InfoBrief – March 28, 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

• Coca Remains Steady Despite Record Fumigation Coca production levels in Colombia were “statistically unchanged” in 2004, remaining at 114,000 hectares despite a record-high level of fumigation, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). Colombia, source of 80 percent of the world's cocaine and 90% of cocaine on U.S. streets, had seen consecutive noteworthy decreases in coca production from a peak of 169,800 hectares in 2001 to 113,850 in 2003. ONDCP maintained that 2004 was still a positive year for U.S.-funded aerial eradication as it “thwart[ed] coca growers' efforts to expand the crop” and potential production decreased. Drug policy experts interpret the statistics differently. “The U.S. Government’s own data provides stark evidence that the ‘drug war’ is failing to achieve its most basic objectives,” said John Walsh, WOLA Senior Associate for Drug Policy. “Policymakers should review the data and reconsider the billions being spent on an ineffective policy.” Adam Isacson, a Colombia expert with the Center for International Policy in Washington, said the White House report indicates that this policy is failing to keep people from planting coca. “The inescapable conclusion we can draw from this data is that our fumigation program is not discouraging Colombian peasants from growing coca,” Isacson said. But U.S. officials suggest steady cultivation numbers are due to drug traffickers replanting as quickly as possible to maintain production. “What you have now is hard-core cultivators...who are faced with extinction of their business, and what they are doing is they're staying put and replanting as rapidly as they can and we're coming back and hitting them with eradication,” said David Murray, a senior drug policy official. More positive results were reported regarding opium poppy cultivation, which fell 52 percent last year, from 4,400 hectares in 2003 to 2,100 hectares in 2004. More than 4,000 hectares of opium poppy were sprayed or manually eradicated in 2004, according to ONDCP figures.

• Amnesty International Calls for Justice for Peace Community after Uribe ’s Comments Amnesty International called for “full and impartial investigations” and an “end to the impunity that has protected those responsible for human rights violations” on Wednesday in response to statements made by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe accusing members of the San Jose de Apartado Peace Community of having connections with rebels. In a public statement on March 20, Uribe claimed that community leaders and supporters are connected to FARC guerillas and “use the community to protect this terrorist organization.” Uribe’s statements came after the February 21 st massacre in which eight members of the San Apartado Peace community were murdered. Several witnesses and reports have implicated members of the Colombian armed forces in the murders although Colombian military leaders and President Uribe have adamantly denied such accusations. President Uribe also accused members of the peace community of “seeking to obstruct justice” in the massacre investigation. Amnesty expressed their concern that Uribe’s accusations put the San Jose de Apartado community at risk. “Accusing members of the Peace Community of collaborating with guerrilla groups places the community at greater risk of attacks from army-backed paramilitaries. These statements, as well as comments made by the Minister of Defense denying army responsibility in the February massacre, also raise concerns that a full and impartial investigation into the massacre could be seriously compromised,” Amnesty International said. The human rights group condemned the impunity that has surrounded cases of human rights violations, pointing out that only two people are being held on charges for more than 150 killings in the last eight years. Amnesty called on the Colombian government “to concentrate its efforts in creating the conditions for the truth to emerge” regarding the most recent massacre and other killings of community members. Read Amnesty International’s statement: http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR230042005?open&of=ENG-COL

• U.S. Intelligence Confirms FARC Expansion into Central America U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement authorities believe that members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerilla group have expanded their operations into parts of Central America to include cells located in Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. The officials suggested that the expansion is an attempt by FARC to strengthen and expand its drug and arms-trafficking in the region. Honduran Security Minister Oscar Alvarez confirmed the presence of FARC members in three Central American countries last week and said that at least three Hondurans had been identified as having been involved in trading automatic weapons and assault rifles originating from Nicaragua’s civil war in the 1980s with the FARC in exchange for drugs. Alvarez suggested the FARC is seeking to “infiltrate Central America to buy more weapons and destabilize the rule of law…” General Bantz J. Craddock, head of the Southern Command, told the House Armed Services Committee earlier this month that the security of many nations in Latin America was threatened by regional terrorist organizations supported and funded by illegal drug trafficking and other criminal ventures, including the FARC. Craddock told the committee that the Colombia government’s military offensive is “ slowly strangling” FARC operations in large parts of Colombia. But he added that this success “has pushed the illegal armed groups to seek refuge across neighboring borders.”

