31/12/03 : 

• Nearly 3,000 individuals, including 400 children, are to spend the year-end as hostages of various rebel groups in Colombia, the non-governmental organization Free Country Foundation said in a report on Monday.

      However, the report also reveals that the incidence of kidnappings is declining. From January to September 2003, it says 1,656 people were kidnapped, 40 percent less than the 2,788 during the same period in 200 : 3000 people remain hostage in Colombia Xinhua, China

28/12/03 : 

• ELN, the smaller of two Colombian leftist rebel groups has rejected a government offer to open peace talks, local media reported Sunday. 
  
  Nicolas Rodriguez Bautista told the El Espectador newspaper that his group "does not see the possibility of dialogue with the government." Rodriguez is the top commander of the National Liberation Army, known by its Spanish initials as ELN.
  
  "We are faced with a government that is pursuing a strategy of war, not a strategy of peace," Rodriguez said in an interview published Sunday. 
  
  Earlier this month, President Alvaro Uribe invited the rebels to open talks after meeting with Felipe Torres, an ELN spokesman released from jail for good behavior after serving less than nine years of a 20-year sentence : Colombia Rebel Group Rejects Peace Offer Newsday 

23/12/03 : 

• The ELN rebels have released four Israeli hikers and a British backpacker they kidnapped 100 days ago, handing them over to a church-led humanitarian commission.

  Israelis Benny Daniel, Ido Guy, Erez Altawil and Orpaz Ohayon and Briton Mark Henderson appeared in good health as they boarded helicopters in the northern Sierra Nevada mountains, according to a Reuters eyewitness on Monday : Colombia's kidnappers-in-chief - BBC News

21/12/03 : 

• The parents of a British man being held hostage in Colombia say they are "cautiously optimistic" he will be released in time for Christmas.

  Sharelle Henderson, mother of television producer Mark Henderson, said she has spoken to a Roman Catholic cleric who has been negotiating with the rebel group holding her son.

  She says the cleric has reported he will be released on either Monday or Tuesday, along with his fellow captives.

  "We are told they are hoping he'll be released on Monday or Tuesday," said Mrs Henderson, who lives near Pateley Bridge in the Yorkshire Dales.

  "The Foreign Office have heard this from the Monsignor and we are obviously just waiting and hoping." : Hostage released by Christmas? ITV.COM, UK

19/12/03 : 

• Mediators trying to secure the release of foreign tourists held hostage by Colombian rebels have urged the government to halt military operations.

  They said this would allow the handover of the five hostages who have been held for more than two months.

  President Alvaro Uribe has rejected a rebel offer to create a neutral zone to release the hostages.

  A mediator with the National Conciliation Commission, Cesar Mauricio Velasquez, said they are asking the president to at least stop operations for a couple of hours to facilitate the handover.

  The United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, has called on Colombia's main left-wing guerrilla groups to release their hostages, and resume negotiations towards ending violence.

  Meanwhile an independent commission in Colombia says massacres, torture and abductions are continuing in the northern Sierra Nevada region, being carried out by right-wing paramilitary groups, as well as left-wing rebels.

  The commission, made up of Roman Catholic priests and human rights officials, said urgently-needed food and medicines were being prevented from reaching the region by the continued fighting.

  It called on the Colombian Government to introduce emergency aid into Sierra Nevada, and not just intervene there militarily : Mediators plea for Colombia truce BBC

16/12/03 : 

• Rebel leaders said Monday they will release four Israelis and a Briton during the next several days, after holding the foreigners hostage in northern Colombia for three months.

  Rebels of the National Liberation Army, Colombia's second-largest guerrilla group, announced they would liberate the five hostages because Colombian military operations in the area had increased the possibility of the hostages being accidently killed or wounded by the government.

  ``As proof of our flexibility and maturity, we promise to liberate the hostages in the upcoming days, hopefully before the end of the year, to avoid such a tragedy,'' said the group, known by its Spanish acronym ELN : Colombia Rebels Say They'll Free Tourists Guardian, UK 

12/12/03 : 

• A newly passed constitutional revision that gives police and military the right to search homes, tap phones and make arrests without warrants is a risky step toward widespread abuses, human rights groups said Thursday.

