Ex-Guerrilla Gustavo Petro Risked All to Prod the Government to Look into Officials' Ties to Illegal Militias. Dozens in Congress Could Be Charged. BOGOTA, COLOMBIA -- Some may object to his politics, but few question the courage of leftist Colombian Sen. Gustavo Petro, whose five-year campaign to prod the government into investigating elected officials' links to illegal paramilitary groups finally bore fruit this month. Colombia's Supreme Court issued arrest orders for three sitting members of Congress and one former member as well as an ex-governor on charges including murder, electoral fraud and diversion of public funds in collusion with right-wing militia leaders. All charged are from the northern state of Sucre and all but the ex-governor, Salvador Arana, are behind bars. [continues 1132 words]
The United States Is Pulling Some of Its Resources Out of a Key Battleground in the War Against Drugs. BOGOTA - After several years of trying to wean farmers from the drug trade in the conflictive southern province of Caqueta, the U.S. government is winding down its funding of alternative development programs in the region. The pullout comes amid a flurry of criticism of U.S.-backed efforts to eliminate illegal drug production in Colombia, and just before the U.S. Congress is expected to vote to continue aid for counter-drug programs in this nation of 41 million people. [continues 1017 words]
Some Politicians Arrested, Linked To Death Squads BOGOTA, Colombia - The government of President Alvaro Uribe is being shaken by its most serious political crisis yet, as details emerge about members of Congress who collaborated with right-wing death squads to spread terror and exert political control across Colombia's Caribbean coast. Two senators, Alvaro Garcma and Jairo Merlano, are in custody, as is a congressman, Eric Morris, and a former congresswoman, Muriel Benito. Four local officials have been arrested, and a warrant has been issued for a former governor, Salvador Arana. All are from the state of Sucre, where the attorney general's office has been exhuming bodies from mass graves -- victims of a paramilitary campaign to erode civilian support for Marxist rebels in Colombia's long conflict. [continues 185 words]
IPIALES, COLOMBIA -- With the destruction of a 12-acre opium poppy crop in southern Narino state on Sunday, the Colombian government declared it had rid its territory of all "industrial" plantations of the flower used to make heroin. Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos made the declaration during a media trip to a mountainside poppy field 375 miles southwest of Bogota near the Ecuadorean border, minutes before dozens of troops destroyed the crop with machetes. It was perhaps no coincidence the assertion came as the U.S. Congress was considering extending Plan Colombia, the $600-million anti-drug and terrorism aid package whose effectiveness has been called into question. [continues 476 words]
Investigation Leads to Arrest of Current, Former Officials BOGOTA, Colombia - The government of President Alvaro Uribe is being shaken by its most serious political crisis yet, as details emerge about members of Congress who collaborated with right-wing death squads to spread terror and exert political control across Colombia's Caribbean coast. Two senators, Alvaro Garcia and Jairo Merlano, are in custody, as is a congressman, Eric Morris, and a former congresswoman, Muriel Benito. Four local officials have been arrested, and a warrant has been issued for a former governor, Salvador Arana. All are from the state of Sucre, where the attorney general's office has been exhuming bodies from mass graves -- victims of a paramilitary campaign to erode civilian support for Marxist rebels in Colombia's long conflict. [continues 785 words]
The residents of Bojaya, in the impoverished Colombian province of Choco, know misery. The know of flooding for four months of each year, electricity two to three hours every couple of days, and drinking water obtainable only through rain collection. Their one thing of value -- the town's location along the Atrato River - -- landed them in the middle of a 10-year battle between the left-wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the country's right-wing United Self-Defence Forces (AUC) as the groups vied for control of an important transit zone for illegal drugs and weapons. [continues 684 words]
Six people were shot to death and six others were injured by a roadside bomb this weekend in Buenaventura, where the soaring murder rate this year is making the port city one of Colombia's top killing fields, officials said Sunday. The execution-style murders that included a six-year-old child on Saturday and the bomb on Sunday that injured four soldiers, a police officer and a civilian were blamed by police on drug traffickers, who have turned Buenaventura into a major shipping point for cocaine. [continues 223 words]
BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) -- President Alvaro Uribe vowed Thursday to defeat left-wing rebels and urged foreign governments to take a tough line with the rebel fighters a day after they killed 19 people in an attack. Hundreds of fighters from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, fired homemade mortars on Wednesday in their deadliest assault this year. The authorities said that 17 police officers and 2 civilians were killed in the assault, near Tierradentro. The attack was part of a two-week guerrilla offensive that has shattered hopes of talks to free rebel-held hostages and to set up peace negotiations with Mr. Uribe, who has been backed by the United States in his effort to end Latin America's longest-running insurgency. [continues 236 words]
Colombia Cites Celebrity Users Colombia's vice president is taking a hard-hitting anti-drug message to Europe, complaining about cocaine-snorting celebrities who he says are financing the drug-fueled civil conflict bleeding this South American nation. Vice President Francisco Santos spoke of supermodel Kate Moss, although she doesn't appear in the ads that he planned to unveil in London today, along with 13 European anti-drug czars. Santos called Moss a perfect example of liberal European attitudes toward drug use because she is enjoying a career comeback after a British tabloid last year published photos of her apparently snorting cocaine. [continues 323 words]
