From: "Mascara Azteca" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Weekly News Update on Colombia #624, 1/13/02
WEEKLY NEWS UPDATE ON THE AMERICAS
ISSUE #624, JANUARY 13, 2002
NICARAGUA SOLIDARITY NETWORK OF GREATER NEW YORK
339 LAFAYETTE ST., NEW YORK, NY 10012
(212) 674-9499 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
*4. COLOMBIA: PEACE PROCESS COLLAPSES
The situation in Colombia remained tense on Jan. 13 as the three-
year old peace process between the government of President Andres
Pastrana Arango and the leftist guerrilla organization
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) seemed close to a
total collapse. Pastrana announced the end of the peace process
on the night of Jan 9, and warned that the FARC would have 48
hours to withdraw its forces from the demilitarized southern zone
set up in 1998 to host the peace process. United Nations (UN)
envoy James LeMoyne--a former New York Times reporter who took
over the post from Jan Egeland on Jan. 1--rushed to the southern
zone to meet with the FARC and try to save the process.
After meeting with LeMoyne for two days, the FARC released a
proposal for ending the impasse, just minutes after Pastrana's
deadline expired on the evening of Jan. 12. At around midnight,
Pastrana gave his response: the rebels' proposal was "not
satisfactory." However, he gave the FARC until the evening of
Jan. 14 to come back with an alternative that would promise
"concrete" results in negotiations over a ceasefire, and an end
to kidnappings and attacks on civilian targets.
Meanwhile, troops began massing at the borders of the peace zone.
As of Jan. 13, some 13,000 troops from six brigades and four
special battalions of the Colombian Army, supported by the Navy
and the Air Force, remained poised to retake the area. A FARC
fighter in San Vicente who called himself Mauricio echoed pledges
that if Pastrana ended the safe haven, the rebels would pull back
from the five towns included in the zone. But, Mauricio warned,
"If the government wants the rural areas--even a place five
minutes from here--they'll have to fight for it." [Associated
Press 1/13/02; El Nuevo Herald (Miami) 1/11/02 from AFP, 1/13/02
from correspondent, AP; El Tiempo (Bogota) website 1/13/02; El
Diario-La Prensa (NY) 1/10/02 from unspecified wire services]
On Jan. 12, a car bomb exploded near the wall of a military base
in the town of Granada, a few miles north of the rebel-controlled
zone, where troops had been arriving ahead of the deadline. The
army news agency reported that 15 civilians were injured. No one
immediately claimed responsibility for the blast. [AP 1/13/02]
On Jan. 10, following the news of the break in the peace process,
Ecuadoran president Gustavo Noboa announced that troops were
already reinforcing his country's northern border with Colombia.
Noboa made the announcement while inaugurating a new military
post three kilometers from the San Miguel border bridge in the
area of Lago Agrio. [ED-LP 1/11/02 from unspecified wire
services] Meanwhile, Colombian planes have resumed the spraying
of toxic herbicides on coca crops on the southern border with
Ecuador; Ecuadoran as well as Colombian campesinos have
complained of the loss of legal subsistence crops as well as
health problems from the spraying. The spraying had been
suspended since last September. [La Hora (Quito) 1/7/02]
*5. COLOMBIA: US DELIVERS HELICOPTERS
On Jan. 8, a day before Colombian president Andres Pastrana
announced the collapse of peace talks with the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), US ambassador to Colombia Anne
Patterson formally handed over 14 Black Hawk combat helicopters
to the Colombian military, pledging unfailing support for the
country's war against drug producers. The helicopters, the last
of 16 which the US government bought from Sikorsky for $14
million each and donated to the Colombian government, are
supposed to be used against drug crops. Including the US
donations, Colombia now has a fleet of 29 Black Hawk helicopters,
which can be mounted with machine guns and modified to launch
rockets and fire mortars.
Standing in front of a $10 million aircraft hanger, also paid for
by US taxpayers, Pastrana said the ongoing US military aid would
be decisive in the battle to wipe out a drug trade which fueled
Colombia's guerrilla war. Military analysts say Colombia's
increasing use of helicopters to quickly transport troops to hot
spots has given it an advantage on drug traffickers and leftist
rebels by radically cutting response time to arriving
intelligence data. Colombian army colonel Carlos Alberto Murillo
said the helicopters won't get action until after Colombian crews
complete flight training in May; the choppers will then accompany
a brigade of US-trained Colombian troops. [AP 1/9/02; Reuters
1/8/02]
*6. COLOMBIA: PARAMILITARIES USE AIRCRAFT
Rightwing paramilitaries from the United Self-Defense Forces of
Colombia (AUC) have been using a helicopter and a small airplane
in recent assaults on and around the northeastern municipality of
El Tarra, in Norte de Santander department, according to a Jan. 9
report from the Association for Alternative Social Advancement,
MINGA. Local residents of the area, known as Catatumbo, told
MINGA that the aircraft had overflown the area numerous times
since Dec. 22, in support of some 300 paramilitary troops in the
area. According to MINGA, AUC members massacred 14 people on Dec.
22 in the hamlet of Marquetalia, in the village of Angalia, in
Tibu municipality. (In a communique dated Jan. 5 and sent via
email from the "mountains of Colombia," the Central Command of
the National Liberation Army (ELN) said soldiers from the Army's
5th Brigade had helped the paramilitaries massacre 17 villagers
on Dec. 22 in Remolinos, Tibu municipality, and seven more the
next day in La Angalia.)
>From Dec. 26 to 30, the paramilitaries seized some 20 hostages
near Filogringo, and on Dec. 28, they tortured and murdered local
campesino Daniel Robles. Since Jan. 7 the paramilitaries have
been in the village of El Salado, where they tortured and
abducted 18-year old Luis Alberto Cano. The green airplane and
white helicopter continued overflights in the area on Jan. 7 and
8, MINGA reports.
The paramilitaries forced some 4,360 families to flee their homes
in rural areas of El Tarra and the neighboring municipality of
Teorama. MINGA noted that at least three army battalions are
stationed in the area yet apparently made no effort to prevent or
halt the paramilitary attacks. MINGA is calling on the government
to immediately deploy its forces to stop the paramilitaries.
[Equipo Nizkor/Derechos Human Rights/Serpaj Europa Solidaridad
Urgente 1/8/02 from MINGA via Fundacion Comite de Solidaridad con
los Presos Politicos; ELN Communique 1/5/02; EFE 1/9/02; RCN
1/8/02; Caracol 1/6/02]
=======================================================================
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
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Mascara Azteca * enege brigadak
soulcialist stiliagi
http://inquilino.net/palante/enege.html
"De todas maneras,
si nos lleva la chingadera,
eso ya estaba previsto"
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