  ''Judges examine proof and the military combats,'' said Alfonso Gómez Méndez, the nation's former chief prosecutor. ``You can't give the military the power to evaluate evidence any more than you would ask judges to go into combat. It's a mistake.''

  The notion behind the new provision is that soldiers in the jungle can't be expected to get a court order to apprehend a dangerous terrorism suspect. But critics say the argument falls on its face: In jungle combat, soldiers have the right to shoot.

  ''Who is keeping count of the time?'' asked José Miguel Vivanco, of Human Rights Watch. ``Those who are detained with no witnesses, no judicial order and no clear accounting of the hours are in real risk to be disappeared.''

  The move comes as international human rights organizations protest Uribe's recent choice to head the armed forces. Gen. Carlos Alberto Ospina is accused of having collaborated with the AUC while he led the 4th Brigade by turning a blind eye to its massacres.

  ''They haven't been able to hold the military accountable in massacres, there's no reason to think they'll be able to do it now'' with this new law, said Eric Olson, Americas advocacy director for the Amnesty International USA. ``I would say it's dangerous and potentially disastrous.''  : 

  • Constitutional Reform undermines human rights Amnesty International 
  • Military, police granted broad new legal powers Miami Herald, FL 
  • Colombian activists refuse to recognize justice system Reuters 

11/12/03 : 

• 
  Each with a rose in hand, relatives of Colombians held captive by leftist rebels marched out of the Bogota's Cathedral yesterday, ending a 28-hour sit-in protest after they secured a pledge from President Alvaro Uribe to consider their demands.

  The standoff ended after the two dozen demonstrators - who demanded that Uribe explore an exchange of prisoners with the guerrillas - met with foreign ambassadors and Bogota's Cardinal Pedro Rubiano, who agreed to intervene.

  Rubiano agreed to give Uribe a list of proposals from the families at the presidential palace tonight.

  After leaving the 17th-century church, Juan Carlos Lecompte, the husband of kidnapped former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, hailed the takeover as a victory.

  Lecompte declined to provide details on the proposals.

  Earlier, the protest movement briefly spread to Colombia's third-largest city.

  Dozens of family members of hostages being held by the rebels marched through a main plaza in the southwestern city of Cali, holding photos of their loved ones, then locked themselves inside the 200-year-old San Francisco Church. They left by evening.

  Family members in both cities say they are frustrated with the president's failure to fulfill an election pledge to seek a humanitarian accord with the rebels and secure the release of dozens of political hostages.

  Roman Catholic priests called the sit-in an affront to the dignity of the church and initially barred the protesters from using the bathroom, but relented overnight : Families of kidnapped Colombians rally, protest Cleveland Plain Dealer, OH

• Since noon this Tuesday about thirty parents of sequestered people among whom Yolanda Pulecio and Juan Carlos Lecompte, the mother and the husband of Ingrid Betancourt, started to peacefully occupy the Cathedral of Bogota to obtain from president Uribe the designation of a commission of negotiations with Farc.. 
  
  Monseñor Potagers decided to lock up the cathedral with chains and locks to prohibit the access to the media. 
  
  Police tried to expel them by the force, but the police officers withdrew themselves when they realized that the occupants included inter alia families of sequestered police officers and soldiers.
  
  While the colombian government is negotiating with extreme-right paramilitaries and with the ELN, nothing is done to engage negotiations with the FARCs, despite a promise by President Uribe

more news on the French part of the site

06/12/03 : 

• The folks who worry about Colombian people and food crops being poisoned by United States- sponsored spraying of coca and poppy fields should be happy. Two Colombian court rulings in the past year have ordered that the aerial spraying program known as Plan Colombia -- carried out by major Fort Worth employer DynCorp and protected with Fort Worth-produced Bell helicopters -- be suspended.

