31/08/03 : 

• Ingrid is alive and in good health. 
  
  Former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, held hostage by Colombian rebels for 19 months, urged the government to rescue her in a videotape broadcast by local media.
  
  The video, which aired Saturday night, was the first sign Betancourt might still be alive since rebels released a different tape in July 2002.
  
  There was no way of confirming when the latest tape was made. It was shown by Noticias Uno.
  
  "A rescue, yes, definitely, but not just any rescue," said Betancourt, who appeared in good health. "It's important that it be the president who directly makes this decision." : 
  
  FARC captive makes video appeal to president - CNN Europe
  Colombia's Top Rebel Hostage Asks for Rescue
  Reuters, UK
  FARC captive makes video appeal to president CNN Europe, Europe 

29/08/03 :

• The recent detention of around 42 social activists and human rights defenders in Saravena, department of Arauca, 28 of whom remain under arrest, appears to be part of an on-going coordinated campaign to undermine the work of trade unionists and human rights activists and expose these sectors to increased attack from army-backed paramilitaries, Amnesty International said today : Colombia: Trade unionists under attack Scoop.co.nz (press release), New Zealand 
  
• The FBI has obtained a videotape of three apparently healthy Defense Department contractors captured by Colombian rebels when their light aircraft crashed in February : 
  
  FBI Sees Tape of US Hostages in Colombia Reuters, UK 
  Videotape Shows Colombia Captives Alive Yahoo Daily News 

28/08/03 :

• A US court has sentenced Colombian drug lord Fabio Ochoa to 30 years in prison for his involvement in a cocaine smuggling ring.

Ochoa was flown to the US in 2001 after being arrested in Colombia in 1999 along with about 30 other alleged traffickers as part of Operation Millennium, which broke up a major cocaine trafficking ring.

During the 1980s, he was one of the top operators in Pablo Escobar's infamous Medellin ring - supplier in its heyday of 80% of the US cocaine market.

The defunct Medellin cartel, along with the Cali cartel, was one of the most powerful and feared drug networks of the 1980s : Colombia drug lord jailed in US BBC News, UK

27/08/03 :

• FARCs and ELN, the two main rebel groups in Colombia, have issued a rare joint statement ruling out peace negotiations with President Alvaro Uribe
  
  They accuse him of being an enemy of peace, whose militaristic policies only created misery.

  This union of the two rebel groups, who have waged war on the state for nearly 40 years, would make them more dangerous than ever.

  The rebels may have been forced on the back foot recently by Mr Uribe's tough policy against insurgency, backed by more than $3bn in aid from the United States : Colombia rebels reject peace talks - BBC News

22/08/03 :

• The Colombian government introduced a bill on Thursday that would grant amnesties to illegal fighters in the country's war, including combatants sentenced for crimes against humanity.  

If passed by Congress, thousands of fighters on the right and left could have their sentences suspended despite being convicted for mass killings, torture or kidnapping.

The AUC (extreme-right paramilitaries), which is accused of committing some of the worst crimes in Colombia's war -- including killing peasants with chain saws and hammers -- called a cease-fire in December. 

Critics of the negotiations say the paramilitaries are using the talks to win amnesties and keep their fortunes, including an estimated 3.5 million acres (1.4 million hectares) of land, mostly seized illegally from peasants : Colombia bill would grant amnesties to fighters Reuters AlertNet, UK 

19/08/03 :

• A massive security operation is under way in the Colombian capital Bogota ahead of a visit by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

  More than 13,000 police officers and soldiers are providing security for Mr Rumsfeld's arrival in Bogota during a two-day trip which will also take him to Honduras in Central America : Colombia braced for Rumsfeld visit BBC News, UK 

  see also :  A Terror State Called Democracy (Colombia Report : Information Network of the Americas (INOTA)

18/08/03 :

• Suspected Marxist rebels have opened fire with machine guns as Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's helicopter flew intUribe ordered the helicopter to turn back to the town of Rio Negro. No one was hurt.o a village in the northeast of the country. As Uribe's helicopter retreated, another helicopter fired into the forested mountains overlooking the town, but there was no confirmation guerrillas had been hit : Rebels attack Colombia leader's chopper swissinfo, Switzerland

15/08/03 :

• A senator whose 2002 kidnapping by rebels during a plane hijacking caused the government to cancel peace talks is being held in the jungles of southwest Colombia, a report said Friday.

