From: Colombian Labor Monitor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 08:56:59 -0500 (CDT)
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: COLOMBIA: Weekly News Update #607, 9/16/01
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WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS
ISSUE #607, SEPTEMBER 16, 2001
NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK
339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012
(212) 674-9499 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[.....]
3. US: Senate Confirms Negroponte
4. Trade: "Crass Attempt" at Fast Track
[.....]
9. Colombia: US Labels AUC "Terrorist"
10. Colombia: ELN Leader's Brother Killed
11. Colombia: Central Americans Recruited?
12. Venezuela: US Military Accord Ends
13. Ecuador: Death Squad Threatens Leftists
[.....]
*3. US: SENATE CONFIRMS NEGROPONTE
The US Senate voted unanimously on Sept. 14 to confirm the
appointment of career diplomat John Negroponte as ambassador to
the United Nations (UN). The confirmation came one day after the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the nomination by a
vote of 14-3.
US human rights organizations opposed the appointment because of
evidence that Negroponte failed to report abuses by the Honduran
military and US-backed rightwing Nicaraguan contra rebels during
his 1981-1985 posting as ambassador to Honduras [see Update
#606]. But the Democrats, who narrowly control the Senate, backed
the Republican administration's claims that the US needs a UN
ambassador as soon as possible to mobilize support for President
George W. Bush's "war against international terrorism" following
the Sept. 11 aerial attacks on the US. "The need is extraordinary
at this moment in our history to have someone at the United
Nations," said Foreign Relations Committee chair Sen. Joseph
Biden, Jr (D-DE). [New York Times 9/14/01, 9/15/01]
*4. TRADE: "CRASS ATTEMPT" AT FAST TRACK
On Sept. 13 US House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee
chair Bill Thomas (R-CA) told reporters he expected the long-
stalled "fast track" legislation to get through the House within
a few weeks because of a "virtual agreement" he has reached with
Democrats. Fast track authority allows the president to negotiate
trade accords without congressional oversight. Supporters feel it
is necessary for plans to establish the Free Trade Area of the
Americas (FTAA), a hemispheric trading bloc, by 2005, but they
have been unable to renew fast track since 1994, after it was
used to speed up negotiations for the unpopular North American
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Most recently, supporters had to
back down from an effort to get it passed before Congress went on
its August recess [see Update #601]. [Washington Post 9/14/01
from Reuters]
Mike Dolan of Global Trade Watch, part of the DC-based Public
Citizen watchdog group, says that Rep. Thomas is making a "crass
attempt" to use the Sept. 11 aerial attacks on the US to get the
legislation through Congress "to support the president" and "to
show a united front in government." Dolan urges fast track
opponents to use two tollfree numbers (800-393-1082 and
800-648-3516) to call their representatives before Congress
returns on Sept. 20 after a brief recess. [Fair Trade message &
action 9/15/01]
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank are expected
to postpone their annual meetings, scheduled for Sept. 29-30 in
Washington, because of the attacks. It is unclear whether
organizers will cancel the demonstration they had planned for
those two day to protest the institutions' neoliberal policies.
[FT 9/13/01]
[.....]
*9. COLOMBIA: US LABELS AUC "TERRORIST"
The US State Department announced on Sept. 10 that it had placed
the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), Colombia's main
rightwing paramilitary group, on its list of terrorist
organizations. The US government has maintained the list since
1997, as required by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death
Penalty of 1996, which provides for fines and jail terms for US
residents giving financial support to groups with the "terrorist"
designation. The leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC) and National Liberation Army (ELN) have been on the list
since it began [see Update #406].
The decision to list the AUC, which was made on Sept. 5, was
apparently intended to counter charges that the "terrorist"
designation is used mainly against leftist groups. The
announcement coincided with the start of a two-day visit to
Colombia by US secretary of state Colin Powell [the visit was cut
short because of the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon].
The AUC's "terrorist" designation could cause some embarrassment
for the US. AUC leaders are thought to get funding from wealthy
rightwing Colombians living in southern Florida. The Miami Herald
reports that "[t]wo top AUC commanders are known to have visited
South Florida this year, one in a rebuffed bid to establish
discreet contacts with US government officials and the other to
take his family on a vacation to Miami and Disney World." Human
rights groups charge that the AUC is closely connected to the
Colombian military, which receives extensive aid from the US
government. On Sept. 5 Colombian defense minister Gustavo Bell
tried to counter the charges. Colombian authorities have jailed
244 AUC members and filed charges against another 434 this year,
he said, but have only jailed 53 guerrillas. [El Tiempo (Bogota)
website 9/10/01 with info from AFP; MH 9/11/01]
On Sept. 4, in a lengthy communique on its website, the
notoriously brutal AUC announced it was forming a political
organization called the National Democratic Movement. Castano
officially stepped down as commander of the AUC on May 30 [see
Update #592], and is now said to be in charge of the group's
political and propaganda work. An Aug. 29 posting by Castano on
the AUC website said Salvatore Mancuso is the AUC's new general
commander. [ET 9/5/01; El Rescate Colombia Weekly Update 9/4/01]
*10. COLOMBIA: ELN LEADER'S BROTHER KILLED
On Sept. 2 in the town of Giron, Santander department, a hired
killer shot to death Libardo Rodriguez--a brother of Nicolas
Rodriguez Bautista ("Gabino"), commander of Colombia's second
largest leftist rebel group, the National Liberation Army (ELN).