• Drug Smuggling Submarine Found in Port in Tumaco, Colombia Colombian Secret Police (DAS) officials, acting on a tip that sparked a six-month investigation, discovered a virtually complete submarine built by drug-traffickers in an apparent scheme to smuggle illicit drugs to the United States. The homemade submarine, hidden in a port in Tumaco, near the Colombian border with Ecuador, was capable of carrying up to 10 tons of cocaine, worth as much as $300 million on U.S. streets. “The ingenuity of drug traffickers is amazing,” Eduardo Fernandez, head of the DAS in Valle de Cauca told The Associated Press. “They will do anything to avoid the Coast Guard.” Fernandez said the submarine could have been used to carry cocaine offshore where it would be transferred to speed boats and transported to the United States. Although no arrests were made, authorities suspect the notorious Norte de Valle cartel was behind the submarine’s construction. U.S. authorities have called the cartel Colombia’s largest and most feared narcotics organization and estimate that it is responsible for trafficking between 30% and 50% of the cocaine that enters the United States.

Upcoming Events and Seminars in the U.S.

The U.S. Office on Colombia (USOC) invites you to attend a briefing on the effects of Colombia’s conflict on lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transvestites and transgender (LGBT) individuals sponsored by Representative Sam Farr’s office on Thursday, April 21 at 2:00pm in room 1537 of the Longworth House Office Building in Washington, D.C. USOC will present key findings from its research document highlighting the effects of the forty year conflict on LGBT communities. Representatives of Colombia’s Proyecto Colombia Diversa and the USOC will offer recommendations for U.S. policy. For more information, please contact hilton_robinson@usofficeoncolombia.org.

Colombia This Week is reproduced with the kind permission of the ABColombia Group in London

Colombia This Week editing date 03/28/05

Fri 25 - Cocaine smuggling submarine busted in Tumaco; FARC rejects extradition policy.

• Colombian police find a homemade submarine capable of carrying $200 million (107.8 million pounds) worth of cocaine on a Pacific Ocean smuggling mission. Police, who acted on a tip, made no arrests after finding the submarine hidden in the port of Tumaco, near the border with Ecuador, the Administrative Security Department detective force (DAS) said. The vessel has the capacity to carry 10 tonnes of cocaine, which could be worth from $200 million to $300 million on US streets, Reuters reports.
• A statement posted by the FARC on its website urges the Colombian Congress and the Supreme Court to stop allowing extraditions of Colombians to the United States, calling the practice an “abominable” violation of sovereignty, RCN radio reports.
• Venezuelan Defence Minister Gen. Jorge Luis Garcia denies the information provided by the Colombian authorities that troops from his country entered Colombia last Monday, El Universal reports.

Sat 26 – Killed Congressman was in Ralito days before; Colombian plane crashes in Providence.

• An article in Cambio magazine reports that days before Congressman Jose Oscar Gonzalez was shot dead in the city of Manizales (18 th March), he visited the paramilitary haven of Santa Fe de Ralito along with Congresswoman Rocio Arias. According to reports, he met with the paramilitary commanders, including Ivan Roberto Duque, alias Ernesto Baez, with whom he had a private meeting.
• A commercial plane crashes while taking off from the tiny Colombian island of Old Providence, killing eight people, including a 3-year-old boy, and injuring six other passengers, authorities say. The West Caribbean Airways plane was carrying mostly tourists from the Caribbean island of Old Providence to another nearby Colombian island, San Andres, off the coast of Nicaragua, Colprensa reports.
• An international women’s march calling for an end to violence and poverty is to arrive in Colombia after visiting 53 nations. A communique from the Mesa de Mujer y Economia (Women and Economy) stated that Ecuadorian women will provide their Colombian peers with a blanket and a letter containing declarations on their universal rights. The ceremony will take place at the Rumichaca Bridge and the blanket and documents will remain there until 7th April, when they will be given to Haitian counterparts, Latin Press reports.

