• U.S. Lawmakers Are Urged to Increase Funding for Alternative Development, Peace-Building, and IDPs In a letter addressed to four top U.S. lawmakers, a group of U.S. non-governmental and humanitarian organizations urged Congress to “transfer substantial funding to programs for alternative development, humanitarian assistance for internally displaced persons (IDPs), and peace-building in Colombia in the Andean Counterdrug Initiative section of the FY2006 foreign operations appropriations bill.” According to the organizations, the U.S. has used aerial eradication of illegal drug crops as its primary drug control strategy, yet with only a minimal decrease in coca cultivation and no change in the price or availability of cocaine on the streets of the U.S., these groups say that the supply-side strategies of the drug war are failing and that it is time for a “fundamental shift.” According to the groups, the U.S should implement policies that effectively address the supply side of illegal drugs and in order to do this “the United States has to support sustainable solutions, including alternative development and broader rural development programs.” Not only has the drug war failed to achieve its goals, according to the signatories, but it has negatively impacted rural communities, namely the Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities, as well as small farmers – groups that suffer from the effects of the armed conflict. Moreover, the groups said that it is necessary to provide assistance to the approximately 3 million internally displaced Colombians who are forced to rely on programs that are simply inadequate for long-term needs. Finally, the letter to Representatives Jim Kolbe and Nita Lowey and Senators Mitch McConnell and Patrick Leahy, stressed that “funding for alternative development, IDPs, and peace-building would be a more effective and ethical use of taxpayer dollars than continued high levels of military aid and aerial spray.” Read the full letter: http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=1418&issue_id=30

• Andean Coca Cultivation Increased in 2004 Led by Bolivia and Peru, coca cultivation in the Andean region – which is believed to be responsible for more than 98 percent of coca production worldwide - increased by three percent last year, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). UNODC claimed that the increase in coca production throughout the Andean region, which is comprised of Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia, can be attributed to poverty and to farmers changing their cultivation methods to avoid detection. Aldo Lale-Demoz, head of UNODC in Peru, said that if farmers “want to feed their families, they have to move to shantytowns of Lima or grow coca. There’s never been enough money for alternatives to coca growing.” While Alberto Rueda, former assistant to Colombia’s interior and justice minister, said that “up until 2002, you could find industrial-size plantations and it was easy to destroy them. Today the response to fumigation has been to increase the use of small plots and total abandonment of big plantations.” Although coca production increased in Peru and Bolivia, by 14 and 17 percent respectively, the UN reported a decrease of seven percent last year in Colombia, saying “the success story in Colombia remains unchallenged – a 50 percent decrease from 2000 to 2004.” These UN figures contradict recently released U.S. figures that report no change in coca production levels with total production in the region down by one-third since 2000. David Murray, policy analyst at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, defended U.S.-sponsored fumigation efforts in the Andean region by saying “I don’t see a stalemate. I see a steady increase in pressure. We’re still on the right path. We just have to keep hitting them.” The contradicting figures are sure to be a factor as Congress debates a $742 million aid package to Colombia. Read the UNODC report: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/crop_monitoring.html

• U.S. Seeks Warlord’s Extradition On Thursday, the U.S. formally requested the extradition of a high-ranking paramilitary leader who was indicted by a federal court in New York in July 2004 for allegedly conspiring to import tons of cocaine into the U.S. Diego Murillo, who also faces murder charges, “is the de facto leader of the AUC, in charge of narcotics-trafficking activities, including all of its cocaine transportation and financial operations,” according to the U.S. indictment. U.S. Attorney David N. Kelly said “we remain committed to investigating, prosecuting and extraditing the most powerful and violent Colombian drug lords who destabilize their own country and send poison to the United States.” President Uribe is unlikely to immediately agree to this extradition request because Murillo is a peace negotiator in the AUC and is currently involved in peace talks with the government. Murillo turned himself into authorities last month after the Colombian government launched a massive three-day manhunt much to the dismay of AUC members who claimed that Murillo, who was allegedly involved in the April kidnapping and killing of a provincial lawmaker, was immune from the charges because of rules that protect AUC negotiators. In lieu of jail, the AUC leader is being held under armed guard at a ranch so that he can continue to coordinate the AUC demobilization.