  Jorge Gechen, whose Senate term expired during his 18 months in captivity, was interviewed by a reporter for Cromos magazine, who saw him and 31 other hostages being guarded by hundreds of rebels. It was the first time Gechen had been heard from since his kidnapping : 
  Colombian Rebels Show Hostages to Reporter Guardian, UK /
  Colombian Senator Hostage Has Flesh-Eating Disease  -  Reuters  (Aug 15, 2003)

10/08/03 :

• Alvaro Uribe Vélez completes his first year as President of Colombia this week. 

  Following the events of 11 September 2001 and the breakdown of the peace process in Colombia in February 2002, there is a view both within Colombia and internationally that military action is the answer to Colombia's 40-year armed conflict.

  The current administration promotes a policy of 'democratic security'. It has set up networks of informers and peasant soldiers which are drawing more and more civilians into the conflict. The democratic security policy also means an escalation of military spending to the detriment of the protection of human rights and development budgets. Cuts in social spending have a direct impact on the 11 million men, women and children who are living in extreme poverty¹.

  The human rights crisis is escalating with 8,000 people killed or 'disappeared' each year as a result of the conflict - approximately 20 people per day². The number of people who are forced to leave their homes is also increasing. According to CODHES, an independent organisation that researches the trends in internal displacement, about 412,000 people were forced to flee in Colombia during 2002, equating to more than 1,000 people fleeing every day and 20 per cent up on 2001 figures : Colombia's new presidency faces its first anniversary Reuters AlertNet, UK 

04/08/03 :

• Several newspapers published this week-end  articles about last weeks' events - obviously the journalists did not do a good job in verifying the information. The articles mix real facts, reasonable and unrealistic assumptions, as well as completely false information. For example : 
  • ...Betancourt, 41, a former beauty queen who had grown up among Colombia's privileged elite...
  • ...She was abducted at a Farc checkpoint on the road to the rural town of San Vicente where she was to address an election rally...
  • France stands accused of secretly negotiating with one of the world's most dangerous terrorist organisations : the suspicion remains that a deal with Farc to exchange Betancourt for arms and/or millions of dollars had been on the table.
  • ... 

Let's remember Melanie's words last week : "They [journalists] forget that behind this kidnapping that is just a story to them, there's a whole family waiting for something to happen and fighting every day to see their loved ones back. My mother's release has again become a distant dream."

• Failed rescue leaves French red-faced - The Age, Australia 
• France and UK to Increase Involvement in Colombia's Conflict - Pravda
• Christopher Caldwell: An honourable debacle - Financial Times
• Flap over secret mission Straits Times, Singapore
• Bungle in the jungle Telegraph.co.uk, UK 

31/07/03 :

• The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which grabbed Betancourt at a roadblock 17 months ago as she campaigned for Colombia's presidency, said they had never planned to hand her over to a French "humanitarian mission" in the Brazilian Amazon : Colombia hostage rescue mission flawed New Zealand Herald, New Zealand 

29/07/03 :

• Carlos Castano, chief of the paramilitaries that battled Colombia's rebel armies, has acknowledged his forces massacred civilians, extorted money and dealt drugs, but claimed those acts were ''inevitable excesses'' in a war to save the nation. : Colombia paramilitary chief says massacres, drug dealing were ' ... MSNBC 
• Government sweetens its crackdown on insurgents and paramilitaries with a programme offering a new identity and money to start again  : Rebels in Colombia restored to civil life Guardian, UK 

28/07/03 :

• Controversy is growing in France over whether secret agents were involved in a failed attempt to rescue French-Colombian hostage Ingrid Betancourt. 