  But the environmentalists and Colombian rural people are as angry and frightened as ever. Why? Because, despite the rulings, Colombia continues to spray Monsanto's Roundup-Ultra on fields, and U.S. officials continue to maintain an eerie silence on the issue. 

  "Unfortunately," said Astrid Puentes, a Colombian human rights attorney with Earthjustice, the legal branch of the Sierra Club, "while that decision should have been enough to protect the health and human rights of the environment and people of Colombia, the U.S. and Colombian governments insist that the spraying is not harmful, and so it continues. The Administrative Court recognized the harm to health and biodiversity, soil, and water that the aerial fumigation is doing, but those with vested interests choose to ignore that."

  Among those with vested interests are Fort Worth's Bell Helicopter, which provides helicopters used to protect the spray planes, and DynCorp (now Dyncorp/CSC, headquartered in Reston, Va., but with a large recruitment center in Fort Worth), the company with the $600 million contract to actually do the spraying and maintain the spray planes and helicopters.

  "We know that the U.S. trained Colombian forces to protect the Occidental Oil pipeline in Cano Limon from rebel attacks," Puentes said. "And we know that some of the land being explored for oil is indigenous land. Some people think the fumigation will clear the land for oil exploration as well." : To Save A Village... Metropolis

05/12/03 : 

• Medical charity fights to care for the poorest and the millions displaced by civil war

Colombia is in the middle of two wars. Civil war has engulfed the country for the past 40 years. But the lesser-known, but now more destructive, war of street violence has over the past year caused more deaths than the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East combined. In a world league table of violence published last month Colombia came top, with a murder rate 60 times that of Britain.

It is the civil war that has brought MSF to Quibdó. The fighting has displaced nearly 3 million people nationally as they flee the violence, and few areas have been more affected than the Chocó region, of which Quibdó is the capital. There are around 40,000 desplazados (displaced) here, many without identification documents, living in poverty on the fringes of the city.

One of the aims of the MSF project in Quibdó is to ensure that the desplazados get the medical treatment to which they are entitled by law but from which they are often excluded by local bureaucracy. This involves door-to-door educational work through the barrios carried out by their staff, the renovation of two health centres and lobbying of local government.

There are risks in the area. Two MSF staff have been kidnapped, but both were released. Staff are advised to keep fit as, if kidnapped, they will be kept on the move on foot. "You try to win respect of the kidnap group," says MTV of the instructions staff receive. "You don't say 'You kidnap me - wait till you see what happens!'" : Intervention is the cure for Colombia Guardian, UK

04/12/03 : 

• Colombia's government says it has suspended cash rewards for information leading to the capture of right-wing death squad leaders, who are taking part in peace negotiations.
  
  Notably absent from the list were paramilitary bosses like Carlos Castano and Salvatore Mancuso, wanted in the United States on drug charges and at home for war crimes. The paramilitary death squads, founded as vigilante groups in the 1980s, kill rebels and suspected rebel sympathisers and have ties to some sectors of the Colombian armed forces.
  
  Human rights groups insist paramilitary bosses should go to jail for assassinations and massacres that have won them a spot on the U.S. terrorist list. : Colombia stops rewards for death squad leaders Reuters, UK

01/12/03 : 

• Colombia's government on Sunday called on left-wing guerrillas to participate in peace talks after right-wing paramilitaries this week laid down their weapons in a peace deal with Bogota.

The government of President Alvaro Uribe has said the FARC and ELN have used the existence of armed AUC paramilitaries as a key argument for continuing their own operations.

Restrepo said the government hopes the church might be able to negotiate a "formula" with the FARC that could lead to a release of FARC hostages, including civilians and military officers.

Peace commissioner Carlos Restrepo stressed the government has already struck agreements with the ELN, the 4,000-strong group released two high-profile European tourists it had held as hostages this week.

Although it still holds other foreign hostages, Restrepo said he hopes the ELN's hostage release could pave the way toward peace talks with the group : Colombia government seeks peace talks with left-wing rebels SpaceDaily

29/11/03 : 

• In the English version of Asahi Shimbun (Japan), an analysis of the situation in Colombia :

Colombia may well be a typical example of a country that is a democracy in name only.

