InfoBrief – April 25, 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
- OAS Study Reports Fumigation Safe for Humans, Cites Concerns for Aquatic Life The Intern-American Drug Abuse Control Commission, an agency of the Organization of American States (OAS), reported that the spraying of coca crop does not harm humans or terrestrial wildlife. The report, requested by the United States, Colombia and the United Kingdom, investigated the human health and environmental effects of the glyphosate mixture used for drug eradication in Colombia. The report concluded that human health risks from exposure to the spray mixture—glyphosate mixed with a surfactant, Cosmo-Flux—were “minimal” while the risk of direct effects for wildlife such as mammals and birds were judged to be “negligible.” But at the same time buried deep in the commission’s 121-page report are concerns about the impact of the spraying on aquatic organisms and amphibians. The report points out that the environmental “toxicity of the mixture of glyphosate and Cosmo-Flux was greater than that reported for formulated glyphosate itself.” This contrasts with the toxicity of the mixture for humans, which was found to be consistent with the levels reported for glyphosate alone. The report states that “aquatic animals and algae in some shallow water bodies may be at risk” from “direct overspray of surface waters.” The report recommends the eradication program “identify mixtures of glyphosate and adjuvants that are less toxic to aquatic organisms than the currently used mixture.” There was no immediate response from the U.S. or Colombian governments to this recommendation. Colombia praised the report. "This scientific study shows us the way. We are doing the right thing and we are going to continue the spraying program," said Colombian Interior Minister Sabas Pretelt. The U.S. has given approximately $4 billion in aid to Colombia over the last five years, much of which has been dedicated to the eradication efforts. Read the full OAS report: http://www.cicad.oas.org/en/glifosateFinalReport.pdf
- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Visit Latin America U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit Ecuador, Colombia, Chile, Brazil, and El Salvador this week, in an attempt to revamp U.S. relations in the Latin American region, a visit the U.S. State Department is calling “very important.” “We have critical allies in Latin America” deputy spokesman for the U.S. Department of State Adam Ereli said. In Colombia, Rice is expected to address the Colombian government’s counter-terrorism and counter-drug endeavors, efforts that are heavily funded by the U.S. government. This is Secretary Rice’s first tour of the region. In Colombia she is expected to give strong words of support for Colombia’s war against outlaw rebels groups. Critics suggested that problems with current U.S. policy in the region should be addressed during Secretary Rice’s visit. “We’re going to hear leaders selling their own evaluation of their own policy’s performance, painting a rosy picture,” said Adam Isacson, director of the Center for International Policy’s Colombia Program. “But the real picture is far more complicated. In fact, it points to an urgent need for a new policy.” After a two-year Colombian army offensive appeared to have rebels on the run, guerrilla groups have mounted high-profile attacks in recent months which have called into question Colombian and U.S. assessments that the guerrillas are significantly weakened.
- UNHCR Concerned by Impact of Colombian Conflict on Indigenous Communities The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) expressed concern this week about increasing levels of attacks against indigenous communities and their leaders and the growing impact of forced displacement on the indigenous peoples of Colombia this year. “There are even fears that, if the present trend continues, some of the smaller and more vulnerable groups and their cultures may actually disappear,” UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond warned. In recent weeks the conflict has displaced as many as 3,500 members of the Nasa indigenous community in southwest Colombia while more than 4,000 Embera people are on the verge of displacement as a result of fighting between armed groups in the northwest. Members of the Nasa tribe from Toribio, Cauca province, fled en masse due to ongoing fighting between rebels and government forces. “For now, it's best the townspeople stay away, because anything could happen,” Police Lieutenant Mike Vargas told The Associated Press earlier this week from the Toribio police outpost hard hit by the fighting. Local communities have dispatched members of the non-violent Indigenous Guard to the area to call on the warring factions to end their fighting. On Thursday Amnesty International condemned the violence in the area and called on the government and guerrilla groups to urgently reach agreement on a human rights and