Colext/Macondo Cantina virtual de los COLombianos en el EXTerior -------------------------------------------------- Some 50 Rebels Die In Failed Colombia Attack 6.48 p.m. ET (2251 GMT) September 1, 1999 BOGOTA � More than 50 Marxist rebels were reported to have died in oil-rich eastern Colombia in a bungled attack Wednesday that was planned as a gesture of solidarity with a two-day-old general strike, authorities said. Army troops backed by helicopter gunships killed most of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas as they tried to flee the town of Hato Corozal, in Casanare province, aboard trucks before dawn, an army statement said. The statement said 400 FARC fighters fired gas cylinders packed with explosives at the police barracks and a bank and then tried to escape when army units surrounded the town. There was no immediate independent confirmation of the casualties but the military flew journalists to the scene. If the death toll is confirmed it would be one of the heaviest rebel defeats since July when the army claimed to have turned a guerrilla offensive into a rout, killing more than 300 insurgents. The FARC conceded just 40 dead on that occasion. In a separate action timed to coincide with the nationwide strike against government austerity measures and economic policies, another FARC unit remained holed up in a hydroelectric plant near the Pacific coast port of Buenaventura. The rebels have been holding 100 workers at the 360 megawatt Anchicaya plant since Tuesday, but according to a regional police chief were allowing the employees to continue their work unhindered. Some 1.5 million unionized workers, about 20 percent of the urban labor force, and thousands of peasants and members of grass-roots social movements launched their indefinite stoppage Tuesday amid Colombia's worst recession on record. The strike is estimated to be costing $130 million a day and threatens to overshadow ongoing negotiations between President Andres Pastrana's year-old administration and the International Monetary Fund for a $3 billion loan. "Colombian unions and grass-roots organizations are clear that the struggle must go on,'' said a communique issued by the Communist Party Wednesday. "This civic stoppage has shown the people's ability to struggle to defeat the politics of war and hunger of the oligarchy.'' Although small, the party counts the top strike organizers among its members and it is a close political ally of the FARC, Latin America's largest surviving 1960s rebel army. Pastrana reiterated Wednesday his readiness to hold talks with the strikers but seemed unlikely to negotiate on the unions' 41-point list of demands that included an end to a privatization program and a moratorium on debt payments. Despite election pledges to restore the economy to traditional high growth rates, gross domestic product contracted by some 6.5 percent in the first half of this year, according to government officials. Urban unemployment has spiraled to 20 percent, the highest in Latin America. In the capital of Bogota, buses and taxis returned to the streets and shops and offices opened again Wednesday after the first day of the strike was marred by widespread clashes between riot police and demonstrators. In some of the worst incidents in Bogota, a 10-year-old girl was killed by a stray bullet Tuesday evening after a demonstrator fired on police in a southern shantytown and looters ransacked a shopping mall also in the south. Rebel saboteurs also dynamited at least eight electricity pylons across the country Tuesday and bombed Colombia's second largest crude export pipeline for the 54th time this year. The strike held firm Wednesday, especially in the public sector, including oil workers, teachers, government employees, and communications and health workers. Radical students lobbed rocks and Molotov cocktails at riot police, who responded with teargas and baton charges, outside Bogota's National University Wednesday afternoon. Radio reports said authorities clamped a dusk-to-dawn curfews on two towns on the edge of Bogota, where police fought battles with looters earlier in the day. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ----------------------------------------- To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] with UNSUBSCRIBE COLEXT in the BODY of the message.