There was a time when two major parties competed closely there. But the contest was replete with bitter mutual hatred and violence. The enmity is said to have caused the deaths of about 200,000 party members from the latter half of the 1940s through the end of the 1950s

Voters apparently often cast their ballots at gunpoint.

There were some relatively peaceful years, too, but the nation was thrown into a state of virtual civil war after dissident organizations began to grow in strength. Now Colombian guerrillas "form a part of the scenery in the nation's mountain villages".

Since a colossal portion of the national budget is being eaten up by this fight against guerrillas, hardly any money remains to spend on the poor.

Once violence has taken root in society, it is not easy to snap out of it. This is a chilling realization : Gravity of problems taking root in Colombia Asahi Shimbun, Japan

27/11/03 : 

• Japanese executive Chikao Muramatsu was confirmed dead by Colombian authorities on Tuesday, nearly three years after he was kidnapped and sold off to Marxist rebels demanding more than $20 million in ransom. 

The army found the body on Monday. Armed forces commander Gen. Carlos Alberto Ospina said on Monday the victim -- clad in camouflage fatigues -- had been fatally shot only a few hours before being discovered, adding that it seemed rebels killed him when they realized troops were in the area : Kidnapped Japanese confirmed killed in Colombia - MSNBC

26/11/03 : 

• 800 fighters from an urban band of Colombia's right-wing paramilitary group today laid down their weapons in a ceremony for a disarmament program the government says could bring Colombia closer to ending its 39-year-old war.

A range of critics, from human rights groups to some American congressmen, condemned the disarmament as a half-baked process that will let mass murderers and cocaine traffickers go free. They say the demobilization does not weaken the overall paramilitary group, with its top commanders remaining free to recruit new members and oversee operations.

"There's no transparency, and no accountability," said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director for Human Rights Watch. "How can we trust this process? Not a single international agency is participating."

With the support of the military, wealthy landowners and cocaine trafficking, the Self-Defense Forces have grown exponentially in recent years, taking control of wide swaths of territory and wiping out whole villages, union organizers and leftist politicians.

Mr. Uribe is now pushing legislation in Congress that would allow the government to strike deals with the group's leaders, with the paramilitaries disarming in exchange for incentives that include suspended jail time for top commanders. Several of those commanders are wanted for some of Colombia's worst war atrocities, as well as for trafficking cocaine to the United States :

• Colombia Begins Controversial Disarmament Program New York Times
• First Colombia Militia Begins to Disarm (Guardian)

25/11/03 : 

• Colombian rebels on Monday released two European backpackers kidnapped more than two months ago, but there was no word on the fate of five other foreigners still being held.

  The two, a German and a Spaniard, were handed over by members of Colombia's smaller rebel group, the National Liberation Army, or ELN, to a humanitarian commission in the snowcapped Sierra Nevada mountains :  

  • Rebels release two kidnapped foreign backpackers in Colombia San Francisco Chronicle, CA 
  • Colombia rebels free two hostages BBC News, UK

24/11/03 : 

• A humanitarian commission today took a firsthand look at impoverished villages in northern Colombia, meeting a key demand of a rebel group holding seven foreign backpackers including one Briton. The ELN, whose gunmen seized the three European and four Israeli tourists from jungle ruins on September 12, has made the commission’s trip a condition for any release.
  
  The group has repeatedly denounced alleged hardship inflicted by outlawed right-wing paramilitary factions and the army on the mainly Indian inhabitants of the Sierra Nevada.
  
  “There are grave problems of health, education, infrastructure and alimentation, that affect people daily,” Jorge Valles, one of the U.N. official touring the villages, told local television. He said he would pass on a list of recommendations to the government in a report next week.
  
  The ELN announced on Thursday it would free Reinhilt Weigel of Germany and Spaniard Asier Huegen Echeverria on Monday, provided the commission made the trip : Commission Fulfils Key Demand of Rebels The Scotsman, UK 

23/11/03 : 

• A humanitarian mission says it has arrived in northern Colombia to look into rights abuses, meeting a key demand by Marxist rebels to release seven foreign tourists taken hostage in September.