humanitarian accord. There are as many as 80 indigenous groups in Colombia that are disproportionately affected by the conflict. They represent only 2 to 3 percent of the country’s total population but 8 percent of the internally displaced population. “They often become displaced within their remote regions of origin as they try to preserve their ties to their ancestral lands, or else they flee into other remote areas where they cannot easily be detected,” UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond said. A joint report by the ICRC and the World Food Programme indicates that the situation of internally displaced persons in Colombia is critical. The study cites exposure to crime, lack of stable income, insecure housing, lack of access to health and education services, and poor sanitation as major obstacles faced by this group. Read the ICRC/WFP report:
http://www.icrc.org/Web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/6B2KER/$File/Colombia_220305.pdf
- Colombian Drug Traffickers Extradited to the United States Three Colombians were extradited to the U.S. to face drug trafficking charges last week. The three, Elias Cobos-Munoz, Florentino Riviera-Farfan, and Jorge Ivan Lalinde-Lalinde, are allegedly part of the Cobos-Munoz organization which distributed cocaine from Colombia in the U.S. through the Caribbean. “The trafficking organizations we have dismantled were responsible for distributing three metric tons of cocaine in this country every month, amounting to at least 10 to 12 percent of the U.S. cocaine supply,” Durg Enforcement Agency (DEA) Administrator Karen Tandy said. U.S. officials believe the group is responsible for smuggling thousands of kilograms of cocaine into South Florida since the year 2000. Authorities have seized more than 4,000 kilograms of cocaine and indicted at least seven other suspects in the course of the operation. Police from Colombia, the Bahamas, Canada and Panama assisted the DEA in the operation.
Upcoming Events and Seminars in the U.S.
A May Day labor delegation, organized by US/LEAP, is slated to take place April 29th through May 7th. The delegation of four U.S. trade unionists will travel to Bogotá and Barrancabermeja for May Day celebrations and meetings with various trade unions, human rights and labor rights NGOs, and government officials. For more information please contact Alison Paul at: apaul@usleap.org.
Colombia This Week is reproduced with the kind permission of the ABColombia Group in London
Colombia This Week editing date 04/25/05
Fri 15 - 60 paramilitaries not to be pardoned; FARC attacks Toribio and Jambalo, civilians killed.
- About 60 of the 4,820 demobilised members of United Self-Defence forces of Colombia (AUC) will not be pardoned, Peace Commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo reports. The demobilised AUC members are staying in Santa Fe de Ralito, headquarters of the peace talks between the AUC and the government. Those who committed heinous crimes will not be pardoned and are waiting for Congress' decision on the "Justice and Peace" bill, proposed by the government in order to demobilise illegal armed groups, he said. Restrepo also said all members of the paramilitary group will hand over their weapons by the year's end according to the agreement signed with the government, El Colombiano reports.
- Using household compressed gas cylinders as bombs, the FARC group attacks the towns of Toribio and Jambalo, killing three policemen and a girl and wounding 23 people, officials from Cali report. The Indigenous Organisation of Colombia (ONIC) reported 23 people were wounded and four houses were destroyed by 25 cylinder-bombs. The group of indigenous peoples called on the government to take charge of the situation. "This FARC attack is a clear violation of international human rights, but they did not just attack the police, but also the civilian population, said Vitonas, Mayor of Toribio, France Press reports.
Sat 16 – Colombia poses ‘dilemma’ for ‘US war on terrorism’; Coke profits drop.
- Three years after the US authorities included FARC, ELN and AUC groups in the US terrorist list, the Colombian government has requested that the US authorities collaborate with the AUC demobilisation. Under the programme, members of the group who agree to give up a life of ‘narco-terrorism’ could be eligible to receive US- funded job training and Colombian-paid stipends. But US congressional aides and terrorism experts say the laws that Bush has used to fight the terror groups are now keeping him from fully supporting the demobilisation process. The Bush administration has put on hold another $1.25 million in "direct assistance" to fund education and job training for ex-combatants. "There you're talking about spending money on demobilised people themselves, which comes very close to (the question of) are you providing 'material support' to the organisation... Suppose they go back?" a Bush administration official said, Reuters reports.