Sun 27 – Bus crash kills 14 people in Pereira; arms-and-drug trafficking ring found in Honduras.

• At least 14 people were killed and more than a dozen injured when a bus carrying Easter Week holidaymakers careered out of control and plunged down a cliff along a highway in Colombia, police said today. The accident occurred last night near the city of Pereira, 110 miles west of the capital, Bogota. All the victims appeared to be Colombians. Authorities worked through the night and into the morning to remove the injured from the mangled wreckage. It was not immediately clear whether human error or mechanical failure was behind the crash, the Scotsman reports.
• Honduran Security Minister Oscar Alvarez reports they have discovered an arms-and-drug trafficking operation linking Colombian rebels and arms traffickers in Honduras and Nicaragua. The arms traffickers in Honduras were shipping mostly AK-47 assault rifles to Colombia's largest rebel group, FARC, in exchange for drugs. Three Hondurans involved in the scheme have been identified, with two in custody and the third managing the operation from within his prison cell, Reuters reports.
• An annual US State Department report on global democracy and human rights criticizes Colombian Armed forces. The report, titled -- Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The U.S. Record 2004-2005 – criticises the long detention before trial as well as abuses committed by some of the security forces, ‘despite the United States having helped Colombia reform its judiciary and train its police’, Miami Herald reports.
• Japan has donated $700,000 to upgrade a rehabilitation centre for landmine victims in southwest Colombia. Some 600 Colombians, mainly soldiers, were killed or wounded last year by antipersonnel mines, SNE reports.

Mon 28 - Three civilians reportedly killed by army; government names peace contacts with ELN.

• The Colombian army has reportedly killed three members of the agricultural workers trade union FENSUAGRO. Javier Alexander Cubillos, Wilder Cubillos and Heriberto Delgado were all farmers from the town of San Juan de Sumapaz. They went missing on 18 th March and days later the Colombia media reported that the army had killed three guerrillas in the area. On 27 th March, the families of the three men identified their bodies in a morgue in the town of Fusagasuga. The Colombian Army has claimed that all three were guerrillas that they killed in combat. However, a coalition of community groups and trade unions in the region have released a public statement saying that all three men were well-known political and peasant activists in the region who were leading members of both their trade union and the local branch of the Colombian Communist Party, UK-based Justice for Colombia reports.
• Peace Commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo reports the government is evaluating progress to date and moving towards a peace process with the ELN group. "The government and the ELN highlight the effective assistance of Mexico and call for international assistance once this new drive for national peace comes to fruition," said Restrepo's statement. The ELN meanwhile sent a letter to the left-leaning Presidents of Brazil, Venezuela and Spain asking them to help the country reach peace and create "a hopeful democracy that will make social justice possible", Alertnet reports.
• Authorities from the settlement of Toche, near the city of Ibague (Tolima) report their concerns after some pamphlets from the Self-Defence forces of Colombia (AUC) were left in a village; the pamphlets threatened 26 people, accusing them of collaboration with guerrilla groups and urging many of them to leave the village within one week, El Colombiano reports.

Tues 29 – UNHCR : m ore Colombians fleeing to Venezuela; Uribe asks neighbours for help.