  "The inspection mission will hear from the communities about the situation of human rights, their situation of poverty and everything," Hector Fabio Henao told local television in the Caribbean city of Santa Marta on Saturday.

  The mission includes members of the Roman Catholic Church, the United Nations and local rights officials : Colombia meets key demand of rebel kidnappers Reuters, UK

22/11/03 : 

• President Alvaro Uribe scolded security forces Thursday for failing to adequately protect oil pipelines from guerrilla attacks and ordered the army to hunt down the rebels responsible.

  Uribe's comments came a day after leftist rebels launched some 30 attacks against petroleum installations in Colombia's southern Putumayo region, spilling oil and temporarily halting the production of crude.

  Separately, Uribe defended the humans rights record of the newly appointed commander of Colombia's armed forces, Gen. Carlos Alberto Ospina.

  ``General Ospina has served the country for 38 years, he is a soldier of integrity,'' Uribe said.

  On Wednesday, Amnesty International described Ospina's appointment as ``nothing short of outrageous'' because of his alleged ties to outlawed far-right paramilitary groups, blamed for some of the worst atrocities in Colombia's four-decade civil war.

  The rights group has called for an independent investigation into Ospina's actions : Colombia's Uribe Steps Up Oil Line Safety - Guardian

20/11/03 : 

• U.S. SAYS BAR BLASTS TARGETED AMERICANS : 

American citizens were the intended targets of two almost simultaneous grenade attacks on Saturday on two crowded bars in a trendy section of Bogotá, the capital, the United States Embassy said. 

In a statement distributed to American citizens in Bogotá, the embassy said the threat continued and warned American citizens to avoid trendy venues and commercial centers.  The embassy said its information came from Colombian authorities. 

The attacks on the bars, popular with American soldiers, contractors, journalists and other expatriates, killed a woman and wounded 72 other people, including four Americans. 

The police blamed the country's largest rebel group, the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, for the attacks : 

Americans warned to avoid areas of Bogotá - Miami Herald

18/11/03 : 

• Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who has launched a shake-up in the security forces to crack down on corruption, on Monday sacked an army general accused of misusing state funds.

The firing of Gen. Jorge Pineda Carvajal, who commanded an elite anti-guerrilla brigade in cocaine-rich southern Putumayo region, comes on the heels of a change of guard last week that included the commander of the armed forces, the defense minister and the police commander.

A statement from the Presidential Palace blamed the firing of Pineda Carvajal on the "misuse of secret state funds in 2001" -- a time when Pineda Carvajal was the head of the army intelligence. The statement did not provide more detail : Colombia fires army general accused of corruption Reuters AlertNet

17/11/03 : 

• One woman was killed and 71 others, including three Americans, were injured Saturday night after grenades were tossed into two Bogota bars popular among US military personnel. 

The first attack occurred at about 10:30 p.m. at the popular Bogota Beer Company, a brewery located in the city's hip Zona Rosa entertainment district. Moments later, another grenade was hurled next door into Palos de Moguer, a bar-restaurant also known as a regular haunt for US Embassy personnel and contractors working on a $2 billion antidrug program known as Plan Colombia.

The US Embassy yesterday confirmed three Americans were among the hospitalized, but declined to comment on whether they were targets. None of their injuries were life-threatening, an embassy spokesman said.

Colombian police immediately blamed the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, leftist rebels waging war here for nearly four decades : Two bombs rock Bogota bars Boston Globe, MA

15/11/03 : 

• The parents of a man held hostage by Colombian rebels were in tears this week as they watched a message from his jungle prison – their first contact in eight long weeks.
  
  A video featuring a brief message of hope from him was released by the Marxist group holding him and six other hostages. The video shows Mark visibly thinner and with a thick beard, dressed in a dirty T-shirt and jeans, sitting in the jungle.
  
  The former Ashville College pupil sayd he was being treated well and called on the government to help secure his release.
  