- Coca-Cola company reports 11 percent drop in first-quarter profit in 2005. The Atlanta-based company said it earned $1 billion, or 42 cents a share, for the January-March period compared to a profit of $1.13 billion, or 46 cents a share, for the same period a year ago. Shareholders questioned the Chief Executive, Neville Isdell, on the killings of several union workers at Coke bottling plants in Colombia and accusations that some of Coke's plants in India have depleted local groundwater, Washington Post reports.
Sun 17 – Mayor Garzon calls upon the government to tackle paramilitary presence in Bogota.
- After holding a meeting with President Uribe Velez, Mayor of Bogota Lucho Garzon reports that authorities must do more to investigate and tackle the presence of paramilitary groups in the streets of Soacha, south of Bogota. After seeing the intelligence reports, Garzon said ‘reports indicate that commanders concentrated in Santa Fe de Ralito are behind the strategy, and we will not allow the Central Bolivar bloc of the self-defence forces (AUC) to control the city’. 88 youngsters have been killed in 2005 by paramilitary gunmen despite the police patrols, El Tiempo reports.
- The Colombian military justice system absolves the two officers and 10 soldiers involved in the Guaitarilla killing in March last year, in which 7 police officers and 5 civilians were killed. The sentence blames investigators for manipulating the evidence, concluding that the incident was an ‘armed combat’ sparked by fire from the police, Colprensa reports.
- A Venezuelan National Guard patrol has captured five members of the United Self-defence Forces of Colombia (AUC) and seized a cache of arms and ammunition in Yapacana, south Venezuela, Reuters reports.
- Government security forces killed five leftist guerrillas in the mountainous northern Colombian area of Montes de Maria on the border between Sucre and Bolivar provinces, authorities say. Another ten rebels were also reportedly killed in battles in the northern provinces of Antioquia and Choco, El Tiempo reports.
Mon 18- ELN rejects mediation by Mexico; 37 police officers charged with corruption.
- In a statement to the press, the National Liberation Army (ELN) rejects Mexico as a mediator after almost a year of behind-the-scenes work. The ELN said that it objected to a recent vote by the Mexican government condemning human rights abuses in Cuba. "The current Mexican government is not qualified to facilitate peace in Colombia," the ELN said, adding that the rebel army had "an irrevocable commitment to seeking peace." The group wants President Uribe to free ELN prisoners from Colombian jails and negotiate a bilateral cease-fire. Uribe has said the ELN, which funds itself by kidnapping, must unilaterally disarm if talks are to take place. While the country's biggest guerrilla force, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, and right-wing paramilitary militias have grown rich on the huge cocaine business, the ELN has officially sworn off drug smuggling, Reuters reports.
- The Colombian Prosecutor’s office (Procuraduria) charges 34 officers of the National Police for corruption charges in using money form the US anti-narcotics aid. The detained officials include former General Gustavo Socha and Colonel Edgar Bejarano who headed this institution in 2002. The Prosecutor’s office said that more than 2,700 m pesos had disappeared, El Tiempo reports.
- Medellin-based lawyer’s collective ‘Corporacion Juridica Libertad’ reports the denunciations made by the villagers of San Carlos and Granada in which members of the Colombian Army’s IV Brigade threatened the religious Franciscans that accompany these communities of the Calderas river basin, and accused the villagers of being collaborators of the guerrilla groups.
Tues 19 - Soldier dies fighting for paramilitaries; ‘justice and peace’ law articles in discussion.
- Five paramilitary fighters, including an army sergeant secretly belonging to the illegal group, were killed in combat with Colombian security forces, officials say. Army Commander Reinaldo Castellanos admitted that one of the dead militiamen was a member of the army, in the latest example of links between Colombia's security forces and the right-wing squads. The battle took place near the town of Cucuta on the Venezuelan border. Members of the armed forces have often cooperated with militiamen against their common rebel foes, although the government says aiding the paramilitaries in fighting the Army constitutes treachery.
