From: "mart" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [pttp] Fw: Colombia: Washington's War Ultimatum From: Rick Rozoff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2002 1:03 PM Subject: Colombia: Washington's War Ultimatum HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- [Andres Pastrana is neither particularly inclined nor is he at all able to deliver on a force majeur ultimatum of this sort. Recall that U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell was in Bogota, Colombia on September 11, 2001, when his mission to launch war in earnest was preempted by the attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. As soon as the Clinton-Albright regime was finished terror bombing Yugoslavia into submission in the summer of 1999 they rammed through so-called Plan Colombia to massively increase arms, personnel and war fighting in Colombia - and adjoining nations including Argentina, Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador. A risible 'human rights' rider was attached to placate the gullible constituencies of Senator Paul Wellstone and Congressmen Bernie Sanders and Jan Schakowsky, but was immediately waved by Clinton and Albright during some of the worst butchery perpetrated by Bogota's and Washington's School of the Americas-trained assassins and their death squad adjuncts. As for the FARC and ELN guerrillas being portrayed as the villains in this soon to be escalated war, when the above laid down their arms in the late 1980s and took the Colombian - and U.S. - government at its word, they formed an electoral coalition called the Patriotic Union, only to have between 5,000 to 10,000 of their elected representatives and candidates, including presidential candidates, federal senators and congressmen, governors, mayors, trade unionists, clergy and others brutally slain. The only objective the U'S and its regional puppets, as well as NATO allies actively involved in the war including Great Britain and the Netherlands, have in mind are these: Extermination, domination, expansion. As Colombian patriots cannot be accused of "harboring Islamic terrorists," the NWO falls back on the equally disingenuous 'war against drugs' and even drags in the 'IRA' to justify its plans for the creation of NATO South and grisly counterinsurgency wars in South America,] Colombia Gives FARC 48 Hours, Talks Still Possible By Phil Stewart BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Colombian President Andres Pastrana said on Wednesday FARC rebels had 48 hours to vacate a demilitarized zone in the country's south, but that doors were still open to rescue three-year-old peace talks. In a televised address to the nation, Pastrana said the FARC's three-month old insistence on relaxing military controls around their southern enclave meant that progress on substantive issues such as a cease fire was impossible. ``The government understands that the FARC are not continuing at the (negotiating) table, and as a consequence, the FARC have 48 hours, as agreed, to leave the zone,�� Pastrana said in a televised address to the nation. ``But I want to be clear. This is not the end. I will continue to seek peace, with the help of all of you. I will maintain the doors of dialogue and negotiation open,�� he said. Hours before Pastrana's speech, a spokesman for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia -- whose Spanish initials are FARC -- angrily denied that the rebels had walked away from peace talks. Pastrana, who has dedicated his presidency to tortuous talks to end a 38-year old conflict which has claimed 40,000 lives in a decade, told citizens not to panic and said that he was not about to start a ``terrible war without quarter.�� ``These are times to keep a cool head and be very calm. We should not become too alarmed or panic unnecessarily,�� he said. REBELS SAY GOVERNMENT LIES Senior FARC commander Raul Reyes denied that the guerrillas had asked to be given 48 hours -- as stipulated under the original peace agreement in late 1998 -- to evacuate their Switzerland-sized swathe of cattleland and jungle. Reyes called chief government peace negotiator Camilo Gomez a liar. ``He lied to the country and the international community,�� the diminutive, camouflage-clad Reyes told reporters. Now Colombia faces a possible upsurge in violence just as it prepares for May presidential elections. The army said it was ready to retake the main towns of the demilitarized zone, although the guerrillas will probably melt away into surrounding jungle which it has controlled for decades. Pastrana's peace talks had done little to stem bloodshed outside the FARC enclave, and the guerrillas always resisted government demands to silence their guns and cease mass kidnaps. The army says the rebels use their territory as a base for running a cocaine business and training for war. Negotiations have teetered on the brink of collapse many times. But what seems to be the final break came after a three-month deadlock in talks, as the FARC refused to discuss a cease-fire with the government in protest at military air patrols and border restrictions on the rebels enclave. MILITARY VICTORY UNLIKELY Opinion polls have long shown Colombians doubt FARC sincerity in negotiations. But few had predicted that Pastrana would abandon a peace process so close to the end of his four-year term in August. ``The decision surprised me ... We will see a stage of higher intensity warfare,�� said Daniel Garcia Pena, former government peace advisor. Pastrana was due to meet United Nations special peace envoy James LeMoyne -- a strong supporter of talks -- on Thursday. Military analysts say Colombia�s armed forces are understaffed and underequipped to defeat the FARC on the battlefield, despite more than $1 billion in mainly U.S. military aid flowing into the country for the anti-cocaine ��Plan Colombia.�� The FARC, which rely on kidnappings and Colombia's booming cocaine trade to fill their war chests, are seen as having no chance of entering Bogota to impose a Marxist state. Instead, analysts predict a bloody stalemate, as the army retakes towns in the enclave and the rebels escalate bombings and attacks from the jungle. The 47-year-old Pastrana had long swallowed his pride and periodically renewed the FARC enclave despite growing criticism from political rivals and even after high profile rebel killings, including the September slaying of the attorney general's wife, and recent kidnappings of congressmen. _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