  "I hope you are putting whatever pressure you can on the government of England to get me out of here as it has been almost eight weeks now," he says in his message to family and friends.
  
  "And also I would like to say to the government of both England and Colombia that it may be just another day for you lot but it's 24 hours in my life here. I just hope you can reach some resolution soon to the problem and get us all out of here."
  
  The ELN have said they will release the hostages if a humanitarian commission visits the region, but the video also includes a warning that hostages would be executed if a rescue is attempted : Hostage's new message of hope Harrogate Today, UK

14/11/03 : 

• The commander of Colombia's armed forces said Wednesday that he was resigning, joining three cabinet ministers who have stepped down in a shake-up marring President Álvaro Uribe's administration.

General Mora's resignation raised suspicions because it came during a troubled time for Mr. Uribe that began on Oct. 25 when his efforts to win broader control over state spending were rejected in a national referendum.

The defeat prompted a cabinet reshuffling that included the resignation of the interior minister, Fernando Londoño, last week and the defense minister, Marta Lucía Ramírez, this past Sunday. On Tuesday, the environment minister, Cecilia Rodríguez, also stepped down.

The environment minister also quit without explanation earlier that day. Controversial Interior Minister Fernando Londono resigned last week in a flap with Congress.

The resignations illustrate the weaknesses in his administration, experts say, and call to question whether a man known for strong leadership really has a grip on his government. But the crisis also offers the president the opportunity to regain control of a Cabinet known as much for results as for infighting and bickering, experts said.

• Military Aide Quits, Joining 3 Others in Colombia's Shake-Up - New York Times
• Armed forces chief latest to quit in shake-up roiling Colombia Kansas City Star

13/11/03 : 

• Seven young foreign tourists, including one Briton, kidnapped by Colombian rebels complain of poor food and long marches in a video given to Reuters by the guerrillas -- the first proof they are still alive.

  Briton Mark Henderson, German Reinhilt Weigel and Spaniard Asier Huegun asked for government help to secure their freedom in the tape handed to Reuters Television recently in a secret jungle location by the National Liberation Army.

  Israelis Benny Daniel, Ido Guy, Erez Altawil and Orpaz Ohayon also appear, drinking coffee and playing cards on a plastic sheet spread on muddy ground as armed guerrillas stand by and a river roars in the background.

  The ELN says it will release them if the Colombian government allows a humanitarian commission to visit the Sierra Nevada where it says native Indians are blockaded by paramilitary gunmen. The government is negotiating with the guerrillas, helped by Roman Catholic Church mediators. : Colombia hostages shown on video BBC News, UK

11/11/03 : 

• UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan ruled out on Monday a petition by Ecuador that the United Nations directly take part in the search for a solution to the armed conflict in Colombia.

  "The United Nations, although worried about the Colombian conflict, will not directly get involved in the solution of it," said Annan in the Ecuadorian capital of Quito.

  Upon concluding his four-day visit to Ecuador, Annan told a press conference that the UN representation "was aware of what happens there, but we are not directly involved in the talks with the armed groups because it is the government who has to carry outthis negotiation."

  "What we do is to follow up, give humanitarian aid, watch over the respect of human rights and give a certain legal advise, but I think that the direct conversation with those forces is up to the government," he told reporters.

  Annan said that the United Nations "are closely following the Colombian conflict" and appeared optimistic that this country "reaches a definitive peace agreement."

  "The Colombian issue is worrying, not only for Colombia itself, but for its impact over the region. The idea is getting a peacefulsolution, which cannot be a military one," he said.

  He added that the UN, as requested by Ecuadorian President Lucio Gutierrez, "will give more support for the Colombian refugees who have crossed over to this country." : Annan rules out UN involvement in seeking solution to Colombian conflict Xinhua,  China 

09/11/03 : 

• The Colombian military has a good idea where Marxist rebels are holding three U.S. Defense Department contractors hostage but has not attempted to rescue them for fear of endangering their lives, the Colombian defense minister said on Friday : Colombians say know where US hostages held  - Reuters AlertNet

06/11/03 : 

• Colombian troops killed a regional rebel commander, the fifth guerrilla leader slain in less than a month, a top army general said Tuesday.
  