- The bill presented by the Colombian government to Congress regarding the legal framework for the paramilitary demobilisation proposes five-to-eight year jail terms for those who are found guilty of such crimes as massacres and homicides. It was approved in committee in both chambers of the Congress and needs to be passed in full house by both the Senate and the House of Representatives before it becomes law. Debates will begin in the coming weeks. Interior and Justice Minister Sabas Pretelt de la Vega said the government will present a new edition of the bill with significant changes, El Espectador reports.
- A man described as ‘a major Colombian drug kingpin’ was extradited to Miami to face trial on charges that he led a smuggling network that moved tons of cocaine to the United States. Elias Cobos Munoz was among 41 traffickers on a priority list of targets for US prosecution when he was indicted last year. He and two other suspects, Florentino Riviera Farfan and Jorge Ivan Lalinde Lalinde, were extradited and held without bond, US-based Seattle Post reports.
Weds 20 – Amnesty condemns attacks against civilians; 21 killed in road accident near Riohacha.
- ‘Once again the guerrillas are in breach of international humanitarian law through their indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force’; Amnesty International says in response to reports of combat between the FARC and the security forces in an area populated by members of Nasa indigenous communities. Attacks carried out by members of the FARC have resulted in numerous civilian casualties. During the 14 April attack some 11 civilians were reportedly wounded and ten-year-old Yanson Trochez Pavi shot dead. Three police officers, five soldiers and eight guerrillas were also reportedly killed. On 17 April a FARC attack wounded eight civilians, initial reports suggesting that the casualties were caused both by the FARC and by the security forces during efforts to repel the guerrilla attack.
- At least 21 people have died and 37 have been injured after two buses collided on a highway on Colombia's border with Venezuela. Local officials say the two buses collided on a turn on the highway at Riohacha. "Some who have been hospitalised are in a very bad state," Jorge Guevara, of the Riohacha Legal Medical Institute, said, El Colombiano reports.
- A woman identified as an ‘AUC weapons inspector’ became the seventh person to plead guilty in connection with a plot to trade cocaine for arms to be supplied by businessmen in Houston, Texas. Fanny “Rachel“ Cecilia Barrera de Amaris, 52, of Medellin pleaded guilty in a US court to charges of conspiracy to provide material support and resources to the group, AP reports.
Thurs 21 - 12 men killed in Buenaventura; ICRC and WFP report on crisis among the displaced.
- Twelve Colombian men and boys believing they were about to play soccer were killed with shots to the head and left floating in a river near the city of Buenaventura, Colombian police report. The group, between the ages of 12 and 25, was last seen on its way to play a soccer match near the Pacific Ocean port city in the province of Valle de Cauca. Police said they were investigating the crime and did not name suspects. This area of Colombia, just east of the city of Cali, is a key cocaine smuggling route known to be controlled by paramilitary groups and now disputed by both guerrillas groups ELN and FARC, El Pais reports.
- Members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) report that the Colombian displaced population are suffering a serious humanitarian crisis. With a view to remedying the situation, the ICRC and the World Food Programme (WFP) have recently carried out a joint assessment of food and other basic needs among the displaced in six of the country's departments. The data collected shows that displaced families spend 58% of their scant resources on food, most of the rest on housing and public services (water, electricity and gas) and only 6% and 3%, respectively, on health and education, Reuters reports.
- The Mayor of Toribio, Vitonas condemns the assault carried out by the FARC in Toribio: ''We reject this type of guerrilla aggression,'' Vitonas told El Tiempo following the assault,”This was a direct attack on the population and their homes.'' Last month, rebels gunned down a young Nasa indigenous woman on the outskirts of Toribio for allegedly being a spy, and a FARC urban militia member killed a Nasa during a drunken dispute in a bar. Vitonas commented that these types of deaths are hard to prevent because they don't seem to be a result of a specific conflict between the Nasa and the FARC.
- The Venezuelan authorities have freed a group of Colombian soldiers detained earlier in the week while trying to return from leave, authorities report. The eight soldiers were released from detention at a military base in western Venezuela, reports Colombia's embassy in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas. The troops said they were crossing Venezuelan territory to avoid an altercation with Colombia's left-wing rebels, who often prowl along the two nation's shared border.
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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