Colombia's vice president is taking a hard-hitting anti-drug message to Europe, complaining about cocaine-snorting celebrities who he says are financing the drug-fueled civil conflict bleeding this South American nation. Vice President Francisco Santos spoke of supermodel Kate Moss, although she doesn't appear in the ads that he planned to unveil today in London along with 13 European anti-drug czars. Santos called Moss a perfect example of liberal European attitudes toward drug use because she is enjoying a career comeback after a British tabloid last year published photos of her apparently snorting cocaine. [continues 410 words]
Colombia's vice president has it out for coke-snorting celebrities, targeting people like supermodel Kate Moss who he said are directly financing his country's violent, drug-fueled civil conflict. "Cocaine not only destroys you, it also destroys a country," is the theme of a hard-hitting Colombian-led advertising campaign designed to change attitudes among Europeans about their booming cocaine habit in the same way that "Just Say No" did in the United States. Moss herself doesn't appear in the ads, but Vice President Francisco Santos said she's a perfect example of liberal European attitudes toward drug use -- she's enjoyed a career comeback even after a British tabloid published photos of her apparently snorting cocaine. [continues 536 words]
They Claim Union Was Targeted, But Company Blames Bottom Line FACATATIVA, Colombia - When workers at Colombia's largest flower grower organized themselves into a union a few years ago, they won protections against overly long hours, potentially dangerous exposure to pesticides and other abuses. But in an increasingly globalized economy, the effort may also have cost the employees of Dole Food's flower division their jobs. Last week, Estela Yepes was on her way out of work at the Splendor-Corzo flower farm outside of Bogota, the Colombian capital, when she was handed a one-page letter. [continues 622 words]
Demobilized Paramilitaries Are Sidestepping Justice, Critics And Victims Say BARRANCABERMEJA, Colombia -- In the midst of a relentless conflict, Colombia's government and its ally, the Bush administration, are hailing the demobilization of 32,000 fighters from right-wing paramilitary groups -- a disarmament that authorities here say is larger than any of those that closed out Central America's civil wars in the 1990s. But another, far more critical picture of the disarmament has emerged in recent months, drawn from the accounts of rights groups, victims of Colombia's murky, drug-fueled conflict, and even a report from the Attorney General's Office. Paramilitary commanders, according to these accounts, have killed hundreds of people in violation of a cease-fire, trafficked cocaine and stolen millions of dollars from state institutions they had infiltrated. [continues 1342 words]
SAN JOSE DEL FRAGUA, Colombia -- A $4 billion battle to wean Colombian farmers off the cocaine trade through a combination of military might and American aid is quietly being cut back in a region where cocaine production is surging. In an internal memo, the United States Agency for International Development cites unacceptable security risks for its workers and a lack of private investment partners for its pullout from Caqueta State. Six years and more than $4 billion in American tax dollars after Plan Colombia began in Caqueta, coca, the raw ingredient of cocaine, is still the region's No. 1 cash crop. But the programs meant to provide farmers with a profitable alternative to growing coca are vanishing. [continues 101 words]
SAN JOSE DEL FRAGUA, Colombia -- The United States is quietly cutting back economic aid in a region where cocaine production is surging, a strategy critics say hurts Washington's $4 billion effort to try to wean Colombia off the illegal drug trade. In an internal memo obtained by the Associated Press, the U.S. Agency for International Development blames unacceptable security risks for its workers and a lack of private investment partners for its pullout from Caqueta, a former rebel stronghold in impoverished southern Colombia. [continues 735 words]
SAN JOSE DEL FRAGUA, Colombia - The United States is quietly cutting back economic aid in a region where cocaine production is surging, a strategy critics say hurts Washington's $4 billion effort to try to wean Colombia off the illegal drug trade. In an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press, the U.S. Agency for International Development blames unacceptable security risks for its workers and a lack of private investment partners for its pullout from Caqueta, a former rebel stronghold in impoverished southern Colombia. [continues 209 words]
SAN JOSE DEL FRAGUA, Colombia - The United States is quietly cutting back economic aid in a region where cocaine production is surging, a strategy critics say hurts Washington's $4 billion effort to try to wean Colombia off the illegal drug trade. In an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press, the U.S. Agency for International Development blames unacceptable security risks for its workers and a lack of private investment partners for its pullout from Caqueta, a former rebel stronghold in impoverished southern Colombia. [continues 752 words]
President Alvaro Uribe Has Softened His Hard-Line Rhetoric And Signaled He Wants A Prisoner Swap With Colombia's FARC Rebels -- And Perhaps Even Peace Talks BOGOTA - Despite a strong mandate validating his first four years of waging all-out war against leftist rebels, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has opted for a more peaceful beginning to his second term. Since his inauguration in August, Uribe has reached out to leaders of the hemisphere's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC, by offering to swap imprisoned rebels for kidnapped politicians, citizens and soldiers in guerrilla hands. [continues 789 words]
BOGOTA, COLOMBIA - The Colombian soldiers look young. A little disinterested, perhaps. Or maybe just scared. One by one, they politely stand in the spare courtroom and state their names and ranks. They are charged with planning and carrying out the murder of 10 US-trained counternarcotic policemen and a civilian - at the behest of narcotraffickers. But this is simply a preliminary hearing. More than four months after the May 22 massacre in Jamundi, the prosecution of this high-profile case has barely begun. [continues 2021 words]
Why the massacre of an elite US-trained Colombian police team prompted Congress to freeze drug-war funding. JAMUNDI, COLOMBIA - Arcesio Morales Buitrago is in charge of the keys at Mi Casita. A soft-spoken man diagnosed as schizophrenic, he is the doyen of the patients at the leafy psychiatric home. On May 22, right after the Monday afternoon bingo game, three cars skidded to a halt on the road that dead ends at Mi Casita. Ten men in blue jeans and police vests and one man in a ski mask piled out. [continues 2252 words]
Inside Colombia
