InfoBrief – February 14, 2005
InfoBrief is a weekly news summary of events in the U.S. and Colombia produced and distributed by the U.S. Office on Colombia. Colombia This Week is reproduced with the kind permission of the ABColombia Group in London. Other sources include U.S. and Latin American newspapers, and reports from non-profit and grassroots groups. The content does not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Office on Colombia. If you would like to receive InfoBrief please contact jess_hunter@usofficeoncolombia.org indicating why you would be interested in this weekly news service. Previous editions of the InfoBrief can be found at www.usofficeoncolombia.org
U.S. Current Affairs and Media
- President Bush Requests Similar Spending Levels for Colombia in 2006 Budget The White House has proposed little change in funding for Colombia in the next fiscal year despite calls by some members of Congress to reduce military aid and to increase spending on social programs at the scheduled end of Plan Colombia. According to initial budget figures released Monday, the Bush administration has asked Congress for $463 million for Colombia through the Andean Counterdrug Initiative, including $311 million for anti-drug operations, $125 million for alternative development and institution building and $27 million for rule of law. The proposal calls for an additional $90 million in Foreign Military Financing, including continued funding for Colombian army units protecting the Caño Limon - Coveñas oil pipeline. The independent Center for International Policy (CIP) estimates total proposed funding for Colombia in fiscal year 2006 reaches just over $740 million, a level consistent with the amount provided annually to Colombia since 2003. CIP estimates 80% of this assistance will be provided to Colombia’s security forces with only 20% going to non-military programs. A State Department official who requested anonymity suggested it is not yet the moment to shift the military-social aid balance. “The intent is indeed to change the focus as the military phase achieves success. We are achieving success but we're not there yet,” he said. The budget request coincided with a series of rebel attacks against the Colombian military resulting in the deaths of 45 soldiers in nine days and raising concerns that the guerrillas have ended a two-year retreat. Robert Novak suggested that the timing “could not be worse” for President Alvaro Uribe's conservative government. “Colombia, which has been depicted as a great success story, has all the earmarks of dreaded stalemate,” wrote Novak. See the State Department's International Affairs budget request: http://www.state.gov/m/rm/rls/iab/2006/html/ See CIP’s summary table estimates of U.S. aid to Colombia since 1997, including the 2006 request: http://ciponline.org/colombia/aidtable.htm
- Bogotá Presents New Bill to Congress to Govern Paramilitary Demobilizations On Wednesday the Colombian government presented a law to Congress which would serve as a legal framework for the ongoing paramilitary demobilization process. The “Justice and Peace Law” was presented to a special congressional session called by the government to address the legal hole in its negotiations with paramilitary forces. This is the third incarnation of such a law; the first two were pulled back by the government due to overwhelming concern about weaknesses in dealing with members of the paramilitaries who committed crimes against humanity. While presenting the law to Congress, Sabas Pretelt de la Vega, Colombia’s Interior and Justice Minister, said the law attempts to “find an adequate relationship, an equilibrium, between justice and peace that allows us to satisfy (our) interests in the first at the same time as we work quickly and effectively to overcome the problems of violence that have caused so much suffering in the country.” There are other bills before the Congress addressing the topic, including a tougher bill presented by a coalition of congresspeople led by Senator Rafael Pardo, a former defense minister. Colombia’s Peace Commissioner, Luis Carlos Restrepo, called the Pardo bill “a torpedo” in the process and claimed that with such a bill ”there would be no collective demobilizations.” On Saturday U.S. Ambassador William Wood expressed support for the government’s bill, while calling for the “incorporation of some of the ideas of the principal alternative drafts.” Wood indicated that “the U.S. has urged, for more than a year, rapid action to debate and approve a bill in the Congress with wide support, to help dismantle the demobilizing groups…and provide the foundation of security necessary for long-term peace, social equity, and development.” Read the Colombian government’s “Justice and Peace Law”: http://www.presidencia.gov.co/sne/2005/febrero/09/11092005.htm