• Rising numbers of refugees and asylum seekers are moving to urban Venezuela to escape from Colombia’s conflict, UNHCR reports. In Caracas, the UN refugee agency registered more than 700 asylum seekers last year, almost double the number registered in 2003. The profile of asylum seekers has changed, according to Mayris Balza, a representative of UNHCR's implementing partner, Caritas de Venezuela. "The people we receive in our office normally have high social profiles in Colombia. The majority are professionals, human rights activists, union leaders or lawyers," she notes. "They come to the cities because they no longer feel safe at the border. They fear that irregular armed groups can easily identify and persecute them in these areas and that's why they choose to relocate to urban centres," UN news reports.
• President Uribe appeals for international help in bringing peace to Colombia after 40 years of civil war, telling the leaders of Venezuela, Brazil and Spain that the violence is too fierce to confront without their aid. The appeal came during a daylong summit aimed at deepening political alliances and coming up with common approaches to problems ranging from drug trafficking to poverty. “We won’t resolve a problem of that dimension without the help of our neighbours,” Uribe said during the talks at a retreat outside the eastern city of Puerto Ordaz, El Tiempo reports.
• Police in Cali report the killing of Jose Ramiro Tovar, Sub-director of Cali’s main jail Villahermosa. He was reportedly shot dead by gunmen while attending a party with other members of the INPEC (National Institute for the Colombian Penitentiaries). Vistahermosa is one of the most overcrowded jails in Colombia; with capacity for 900 people, today it hosts more than 4,000 prisoners. Ten days ago authorities found an arms arsenal inside the prison and since then two prisoners have been killed, El Tiempo reports.

Weds 30 – UN to consider human rights report on Colombia; mass graves discovered in Sucre.

• The High Commissioner of the United Nations for Human Rights is due to present its report on Colombia on 13 th April, during the 61 session of the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations. 85 Colombian NGOs working in social and human rights issues are to attend this presentation in Geneva, where a report on the human rights situation will be made. The organisations acknowledge that the number of homicides and kidnappings have decreased, but they report that other violations, including torture, illegal detentions, and threats to activists, have increased. The NGOs will ask for a Special Rapporteur as an extra figure in the Office of the High Commissioner, UN news reports.
• Investigators have uncovered five mass graves in San Onofre (Sucre) containing the bodies of 36 people who were killed by suspected paramilitary fighters, authorities say. Forensic experts have begun trying to identify the victims, apparently killed over years. Four suspected paramilitary hit men have been arrested, the attorney general’s office said. ''It is believed that paramilitaries were responsible for all these disappearances and orders,'' an investigator said, “everybody in the region knows they were the ones who came here to spread terror”, El Colombiano reports.
• Lawyers for the three Irishmen convicted of providing terrorist training to the FARC group hope the verdict will be overturned on appeal after a member of the three-judge panel said questionable evidence was allowed in court. Judge Jorge Enrique Torres, in his signed dissenting opinion, said much of the evidence used to convict was “questionable”. Pedro Mahecha, one of the defence lawyers, claimed the dissenting judge’s arguments indicated that the other two judges convicted the trio due to pressure from Colombian politicians and military officials. “Torres clearly points out that there was no certainty of guilt in the case,” Mahecha said. “The ruling was completely politicised,” The Scotsman reports.

Thurs 31- International Criminal Court requests information on atrocities; Zapatero visits Bogota.

• The International Criminal Court asks Colombia for information on alleged atrocities committed by armed groups to determine whether the tribunal should investigate further. The court, based in The Hague, says it steps in to a country only when governments are unwilling or unable to dispense justice. The tribunal made its request in a letter to President Uribe’s administration amid claims from human rights groups that atrocities are being carried out with impunity in the country, Associated Press reports.
• Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero rejects claims he is fuelling an arms race in the Andean region by providing military hardware to Colombia and Venezuela. During a one-day visit to Bogota, h e said that Spain will donate three military planes to Colombia, a day after he signed an agreement to sell eight military patrol ships and 10 transport planes to neighbouring Venezuela. Colombian President Uribe Velez said he has no problem with Spain's sale of military boats and planes to Venezuela, saying: "We trust the decisions of the Spanish government when it comes to arms sales”, El Pais reports.
• Five US Army soldiers are under investigation for using a military plane to smuggle 35 pounds of cocaine from Colombia to the United States, the US authorities reports. The soldiers' identities, hometowns and duties in Colombia were not released. The soldiers had been under surveillance by US and Colombian investigators for ''some time,'' a Colombian defence ministry spokeswoman said. More arrests are expected in the next few days. Officials waited for the soldiers to attempt to enter the United States with the drugs before arresting them, Miami Herald 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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