  The row flared up earlier this week, when a Brazilian newspaper revealed that France in early July secretly sent a military plane to Brazil to collect Ms Betancourt in the event of her release.

  The French Government says it only despatched a medical team at the request of relatives, in case Ms Betancourt was released in poor health - but the French newspaper Le Monde on Friday said military intelligence agents were also involved : Failed hostage rescue sparks row (BBC)

   

• 'As in Iraq, the number of US military personnel being killed in Colombia continues to rise. The US military has lost at least eight soldiers and pilots since February, including three CIA intelligence experts who were taken prisoner after left-wing guerrillas shot down their spy plane. A total of three US airplanes have been shot down this year : COLOMBIA: US casualties rise Green Left, Australia 

26/07/03 :

• ''As soon as the mission's objective became clear ... we asked the plane to go away,'' Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said at a news conference in Bogota. France has said it sent the Hercules plane on a humanitarian mission to the Brazilian Amazon earlier in July to help Ingrid Betancourt, a dual French-Colombian national kidnapped by leftist rebels as she campaigned for Colombia's presidency 17 months ago. It was not clear why the French military plane landed in Manaus, the largest city in the Amazon and the closest big Brazilian city to the Colombian border. Military sources strongly believe Betancourt is being held in Colombia : Brazil asked France to scrap humanitarian mission - MSNBC 

24/07/03 :

• Ingrid Betancourt's sister, Astrid Betancourt, seeking to calm diplomatic tensions between France, Brazil and Colombia in the wake of the failed handover, said her earlier comments to a Colombian radio station had been misinterpreted in some quarters.

She had told the station that members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, appeared ready to free Ingrid earlier this month, but the arrival of a French military plane in Manaus, Brazil, created a stir that may have scared them off.

''I said what had thwarted the operation was that a Brazilian journalist talked publicly about this affair and he engaged in some fanciful and irresponsible speculation,'' Astrid Betancourt told Reuters shortly after returning to Paris from Bogota : Colombia hostage's sister says France not to blame - MSNBC 

• Several prominent labor unions launched a worldwide boycott of Coca-Cola products Tuesday, alleging that the corporation was collaborating with terrorist groups in Colombia.

  The unions accused Coca-Cola of using Colombia's right-wing paramilitary group -- the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, which has been designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization -- to intimidate and assassinate union members in Colombia. 

  Yesterday another unionist, Carlos Barrero, member of the National Association of Workers of Hospitals, Clinics and Similars, was assassinated in Barranquilla.

  Colombia is the most dangerous nation for union members, with 184 of the worlds 213 confirmed killings last year, according to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. 

  Union coalition to boycott Coke Atlanta Journal Constitution, GA 
  Assassinated another unionist in Barranquilla (El Tiempo (automatic translation)

23/07/03 :

• Colombian rebels appeared ready to free former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt earlier this month, but arrival of a French military plane created a stir that may have scared them off, her sister said on Monday.
  
  Astrid Betancourt, speaking on local radio, said she and a priest traveled deep into the Amazon near the Brazilian border for the drop-off, after getting word from a "informant" with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The release seemed imminent. Astrid said she was even told to go and buy new clothes for her sister, who has a French passport and was abducted 17 months ago along with her running-mate during their campaign for office. She is by far the most famous guerrilla hostage in Colombia, the world's kidnapping capital.
  
  Astrid said she called the French government to request medical support, thinking the most likely reason the FARC would release such a high-profile hostage - without any demands - was if Betancourt were very ill : France eyed in near-release of kidnapped Colombian - MSNBC

21/07/03 :

• France's ambassador to Colombia on Saturday denied that members of his government met with leftist rebels in an effort to free a former presidential candidate kidnapped by the insurgents last year.

  The remarks by French Ambassador Daniel Parfait follow news reports that French authorities traveled to Brazil seeking to negotiate the release of Ingrid Betancourt with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Although Parfait ruled out rumors that there had been talks with the insurgents, he said there was a French-led "humanitarian operation" in Brazil but refused to discuss details of the mission : French deny Colombian rebel contacts  CNN.com

• On Independence Day, President Uribe took part in the celebrations and cemented his popularity with the army by announcing new pensions for the families of soldiers fallen in combat.  At the same time some 40 Congressmen, led by William Velez, the leader of the House of Representatives, announced a proposal to change Colombia's constitution to allow for re-election, not just of the president but for all posts. 