Libardo Rodriguez had no criminal record and no connection to
rebel activities, according to Santander police chief Gen. Jorge
Castro. Police are investigating the murder. [Miami Herald
9/4/01; AFP 9/3/01 via La Prensa (Panama) website] "Libardo was
murdered like thousands of [other] innocent people by extreme
[rightwing] forces in combination with the Armed Forces, in one
more incident that is very painful," said ELN leader Rodriguez.
[VISUR 9/4/01 from El Espectador (Bogota)]
On Sept. 10 a judge in Cucuta sentenced Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC) commander German Briceno ("Grannobles")
in absentia to 40 years for the February 1999 kidnapping and
murder of three US indigenous rights activists, Terence Freitas,
Lahe'na'e Gay and Ingrid Washinawatok. The activists were killed
by members of the FARC front commanded by Grannobles, brother of
the FARC's top military commander, Jorge Briceno Suarez ("Mono
Jojoy") [see Updates #475, 476, 501]. [El Diario-La Prensa
9/11/01 from EFE; El Tiempo website 9/10/01]
*11. COLOMBIA: CENTRAL AMERICANS RECRUITED?
Vientos del Sur (VISUR), a Spanish-language leftist internet news
service based in Sweden and focused on Colombia, cites Nicaraguan
intelligence sources as reporting that among the 1,200 foreign
advisers and pilots assigned to the Plan Colombia operations are
109 "experts" from Latin American countries who have extensive
experience in counterinsurgency and "control of popular
uprisings."
The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), together with military
intelligence from Peru, Argentina and Nicaragua, have established
through their bases in Manta, Curacao and Nicaragua a center of
recruitment and training for mercenaries with "experience in the
Central American conflicts and the Andean region," according to
the article, datelined out of San Jose, Costa Rica, and written
by "Afredo Figueres P."
According to the source, over the past two months 83 mercenaries
have entered Colombia, flying directly into the Tolemaida, Tres
Esquinas, Palanquero, Batallon de Alta Montana, Puerto Leguizamo,
Mocoa and Guaviare bases. Of these, seven are said to be
Salvadorans, including three sergeants who are experts in
explosives and three aviation officers who served as commanders
of the Salvadoran Air Force during that country's war against
leftist rebels and their civilian supporters. The seventh
Salvadoran is a captain in intelligence who was wounded during
the war in his country. VISUR says this information was reported
in Nicaraguan and Salvadoran newspapers.
Twelve Nicaraguan "experts" have joined the ranks of the
mercenaries in Colombia, VISUR reports, including five former
members of the US-backed "contra" rebels who fought the leftist
Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) government in
Nicaragua during the 1980s and were later incorporated into the
US Army's Southern Command. Nearly 30 Central Americans, Mexicans
and US citizens with extensive knowledge of the "war on drugs and
terrorism" were recruited on the border between Mexico and the
US, according to the source.
Nearly all of the mercenaries are hired by military personnel
posing as civilians, and are offered double the pay they have
been earning. Their paychecks comes from civilian companies. Most
are shipped directly to bases in Colombia, said the source, but a
few are selected to train in strategic intelligence in the US for
a month. [VISUR 9/3/01]
*12. VENEZUELA: US MILITARY ACCORD ENDS
Venezuelan defense minister Jose Vicente Rangel announced on
Sept.5, after meeting with outgoing US ambassador to Venezuela
Donna Hrinak, that his government will not renew a 50-year old
bilateral military cooperation agreement with the US. Rangel said
only that the 1951 agreement is out-of-date and that the
Venezuelan government does not consider its renewal appropriate.
Hrinak made no comments to the press.
At the meeting, Rangel and Hrinak discussed a related matter: the
Venezuelan government's request to the US military mission to
vacate the offices which they have used for decades at the
Venezuelan defense ministry headquarters at Fort Tiuna, as well
as Navy and Air Force installations. Analysts say the request is
a message that the current government of Venezuelan president
Hugo Chavez Frias does not want to maintain as close a
relationship with the US military as was maintained by previous
administrations. [Hoy (NY) 9/6/01 from AP; La Republica 9/7/01
from BBC Digital]
*13. ECUADOR: DEATH SQUAD THREATENS LEFTISTS
A group calling itself the "Glorious and Patriotic White Legion"
has begun making death threats against human rights activists in
Ecuador. A "first warning" email was sent on July 30 by "Fernando
Maria Buendia <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>" to the Regional Human
Rights Advisory Foundation (INREDH), the Ecuador office of the
American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) and Service for Peace
and Justice (SERPAJ), among other groups. The email warns that
searches, abductions, spying, sabotage and other similar actions
will target "communists, drug traffickers, defenders of human
rights, socialists, vagabond sociologists, grassroots activists,
soldiers who are traitors to the homeland, and followers of
liberation theology." The email also threatened "street
children," journalists, environmentalists and anyone who supports
Cuban president Fidel Castro or opposes "the blessed and
humanistic Plan Colombia." Police are investigating the threats.
[La Hora (Quito) 8/9/01; Email threat forwarded by SERPAJ-Ecuador
8/9/01] INREDH and SERPAJ-Ecuador are part of the International
Observatory for Peace, a coalition effort focused on drawing
attention to the negative impact of Plan Colombia on the region.
[Information from SERPAJ-Ecuador 6/01]
=======================================================================
Weekly News Update on the Americas * Nicaragua Solidarity Network of NY
339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012 * 212-674-9499 fax: 212-674-9139
http://home.earthlink.net/~nicadlw/wnuhome.html * [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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