• Colombia Highlighted in Human Rights Report on Latin America Despite progress in the past year, Latin America has suffered setbacks in regards to the human rights situation because of an environment “characterized by deteriorating economic and social conditions in various countries” in the region, according to Claire Roberts, president of the inter-American human-rights body of the Organization of American States (OAS). Roberts also said that “corruption in the public and private spheres, increases in crime, and citizen insecurity, and the marginalization of sectors of society through social exclusion and discrimination,” are contributing factors to the setbacks as well. While presenting the human rights report to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Roberts referred to Colombia, expressing concern regarding the internal conflict in Colombia and its effect on the civilian population, namely the indigenous and internally displaced populations. Despite concerns that the paramilitary demobilization process is furthering the problem of impunity in the country, the OAS recognized that the demobilization has “moved forward.”

Upcoming Events and Seminars in the U.S.

A delegation of African-Americans that will visit Afro-Colombian communities from July 12 to July 24 still has several openings for interested African-Americans. This delegation aims to bridge the gap between these two communities and allow African-Americans to see the reality of Afro-Colombians caught in the middle of the internal conflict in Colombia. Participants will take part in meetings with Afro-Colombians from national and regional organizations, and will visit Bogota, Choco, and Cartagena. For more information, please contact Gail Phares at citca@bellsouth.net or Ajamu Dillahunt at ardillahunt@igc.org.

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

Fri 03 - Army finds FARC ammunition stock; drug haul suggests FARC-AUC working together.

• Colombian army commander Gen. Carlos Alberto Ospina reports that the army has seized a large quantity of ammunition in Caqueta. The arms were found in a southern jungle base of the FARC group. Half a million rifle bullets, grenades and other explosives were stashed in an underground chamber, BBC reports.
• In the largest-ever drug seizure in Colombia, police and naval forces seize eight boats on the Mira River near the Ecuadorean border. The boats were packed with 15 metric tons of cocaine, worth an estimated $400 million. Colombian authorities claim that both sides in the armed conflict, paramilitaries and the FARC group, were involved, conspiring together for profits in drug trafficking. Experts suggest that collaboration between the two sides could increase as the paramilitaries' umbrella organisation — the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia, or AUC — splinters into bickering factions, Houston Chronicle reports.
• The Colombian government publishes ‘Resolution 107’, announcing they have named Vicente Castaño, the reportedly ‘maximum commander of the Self-defence Forces of Colombia’ as a representative member of the AUC. The German justice system has said they are still waiting for a response to an extradition request for him relating to drug trafficking back in 1996, El Tiempo reports.
• The second and third Commission of the Colombian Senate approve the two polemic articles of the so-called ‘Justice and Peace law proposal’ which is currently under discussion in Congress. These articles grant political status to the paramilitary groups and also provide amnesties and reduce sentences for those members participating in peace talks with the Uribe administration. The law must be ready before 20 th July and the Colombian government is under pressure from the international community which is carefully monitoring this process, Colprensa reports.

Sat 04 – Colombian justice system modelled on U.S.; AUC responsible for blowing up bridge.

• Colombian lawyers, prosecutors, judges, investigators and public defenders have had to learn the ropes of Colombia's new judicial system under a U.S.-funded training programme. On 1 st January this year the country began to shift from its written, European-style justice system to an oral and accusatory system much like the one used in U.S. courts, but without juries. The reform is part of Plan Colombia. The U.S. has invested $35 million in Colombia over five years to train jurists, build courthouses and renovate courtrooms for oral trials. It is expected to spend another $17 million by December 2008, when the accusatory system will be in place throughout the country, according to the Justice Department and U.S. Agency for International Development, US-based Newsday reports.
• The Commander of the Colombian Army in the Guaviare department, Luis Enrique Lubinus, reports that the armed group behind the bridge bombing near the city of San Jose was the Guaviare bloc of the Self-defence Forces of Colombia, who are trying to divert traffic through isolated roads in order to charge transporters in roadblocks. Last week the local authorities accused the FARC group of carrying out the attacks, El Tiempo reports

Sun 05 - W ar on terror: indigenous under threat; Restrepo: ‘Colombia has self-defence mentality’.

• The “war on terror”, identified in Amnesty International’s annual report as a new source of human rights abuses, is threatening to expand to Latin America, and targeting indigenous movements that are demanding autonomy and protesting against free-market policies and “neo-liberal” globalisation. “We are not a threat to the world, or to the United States. On the contrary, we hold out a hope, an alternative for humanity,” said Feliciano Valencia, coordinator of human rights in the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca. The Nasa people number around 150,000, making them the second-largest indigenous group in Colombia, which is home to 90 aboriginal communities that make up around two per cent of the population of 44 million. Although Colombia’s 1991 constitution granted autonomy to indigenous peoples in their reservations, that provision is not respected, and there are continual land occupations by the military and irregular armed groups, said Valencia, IPS reports
• Telling the press that ‘he has a pragmatic point of view in the negotiation process with the paramilitary commanders’ and that “paramilitarism has historical cultural roots in Colombia”, Peace Commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo also reports that he believes ‘Colombians have a self-defence mentality’ as a result of the actions of the guerrilla groups. He also provided a summary of the negotiating process to the press, adding that the government is ‘in the final stage of the negotiations’, and criticising those who are not in support of the present Justice and Peace legislation, Colprensa reports.