- Drug Czar Hails Effectiveness of Eradication Program In testimony before a congressional subcommittee on February 10, John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said cocaine production has dropped for three straight years in Colombia and the Andean region. Production in region is headed in “the right direction -- down,” said Walters. The Colombian National Police sprayed 131,824 hectares in 2004, the fourth consecutive record year for eradication of coca in Colombia, which has cut Colombia's potential cocaine production by one-third since 2001, according to Walters. The massive spraying of coca left many coca growers in the “unenviable position” of replanting coca at a furious pace to maintain production, relocating to other areas to plant their crop or getting out of the coca-growing business altogether, said Walters. “When Colombia is producing one-third less cocaine than it was just two years earlier, there simply is less to go around,” he suggested. Walters failed to indicate why these dramatic results in Colombia have had little impact on the price and availability of drugs on U.S. streets, a question raised by critics, including the Washington Office on Latin America in a report released late last year. Read Mr. Walter’s full testimony: http://reform.house.gov/UploadedFiles/John%20P.%20Walters%20ONDCP%20Testimony.pdf Read WOLA’s report: http://www.wola.org/publications/ddhr_measures_brief.pdf
- On Anniversary of Capture, US Calls for Release of Contractors At a solemn February 11 remembrance ceremony in Bogotá, U.S. Ambassador William Wood said the “last year has been one of hope, but ultimately disappointment,” as Colombia and the U.S. have been unable to secure the release of three American hostages held by the FARC guerrillas since their plane went down in rebel-held territory in February 2003. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in a statement that since then “U.S. and Colombian authorities have worked tirelessly for the release of (Marc) Gonsalves, (Thomas) Howes, and (Keith) Stansell, and to bring to justice the persons responsible for their kidnapping and for the murder of their colleagues.” Boucher called on the FARC to release the hostages “immediately and unharmed.” Jo Rosano, mother of captive Marc Gonsalves, says the U.S. government has not done enough for the hostages. “I am very upset with the U.S. government. During the past two years they have told me that they are doing everything they can and that this is a high priority issue. The U.S. government is lying,” said Rosano.
Upcoming Events and Seminars in the U.S.
- On March 11-14, 2005, the Ecumenical Advocacy Days for Global Peace with Justice will hold its annual gathering in Washington, D.C., addressing urgent global issues such as peaceful solutions to conflicts and the need for aid, debt and trade policies that benefit impoverished people throughout the world. Colombia will be a focus of the Latin America track. For more information, please refer to http://www.advocacydays.org/ or contact info@advocacydays.org
Colombia This Week is reproduced with the kind permission of the ABColombia Group in London
Colombia This Week editing date: 02/14/05
Fri 04 – Meeting with Chavez and European tour delayed; Santos jumps into donor debate
- President Uribe postpones trips to Venezuela and Europe after doctors order him to rest for at least four days to recover from an ear infection. Uribe had been due to travel to Venezuela on Friday to meet President Hugo Chavez and to end a diplomatic dispute. He was scheduled to leave for Madrid at the weekend for a five-day visit to Spain, France and Brussels, El Tiempo reports.
- Vice President Francisco Santos says the principle of truth sought by the donor countries in the Cartagena meeting last week ‘does not necessarily require that the paramilitaries confess’. "You can work around that," he said. "This is not a process of surrender. It is a peace process." Senator Rafael Pardo recently told Reuters he expected resistance from members of Colombia's elite who do not want the paramilitaries to divulge "uncomfortable" information that may implicate them. "Confession means truth," Pardo said. "But truth is not desired by people who have supported the guerrilla or the paramilitaries financially or have collaborated with these groups in other ways", Reuters reports.
- Armed forces Chief Gen. Carlos Alberto Ospina downplays bloody attacks by FARC guerrillas that have killed 28 Colombian soldiers this week, saying the rebels were retreating from successful military operations. For the past year, the government has trumpeted the successes of its U.S.-trained military in battling the FARC. "With each day their capacity is declining," Ospina told Caracol radio.
- Local authorities accuse FARC members of killing four civilians in the municipality of Barbacoas. The Mayor of Barbacoas (Nariño) also reports that villagers in the area fear the announced demobilisation of the paramilitary bloc “Libertadores del Sur” and are preparing to flee, calling upon the Colombian government to reinforce security in the area, El Pais reports.
Sat 05 – Choco communities isolated by armed groups; Mapiripan trail uncovers compliance.
