From: Colombian Labor Monitor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2001 08:13:28 -0500 (CDT)
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: CLM: Daily News 5 July 2001
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COLOMBIAN LABOR MONITOR
www.prairienet.org/clm
Thursday, 5 July 2001
[NOTE: No Daily News was sent on July 4th. -DG]
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* DAILY NEWS *
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1. EFE NEWS [Spain] -- Thursday, 5 July 2001
FARC did not attack Ecuador police station
2. EFE NEWS [Spain] -- Thursday, 5 July 2001
Paramilitaries order 7,000 displaced
3. EFE NEWS [Spain] -- Wednesday, 4 July 2001
Judge, lawyer killed
4. EFE NEWS [Spain] -- Wednesday, 4 July 2001
State of emergency is Colombian prisons
* 1 *
EFE NEWS [Spain]
Thursday, 5 July 2001
FARC did not attack Ecuador police station
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QUITO, Ecuador -- Ecuadorian Government (Interior) Minister Juan Manrique
on Wednesday denied that FARC guerrillas had been responsible for the
attack on the police station in the city of Nueva Loja, the capital of the
province of Sucumbios.
"I don't believe the FARC has a strategy of opening new fronts. They have
enough with the ones in Colombia," Manrique told a news conference.
Two police officers were killed in the attack and the assailants were able
toget away after the strike.
Manrique said he feared that a group of criminals was trying to create
panic in the border area by posing as Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC) guerrillas.
"I am afraid that these are common criminals hoping to be mistaken for
guerrillas, (but) I am not defending the FARC, (for) they do engage in
acts such as this," Manrique said.
The minister said he trusted the security forces and expected that "the
murderers of policemen will fall into the hands of Ecuadorian justice very
soon."
Copyright 2001 EFE News
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* 2 *
EFE NEWS [Spain]
Thursday, 5 July 2001
Paramilitaries order 7,000 displaced
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MEDELLIN, Colombia -- A force of about 200 right-wing paramilitaries took
over the town of Peque, in the northwestern province of Antioquia, giving
its 7,000 residents five days to leave their homes, local authorities
reported Wednesday.
A statement issued by Antioquia Gov. Guillermo Gaviria Correa and his
peace adviser, former Minister Gilberto Echeverria, said that the
paramilitaries had addressed people in the town square. Peque is located
239 kilometers (148 miles) from the provincial capital of Medellin.
According to phone calls received from citizens of the town before the
paramilitaries cut off communications, the troops were threatening to kill
all the residents, which created "general panic" and caused a massive
exodus from Peque.
The area, which is in a strategic corridor frequented by both
paramilitaries and leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
guerrillas, has lacked police protection for the past three years,
although military patrols sporadically stop in Peque.
The governor's statement called on the government to prevent a massacre of
civilians, noting that Peque had until then been under the control of the
FARC, the country's oldest and largest guerrilla group, which has been
holding peace talks with the government since 1999.
He added that "these defenseless citizens are innocent victims of the
Colombian conflict and their lives must be respected by the parties to
it."
He also demanded the presence of representatives of the International Red
Cross, the Ombudsman's Office and "friendly countries" which support the
peace process.
Copyright 2001 EFE News
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* 3 *
EFE NEWS [Spain]
Wednesday, 4 July 2001
Judge, lawyer killed
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BOGOTA -- A judge and a lawyer, the latter of whom advocated peace in the
Magdalena Medio region and was a member of a non-governmental
organization, were killed in two separate incidents Tuesday in northern
and central Colombia.
Judge Eduardo Edilio Alvarez Colorado was killed by a group of armed men,
alleged members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), at
his Toluviejo ranch in the province of Sucre.
According to eyewitnesses, the assassins broke into the ranch, shot the
judge several times and fled.
In a separate incident, a group of armed men killed attorney Alma Rosa
Jaramillo in the municipality of Morales in the northern province of
Bolivar.
The lawyer was a delegate of the Magdalena Medio Peace and Development
program, in southern Bolivar, where right-wing paramilitary groups oppose
the creation of a "neutral zone" for peace talks with leftist National
Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas.
Copyright 2001 EFE News
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* 4 *
EFE NEWS [Spain]
Wednesday, 4 July 2001
State of emergency is Colombian prisons
---------------------------------------
BOGOTA -- Colombian authorities on Tuesday declared a state of emergency
for 90 days in the country's prisons, hours after quelling a riot at
Bogota's Modelo prison, which left 10 inmates dead and another 15 wounded.
INPEC, Colombia's national prison and jail authority, said that the state
of emergency will allow them to transfer preventative prisoners and
convicts to other detention centers, establish special disciplinary rules,
solicit the help of the armed forces, suspend officials and make budgetary
transfers.
The measure was announced by INPEC director Gen. Fabio Campos Silva, after
the clashes that erupted on Monday, when a botched escape attempt by
leftist rebel inmates at Bogota's Modelo prison turned into a full-scale
riot, which raged until early Tuesday morning, leaving 10 inmates dead and
another 15 wounded.
The confrontations began Monday at 5:00 p.m. (2200 GMT) after a group of
leftist rebel inmates attempted to escape and were blocked by common
criminals and right-wing paramilitary inmates, Justice Minister Romulo
Gonzalez Trujillo said.
According to Gonzalez, common criminals at the prison frustrated the
guerrillas' plans for an escape, which had already been discovered by
prison authorities on Friday.
On Monday, "they tried to escape and were prevented (from doing so)" by
other prisoners, he noted.
Colombian authorities were informed last Friday of a possible escape
attempt at the prison, which holds some 5,300 inmates, according to
Gonzalez, who did not say if the victims were rebels, common criminals or
paramilitaries.
"Measures inside and outside were taken ... to prevent the escape," he
noted.
The clashes were controlled from outside the prison, located in an
industrial area in western Bogota, when police used tear gas in the sewers
to prevent inmates from escaping through tunnels.
The Modelo penitentiary, a maximum-security prison that holds drug
traffickers, rebels and paramilitaries, was the site of a riot on June 19
in which four inmates were killed.
Monday's escape attempt is the second in Bogota prisons since June 23,
when Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels carried out a
plan that enabled 140 inmates from a prison in Picota to escape.
In that breakout, the rebels used explosives to blast a hole in one of the
walls in the prison yard. Outside the wall, a number of rebel commando
units were waiting, and they then sprayed machinegun fire to hold off the
prison guards while their comrades escaped.
The FARC, which last month released 359 soldiers and policemen kidnapped
over the last three years, announced that, if Colombian authorities fail
to release FARC prisoners in exchange, they will free them by force.
According to official figures, Colombia's 168 prisons hold nearly 54,034
inmates, 31,809 of which are convicts, and 3,000 of which are leftist
guerrillas.
Copyright 2001 EFE News
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