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The below from AFP today. Does anyone have any word on the opium harvest on
Colombia. Developing great story on heroin from Golden Crescent. Richard
Secord reported to have been in Uzbekistan for some time, along with
Southern Air Transport.
Mike Ruppert
Tuesday, October 2 12:26 AM SGT.
Fears mount as Colombia peace process deteriorates
SAN VICENTE, Colombia, Oct 1 (AFP) -
Fears mounted here Monday as the Colombian peace process unravelled and
President Andres Pastrana found himself under mounting pressure to take back
under military control a Switzerland-sized area ceded to leftist rebels
three years ago to promote an end to the war.
"If the peace process ends and the demilitarization is called off, the
people of this area will be at the mercy of every type of guerrilla," said
one old woman as she watched her grandchildren.
The 42,000-square kilometer (16,000 square mile) swath of jungle and
savannah's status as a rebel safe haven, free of government troops, expires
on October 7. Pastrana has repeatedly renewed the zone's lease of life, but
is under strong pressure not to do so again.
Candidates in next year's presidential elections on Sunday urged Pastrana to
take a hard line with the insurgents, who since January 1999 have been
involved in on-again-off-again peace talks with the government that produced
little in the way of concrete results.
On the ground, people here are afraid rightist paramilitaries, sworn enemies
of the Marxist-leaning Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colomba (FARC), will
make good on their threats to submerge the area in blood and fire if the
government declares the deal is off.
They also are scared that troops and airplanes will strafe the area in an
effort to root out the 16,500-strong FARC, which is accuses of relying
largely on the drug trade for its funding.
"How are they going to find the guerrillas in the middle of the jungle, and
how are they going to be able to tell the difference between guerrillas and
everyone else," asked the old woman. "They'll probably just bomb anything
that moves."
According to official estimates, roughly 100,000 people live mainly off
cattle, agriculture and coca leaf production in this FARC-controlled region.
A grim Pastrana on Sunday cast severe doubts over the future of the already
shaky peace process in this violence-scarred country, blaming the Marxist
insurgents for the killing of the attorney-general's wife.
In a harsh statement, he accused the FARC of leading peace talks to the
brink of collapse, decrying what he called the "cowardly assassination" of
Consuelo Araujonoguera.
"The country has been notified by the FARC, through its defiant actions, of
its persistence in discrediting a peaceful solution to this conflict,"
Pastrana said in a brief, nationally broadcast address.
"The nation is tired of the kidnapping, of the systematic attacks on the
civilian population and of the recurring violations of human rights," said
Pastrana, who was considered a close friend of Araujonoguera, the
61-year-old wife of Colombia's attorney general and a popular former culture
minister.
Her body was found in the mountainous region of northern Colombia. Army
officials claim the FARC had kidnapped her Monday.
A shootout on Saturday between police, the FARC and another leftist
guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army, that killed one policeman and
injured six others as the rebels tried to take over the southwestern town of
Almaguer further raised tensions.
Civil war has ravaged Colombia for 37 years, leaving an estimated 200,000
people dead in clashes involving the FARC, the smaller ELN, right-wing
paramilitaries and the Colombian army.
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