- The 900 inhabitants of the municipality of Condoto (Choco) complete a week isolated in their communities as a paramilitary group is blockading the area, raising concerns about a humanitarian crisis, According to reports, the FARC and the AUC are fighting for the control of gold mines and illicit crops in the area, AFP reports.
- Semana magazine reports that for the first time two former Colombian Army officials with more than 30 years of military employment are confessing under oath that influential sectors within the Colombian armed forces are closely related with the paramilitaries. One whistle-blower is former Army General Jaime Umberto Uscategui and the other is former Colonel Hernan Orozco, both in trial for the massacre of Mapiripan and accused by the Attorney General’s office of negligence in stopping the paramilitaries from committing one of the most infamous acts of brutality in recent memory.
- Reporting on the difficulties in the paramilitary negotiation process, Mauricio Romero, an expert on the paramilitary phenomenon at Colombian External University argues that the government moved too quickly to demobilise thousands of young troops, putting political considerations first. "The national government has acted in an impromptu way and has even given priority to the political benefit of demobilisation instead of what's going to happen to these boys," Mr. Romero says. Romero argues that the $156 monthly government stipend, paid to ex-combatants for 18 months, is not sufficient for young men used to earning a living from crime. "These boys might be satisfied for the moment, but that's not going to last for very long," he says, Christian Science Monitor reports.
Sun 06- Colombia looks forward to a new deal with IMF; how costly is Lemoyne’s departure?
- Colombia may get a new 18-month standby agreement with the International Monetary Fund in April. Robert Rennhack, chief of the IMF's Colombia mission, declined to speculate what fiscal goals might be included in the pact. Colombia is looking for a smaller and more flexible deal than its current $2.2 billion pact under which the country pledged to reduce its consolidated fiscal deficit, which includes debt payments, to 2.5 percent of gross domestic product from 2.8 percent in 2003, Reuters reports.
- In an article in El Tiempo, Laura Gil reports that despite the position maintained by the Colombian government over the departure of the UN Secretary General Special Envoy for Colombia, James Lemoyne, Colombians are losing one of the best advocates for peace. Criticising the government for not respecting the principle of impartiality in the facilitation process, she also added that from now on it will be more difficult for the Colombian government to have such an envoy, since Kofi Annan was clear in stating that in the future it will be necessary for both sides to request this support.
Mon 07 – OAS mission to open field office in Arauca as security of civilians still worsening.
- The Organisation of American States, official monitor of the paramilitary negotiation process, indicates that it may open an office in Arauca (Tame) as a result of community denunciations about violence by paramilitaries operating in this area. Caramagna, head of the OAS mission, said that if the complaints were found to be valid, it could affect the negotiation process. 30 people have been killed so far this year in this department, El Tiempo reports.
- In three different roadblocks between the cities of Pasto and Tumaco, members of the FARC set alight ten vehicles and four public buses. They also retained six people who were liberated hours later by Colombian police forces . The Interior Secretary for the Nariño region, Fabio Trujillo reports that the FARC’s 29 th front has intensified its offensive in the area, and authorities have pledged reinforcements to patrol the roads of the area, AFP reports.
- The Joel Sierra Regional Human Rights Committee from Arauca reports the killing of three civilians in Tame and Saravena by unknown assassins. Manuel de Jesus Ascanio, killed in Tame, Adrian Lindarte Escalante, a 23-year-old lawyer killed in a roadblock between Saravena and Fortul and Angel Maria Arias, local trader from Saravena. The statement also denounces the arbitrary detentions that armed forces are carrying out, whereby those arrested by the Army are forced to ride on the back of military bikes through the city, risking their lives.
Tues 08 – Bush to maintain ‘drugs strategy’ in Colombia; Nobel winners meet in Cali.
- The Bush administration is proposing to keep military counter-drug aid to Colombia almost unchanged in the next fiscal year despite calls by some members of Congress to spend more on social programmes. Bush is asking Congress to allot $550 million to combat drugs in Colombia in fiscal year 2006, with the military and police receiving more than $393 million, about $10 million less than in fiscal 2005, a State Department official said. Non-military programmes would receive only ''very tepid'' increases, he added. For instance, funding for programmes to help coca farmers switch to other crops would rise by just $100,000, to $125 million.
