
Copyright 1999 The Dallas Morning News
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