And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 19:43:26 -0800 (PST)
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From: Tom Goldtooth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: News Updates
COLUMBIA SUGGESTS REBEL COVER-UP
March 12, 1999
By Karl Penhaul, BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - A confession by Colombia's
to guerrilla group that one of its mid-ranking field commanders kidnapped
and killed three Americans backfired Thursday as the government accused the
rebel high command of a cover-up.
Defense Minister Rodrigo Lloreda said the Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia (FARC) were using a little-known guerrilla as a ``scapegoat'' to
protect the man who really ordered the murders -- German Briceno, brother of
the FARC's No. 2 leader Jorge Briceno, alias ``Mono Jojoy.''<p>German
Briceno, known by his nom de guerre ``Grannobles,'' is one of the top
regional commanders in northeastern Colombia
where the U.S. citizens were seized on Feb. 25. His brother Jorge is also
the FARC's top military strategist.
In the days after Terence Freitas, 24, Ingrid Washinawatok, 41, and
Laheenae Gay, 39, were abducted, the army intercepted a series of radio
conversations in which a voice authorities identified as that of Grannobles
ordered other guerrillas to kill them.
The bullet-riddled corpses of the American trio, who had been helping the
U'wa Indians defend their ancestral lands from plans by a U.S. multinational
to explore for oil, were dumped just across the border in Venezuela last
Thursday.
``We must press ahead in the search for those who are really responsible
for this crime, not just scapegoats ... All the information suggests that he
(German Briceno) would have been consulted about the decision,'' Lloreda said.
``If the aim of the FARC is to protect him then that is due to the
importance that Grannobles' brother has within the FARC,'' he added.
In a communique issued Wednesday, the FARC said a guerrilla identified only
as Commander Gildardo of the 10th Front, who was on a reconnaissance mission
with three other rebels, captured and killed the Americans without
consulting his superiors.
Military intelligence said, however, that they have no record of a senior
commander of that name, raising the likelihood that Gildardo was merely head
of a 12-man guerrilla unit or squad.
Given the strict command hierarchy that exists within the FARC, it is
unlikely that a mid-ranking commander would have been allowed to kidnap the
Americans let alone assassinate them without orders from above, possibly
even from the group's ruling General Secretariat itself.
A public admission that the brother of one of the FARC's seven-man
Secretariat was behind the killings would be a severe embarrassment at a
time when the group is striving to boost its political image at home and
abroad.
Armed forces chief Gen. Fernando Tapias called Thursday on the FARC to stop
hiding ``those really responsible'' and hand the killers over to the
authorities.
The FARC, however, has defied U.S. calls to surrender the killers for
extradition and said it will try them in a rebel war council that could
ultimately send them before a firing squad.
Colombian officials have handed over to the State Department numerous tape
recordings of what they say are radio intercepts of guerrilla leaders
talking about the Americans.
Lloreda said two of those tapes had been classified top secret and has
declined to give any hint of what fresh information they may contain.
Extracts of one of the recordings published in Thursday's edition of the El
Tiempo newspaper indicates that Grannobles ordered another guerrilla known
only as Rafael to buy cyanide and poison Gay, Freitas and Washinawatok.
``Go to that fertilizer factory and buy cyanide and give it to those
three,'' said Grannobles in the recording.
Lloreda said U.S. intelligence agencies, which have sophisticated listening
posts throughout the region, may have gathered additional evidence
incriminating senior FARC commanders.
The murders could sound the death knell for President Andres Pastrana's
center-piece policy to negotiate a peaceful end to Colombia's
three-decade-old war that has claimed 35,000 lives in just 10 years.
The United States, which is set to donate $240 million in counternarcotics
and military aid to Colombia this year, has backed the peace process but the
slayings could spark renewed calls in Washington and Colombia for an all-out
offensive against the rebels.
In one of the army's radio intercepts, Jorge Briceno talked to his brother
German about the devastating political impact the killings were going to
have on the rebel group and told his brother to come up with ``any name'' to
put forward as the murderer of the Americans.
``This is the biggest political screw-up of all. This is a mistake from
hell,'' he said.
TextEnd
Monday March 15, 1999
Colombian Leader, Spain's King Meet
MADRID, Spain (AP) - Colombia's president said he hopes the killing of
three U.S. citizens by leftist rebels this month will strengthen efforts to
end decades of civil war.
``If we look at what happens in other countries, we see that circumstances
like these have served to fortify the peace process,'' Andres Pastrana told
the Spanish daily El Pais in an interview published Monday to coincide with
his first official visit to Europe.
Seven months after taking office, Pastrana is struggling to set up talks
with the country's main rebel group, which claimed responsibility for the
killings of the three American activists whose bodies were found March 4
across the border in Venezuela.
The rebel Colombian Armed Revolutionary Forces, or FARC, demands democratic
reforms and a crackdown on rightist paramilitary forces, long linked to the
nation's armed forces.<p>Accompanied by five ministers and dozens of
business representatives, Pastrana met with Spain's King Juan Carlos and
Queen Sofia on Monday and was to hold talks with Prime Minister Jose Maria
Aznar.
Pastrana said the main objective of the visit was to boost economic ties
and, as a result, the Colombian peace effort.
``The priority, on a domestic level, is to reactivate the economy. On an
international level, we hope we can count on a set
of donor nations before this year is out which will allow us to obtain the
resources needed to work for peace,'' he told El Pais.
Pastrana, who arrived in Spain on Saturday, ends his visit Wednesday when
he travels to Morocco, then the Vatican.
``The world wants to help Colombia but it's waiting for concrete examples
of peace from the rebels, not ones of war like the kidnapping of
foreigners,'' he told El Pais.
Copyright © 1999 The Associated Press.
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