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"I think the U.S. . . . has no business negotiating, talking to, or meeting with terrorist organizations of any kind," Burton said in a May 13 letter to congressional colleagues. ____________ ==================================================== WASHINGTON POST FRIDAY, 21 MAY 1999 House GOP Subpoenas State Dept. on Colombia ------------------------------------------- By Douglas Farah House Republicans have subpoenaed all State Department records on contacts between the Clinton administration and Colombia's Marxist guerrillas, alleging U.S. diplomats have carried on unauthorized negotiations with a terrorist organization. The unusual move reflects growing hostility between the State Department and a group of House Republicans led by Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana over the administration's policy toward Colombia and its fragile peace process. Burton is chairman of the Committee on Government Reform, which issued the subpoena. While subpoenas are often threatened when Congress wants information it feels is being withheld, they are seldom served. However, according to State Department officials and congressional aides, the distrust is so deep and the dislike so strong that the subpoena was served with little warning May 14. The government of President Andres Pastrana has been negotiating with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the hemisphere's oldest and largest Marxist insurgency, since last year. In December, at Pastrana's request, two State Department officials met with FARC representatives in San Jose, Costa Rica, for two days of talks. Burton and other Republicans charge the administration was negotiating with a terrorist group that has kidnapped and executed Americans, is on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations and gets hundreds of millions of dollars a year from protecting cocaine and heroin traffickers. They also charge there have been continuing, unreported contacts with FARC commanders. "I think the U.S. . . . has no business negotiating, talking to, or meeting with terrorist organizations of any kind," Burton said in a May 13 letter to congressional colleagues. "Ironically, it has been the bedrock principle of the United States not to negotiate with terrorist organizations, and this administration has casually dismissed this policy by sitting down at the table with a group that actively seeks to wantonly kidnap and murder American citizens." A State Department official said the subpoena will be honored by May 28, the deadline given. The official said the documents would "support in general terms and in detail what we have said, that we have talked but not negotiated with the FARC and only at the request of the Colombian government." The official said U.S. officials listened to the FARC, demanded an investigation into the fate of three U.S. missionaries taken hostage in 1995 who have not been heard from since, and made it clear that any U.S. aid for developing alternative crops in areas of heavy drug trafficking would not start until the 35-year-old civil war ends. Phil Chicola, who is director of the department's Office of Andean Affairs and attended the meeting in Costa Rica, later exchanged three e-mail messages and had three telephone conversations with a FARC commander known as Olga, he added. But the official said the exchange of messages and calls were to demand an explanation for the FARC's kidnapping and execution of three American humanitarian workers in March. The official said Chicola told the FARC there would be no more talks until the killers of the Americans were arrested and turned over for trial. Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company __________________________________________________________________ |