  But many fear that the country's institutions are not strong or independent enough to resist a two-time president and that democracy could be undermined.

  Already opponents of the proposals have pointed out what happened in neighbouring Peru, where ex-President Alberto Fujimori, now in exile in Japan, constructed a system of corruption that allowed him to subvert democracy.

  Some say that could all too easily happen in Colombia : Second term plan for Colombia head
  BBC News, UK

18/07/03 :

• A promise by rightist paramilitary fighters to disband as part of peace talks will not ease Colombia's civil war unless the government extends its own control over the countryside and begins similar talks with leftist rebels, a spokesman for President Alvaro Uribe acknowledged Wednesday. But the deal raises thorny questions: should members of a group that orchestrated some of the worst human-rights abuses in Colombia's four-decade old war get amnesty in exchange for peace, and would the amnesties block U.S. extradition requests for three top AUC commanders on cocaine smuggling charges? Colombia talks get OK - Boston Globe

17/07/03 :

• In a joint statement, the government and the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) said all of the group's fighters would begin disarming at the end of the year, in a process expected to last until the end of 2005. 

The AUC, an umbrella group for many of the paramilitary forces that arose to counter violence by leftist rebels in rural areas, where government troops had little or no control is on the United States' list of terrorist organisations, and the Americans have repeatedly asked for the extradition of its leader, Carlos Castano : Colombia paramilitaries to disarm - BBC News

15/07/03 :

• Marxist Colombian rebels denied on Monday they were losing Latin America's oldest guerrilla war to U.S.-backed forces, and said government hawks were lying about battlefield victories to quell calls for dialogue. 

  The statement came two weeks after the head of Colombia's armed forces, Gen. Jorge Enrique Mora, said that a negotiated settlement to the four-decade-old conflict was unnecessary, and that the rebels could be defeated on the battlefield.

"There are some arguments that the only way to resolve the Colombian conflict is through negotiations," Mora said. "It's not the only way." : Colombian rebel deny they losing war - Reuters AlertNet

• Marking the second anniversary of the abduction of a Colombian official from a U.N. vehicle, Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged Colombia's FARC guerrillas on Monday to free all their kidnapping victims. ''It is a gross violation of human rights and international humanitarian law that has inflicted terrible suffering on the Colombian people,'' the spokeswoman told reporters : UN urges Colombia's FARC to free kidnap victims MSNBC

12/07/03 :

• Colombia's attorney general on Friday ordered the arrest of a city mayor for allegedly hiring paramilitary hitmen to kill a radio journalist, whose bullet-ridden body was found in April. Three other senior workers for Mayor Julio Cesar Ardila, including his finance and infrastructure secretaries, were arrested earlier on Friday in connection with the crime, a spokeswoman for the attorney general's office told Reuters : Colombia to arrest mayor for killing reporter Reuters AlertNet, UK 
• Colombia's scandal-prone police force said on Friday it was investigating a group of officers to determine whether they took bribes of more than $1 million to return confiscated cocaine to traffickers. The probe comes a month after the government sacked an army general amid media reports of U.S. anger at the disappearance from under police guard of two tons of cocaine seized last year : Police corruption probed in Colombia CNN 

09/07/03 :

• The State Department said on Tuesday Colombia has met U.S. conditions on respecting human rights, triggering the release of $31.6 million in aid to the Colombian military according to a senior U.S. official. 

  Human rights groups immediately criticized the decision, arguing the Colombian military has not done enough to pursue officers accused of human rights violations or to sever ties to the country's paramilitary groups.

  "It is shameful that the U.S. State Department, which designated armed rebel groups and paramilitary forces as 'terrorists,' somehow doesn't see the glaring human rights abuses that permeate Colombian society," Amnesty International USA executive director William Schulz said in a statement.