- Former Nobel Peace prize winners, Jose Ramos Horta from East Timor and Desmond Tutu, Archbishop from South Africa, travel to Cali to attend an international conference on restorative justice. This model, that gives victims a key role in the peace process by deciding the kind of reparation they think is most suitable, is used as an alternative way to resolve violent conflicts, El Pais reports.
- Colombia's trade minister says that any free trade agreement with the United States should allow for a gradual lifting of trade barriers rather than imposing a tariff-free rule on all products at once. "Each product should have its own timetable," said Jorge Humberto Botero in Cartagena where negotiators from Colombia, the United States, Ecuador and Peru are discussing a possible free-trade deal, Colprensa reports.
Wed 09- Report clouds BP indecent profits; praise for Gaviria as leftist candidate
- In a press release, UK-based NGO War on Want reports that as British Petroleum (BP) announces its huge profits (more than £8 bn) for last year, a new report highlights the continuing trauma facing people who have stood up to the company’s activities in Colombia. A report published by the Social Observatory of Colombia (Observatorio Social) records the testimony of those who spoke out against BP in the past and still live in fear of their lives. Many have been forced into hiding. Louise Richards, Chief Executive of War on Want, said: “The testimonies collected by our Colombian partners are deeply worrying. A culture of fear has enveloped many Colombians, making it impossible for people to feel secure. BP’s profits announcement may cheer the company’s shareholders, but it provides no consolation for those living with BP’s operations in Colombia.”
- 417 writers, intellectuals, artists and Colombian professionals sign a public letter in support of the candidacy of Senator Carlos Gaviria for the presidency of the Republic. In the letter they also highlight the difficult moment Colombia is undergoing, ‘in which the opposition is stigmatised as ‘anti-patriotic’, pledging their support for this candidate from the Democratic Alternative.
- Alfredo Rangel, analyst and former adviser to the defence ministry, says blame for the FARC attacks on public forces over the last week could also be placed on the government itself, which he claims has been overly boisterous in singing its victories over rebels. "The triumphant attitude of the government and the military brass can have the perverse effect of lowering the troops' alert level," Colprensa reports.
Thurs 10- FARC kill 20 army troops in Pavarando (Uraba); rich grab half Colombia poor fund.
- FARC members kill at least 20 Colombian soldiers in the deadliest attack on the armed forces in years, the army reports. The combats, in which the army claim that 11 guerrilla fighters were also killed, happened in the area of Pavarando, in the municipality of Mutata, and are the third major FARC assault this month. The killings represent a bloody rebuttal of army claims that guerrillas have been pushed into retreat and are a blow to President Uribe's security policies, Reuters reports.
- Half of the money put aside by the Colombian government to help the country's poor is benefiting people who do not need it, a study has found. A total of 24.2 trillion pesos (£5.5bn) are earmarked for subsidies for the poor, the government department for planning said. But it also found 12.1 trillion pesos was going to the richest part of the population, rather than to those in need. Sound distribution of the cash could cut poverty levels to 36% from 53%, the report said. "Resources are more than enough to reduce poverty and there is no need for more tax reforms but a better distribution," deputy planning director Jose Leibovich said, BBC reports.
- The UN Human Rights Office in Colombia calls upon the Colombian government to investigate the authors of the massacre that took place in San Carlos last week and to provide reparation to the victims. The statement adds that both the FARC and the AUC have presence in the area, urging the authorities to protect the civilians from both armed groups.
- The Bush administration reports that they are troubled by Russian plans to sell Venezuela arms that U.S. officials suggest could be used to aid leftist guerrillas in Latin America. The arms agreement announced last year by Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez would provide 100,000 automatic rifles and a number of helicopters. But Venezuela's ambassador to the United States, Bernardo Alvarez, said that there appeared to be a campaign to discredit his country underway, featuring critical media coverage attributed to unnamed officials. "It's clear that there is an orchestrated campaign. I don't know why, but the thing is to create the impression that we are a hostile country, a terrorist country, a pariah state," Alvarez said, Reuters reports.
Colombia This Week is a news summary produced and distributed by ABColombia Group. Sources include daily Colombian, US, European and Latin American newspapers, and reports from non-governmental organisations and the UN System. The content does not necessarily reflect the views of the ABColombia Group.
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