  Luis Alexis Castellanos Garzon of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, died in a firefight Sunday night along with another rebel in Ubala, 30 miles east of Bogota, said Gen. Reynaldo Castellanos, commander of the army's Fifth Division.
  
  The army believes Castellanos Garzon led a 1999 ambush on an army column that left 36 soldiers dead : Colombia Troops Kill Another Rebel Leader Newsday

04/11/03 : 

• Luis Eduardo Garzon is hardly part of Colombia's ruling elite. He doesn't own a tie, he didn't finish college, and he hangs out in sweaty salsa clubs.

But after a turbulent electoral weekend, he has streaked into the stratosphere — a former golf caddie turned shining star of Colombia's emergent left-wing political force.

Portly and unpretentious, Garzon won 47% of the vote in municipal elections Oct. 26 to become mayor-elect of the bustling capital, Bogota. The victory put his fledgling party, the Independent Democratic Pole, on the map and placed Garzon in the most visible government post outside the presidential palace.

"I'm a Marxist-Lennonist," said Garzon, who began his political life as a Communist but has since moderated his stance. "Marxist for the Marx Brothers, and Lennonist for [John] Lennon. My style of government will be authentic. There won't be any liposuction."

Offbeat Leftist's New Take on Bogota (Los Angeles Times)

02/11/03 : 

• Katarina Tomasevski, the special United Nations rapporteur on the right to education, has expressed concern over the impunity surrounding the murders of 650 teachers and of 70 university professors and students since 1993 in Colombia. Those figures were provided by the 280,000-member Colombian Federation of Educators (FECODE), the national teachers' union, in a report presented to the special U.N. rapporteur.

Since 2000, 191 teachers have been killed, including 58 slain since President Alvaro Uribe took office on Aug. 7, 2002, according to FECODE.

Katarina Tomasevski, a lawyer and professor at Lund University in Sweden, has worked in the field of human rights for two decades. She first visited Colombia 25 years ago to carry out a study on minors in prisons.

Since her first visit, Colombia's armed conflict has increased in brutality and scope, and the state's military budget has grown with the help of millions in U.S. aid, at the expense of social areas like education, she said.

"For this government [the administration of right-wing President Alvaro Uribe] the top priority is military spending," which "is not a productive investment," Tomasevski commented. "Spending on education should be expanded by 30 percent, "to invest in a peaceful future for the country".

In Tomasevski's opinion, "the most dangerous aspect is the fragmentation of Colombian society. "One of the complaints I heard from the children was that education in Colombia is classist - poor children and rich children never meet. So how can dialogue and a common strategy be created if the children never talk to each other?" Tomasevski asked.

"It is very difficult to work with the students" in the midst of the various armed groups involved in the armed conflict, including the state security forces, because "there is no protection to isolate the schools from the conflict."

The police offer candy and other rewards to children who join the networks of informers, while the right-wing paramilitary groups and left-wing guerrillas offer them salaries, said a teacher, who earns $125 a month, less than half of what she said the paramilitaries pay one of her students, a 16-year-old boy.

Oscar Ramón, with FECODE's Human Rights Commission, declared that more than 50 teachers were forced to flee the eastern department of Arauca -- his home province -- in the past year and a half, after receiving death threats, including 30 in the municipality of Tame alone.

The special rapporteur said that "after a teacher is murdered, the person replacing them cannot explain why the murder happened, because it is too dangerous to talk."

Teachers, trade unionists, social activists and human rights defenders are frequent targets of human rights abuses, including murder, in Colombia, especially at the hands of paramilitary groups.

The special rapporteur will present her final report in March or April 2004 at the annual session of the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva, at which point the Colombian government will have the opportunity to include its own comments and observations : Murder of Teachers Goes Unchecked, U.N. Finds GlobalInfo.org

News Sept.-Oct 03
News July-August 03
News May-June 03

www.Betancourt.info