  ``Last year, more than 4,000 civilians were killed for political reasons, at least 500 were 'disappeared' and more than 400,000 were displaced from their homes,'' Schulz said.

  He said that while the armed forces are responsible for much of the violence, ``one cannot ignore the involvement of paramilitary forces that often work in collusion with the Colombian military, and thereby become the unintended beneficiaries of our funds.'' : Powell: Colombia Abides by Rights Laws
  Guardian, UK

08/07/03 :

• The United States says it is winning the war on terrorism, but few officials argue it is winning the war on drugs.

  Several government reports and experts on Capitol Hill say Plan Colombia, the U.S.-backed war on drugs in the South American nation, is failing, and some critics say the State Department is mismanaging the operation.

  The reports and experts argue bureaucrats and contractors have mismanaged the multibillion dollar program, which is administered through the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, in a manner that leaves U.S. government employees and contractors at risk.

  A report issued in June by the General Accounting Office found that despite getting $2.5 billion in U.S. aid specifically to fight narco-traffickers, Colombia is still the world's largest producer of coca, the precursor to cocaine, and has expanded its production of opium poppy to become the largest supplier of heroin to the United States : Plan Colombia called dangerous failure United Press International 

07/07/03 :

• Colombia produces eighty percent of the world's supply of cocaine and over a third of the heroin. Most of the revenues from the drugs trade go to the country's rebel and paramilitary groups, fuelling one of the world's longest-running civil wars. In the year 2000, the government adopted the so-called Plan Colombia, largely financed by the United States' Defence Department, in an attempt to restore peace and stamp out the drugs trade. The Pentagon annually provides roughly 700 million dollars to continue the Plan. One of the main aspects is the spraying or fumigation of coca fields. Although not a new policy, the use of crop dusters to eradicate drugs production has increased enormously under Plan Colombia. Colombia may be the number one cocaine producer in the world, but it has also been the greatest victim of the drugs. The drugs revenues have been the main financial resource for the warring parties in Colombia. At the moment 30 to 40 percent of the country is practically in the hands of those groups. If there were no drugs, they would never have been powerful enough to completely disrupt this country : Colombia's drugs problem Radio Netherlands, Netherlands 

04/07/03 :

• The Colombian government has declared war on its own citizens of African descent by labeling the activists among them as guerillas or terrorists. Repeated massacres, the latest during a June 14 invasion on the Anchicaya River, where paramilitaries assassinated five and wounded many more, have targeted African Colombian community organizers exercising their constitutional right to own and control their own resource-rich territories, defending them against developers determined to cut down their forests, extract their oil and uranium and steal their land for the construction of ports, highways and hydroelectric projects : Colombia declares war on its own Black citizens San Francisco Bay View, CA

03/07/03 :

• Colombia, a world leader in the production of tribulations, has also had a long tradition of journalists willing and able to investigate them. One of the best is Fabio Castillo, 47, until last month the chief of investigations for the Bogotá newspaper El Espectador. Mr. Castillo was fired just after implicating Fernando Londoño Hoyos, who is both minister of interior and justice, in a corruption scandal. Mr. Castillo's dismissal shows the varied ways Colombia is silencing the independent voices that it so sorely needs : In Colombia, Muckrakers Have Become Scarce New York Times 

02/07/03 :

• The United States said Tuesday it was cutting off military aid to 35 countries, including Colombia, because they back the International Criminal Court and have not exempted Americans from possible prosecution. Colombia expressed confidence Tuesday it would quickly regain U.S. Military Aid. 

  Colombia was allocated about $100 million in military aid this year and has already received all but $5 million of that, U.S. officials say. 

  The suspension of U.S. military aid would not affect hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance to crush the cocaine trade or the activities of hundreds of U.S. personnel training or assisting Colombian forces, according to a U.S. embassy spokesman.

  President Alvaro Uribe is popular in Washington for his tough stance against leftist rebels and his commitment to an aerial spraying campaign : Colombia Confident Will Regain US Military Aid
  Reuters, UK

News May-June 03

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