Mon 06 – U.S. citizen killed in Cali ; Vicente Castaño finally appears in the negotiating arena.

• A US biologist who lived in Colombia for the last 25 years has been killed in Cali by two gunmen. According to the authorities, Michael Allinswerth was killed while trying to defend himself from a robbery after taking money from a bank. Authorities report another person was injured in the attack, El Pais reports.
• In an interview in SEMANA magazine, paramilitary commander Vicente Castaño enters the negotiating arena announcing that he will demobilise this year. During the interview he confirmed that the AUC controls ‘more than 35% of the present Colombian representatives’, adding that they plan to increase their political presence in next year’s elections.
• A worker for the National Office for Re-insertion Programme, Sara Padilla, has been killed in San Pedro de Uraba (Antioquia) where she was working with demobilised paramilitaries. According to the regional Peace Commissioner, Jaime Fagardo, a demobilised person killed her and injured another person in the attack, Radio Caracol reports.
• Two policemen were killed in an ambush near the municipality of Rovira (Tolima). Authorities blame the FARC group for the attack on the police who were patrolling the area on a motorcycle, Colprensa reports.
• 25 soldiers and three civilians were injured when an army plane went down minutes after taking off from the Miraflores airport (Guaviare). Five of the injured soldiers were in a serious condition, EFE reports.

Tues 07 – Indigenous to march in October; Uribe admits links betw. Congress and armed groups

• While celebrating the seventh session of the National Prize for Peace in the municipality of Toribio, Cauca, the indigenous leaders from the Nasa community announce they will sponsor and promote a massive protest march for next October, with which they expect to reach Bogota, and will call upon the government and society in general to look for a negotiated solution to the armed conflict, El Pais reports.
• President Uribe Velez admits for the first time in public the links between some members of the Colombian Congress and some of the armed groups. Uribe said that these relations have existed ‘for the last few years in some regions of Colombia, where congressmen, mayors and local councillors need to ask for permission from the paramilitary or guerrilla groups to stay in politics’. The President also added that he hoped democratic security policy would be able to confront this problem, El Tiempo reports.
• In an interview in CAMBIO magazine, the Democratic Pole presidential candidate Antonio Navarro Wolff comments on the influence of the armed groups in Colombian politics: ‘the paramilitaries are outside the President's inner circle, I have no doubt of that; but look at how the President accepted, at least passively, the support of the heads of the Self-defence groups in 2002. They campaigned for him, and he said nothing’.

Weds 08 – U.S government requests Berna’s extradition; govnt. prepares more demobilisations.

• Federal prosecutors in New York say they have filed papers with Colombian authorities for the extradition of Diego Fernando Murillo, a paramilitary leader wanted on drug trafficking in the United States. He surrendered in Colombia last week, accused of ordering the killing of a local politician. His detention at a ranch in northern Colombia has raised concerns that the government of President Uribe Velez is soft on right-wing death squads, New York Times reports.
• High Commissioner for Peace Luis Carlos Restrepo met last week with the authorities of Cordoba, Antioquia and Casanare to raise awareness and locate concentration sites for the paramilitary groups that will be demobilising in the next weeks. Nevertheless, it remains to be seen what will happen with some fronts and complex structures in the northern, western, eastern and central regions of the country. In the north, besides Hernan Giraldo's men, who have a marked influence in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and no seat at the Santa Fe de Ralito negotiating table, it remains to be seen what the dynamic will be with the Norte Bloc, under the command of Jorge 40 and Diego Vecino and the Elmer Cardenas Bloc, commanded by Alfredo Berrio, or "El Aleman," which operates in Choco and part of Uraba and which has only made some rapprochement. If things in northern and western Colombia are touch-and-go, the situation in the eastern region of the country is nearly the same. Although the self-defence groups from Meta and Vichada, under the command of Guillermo Torres, announced their disarmament, it does not mean that the government has been successful in actually ensuring that they abide by the ceasefire. The cases of the Peasant Self-Defence Groups of Casanare, led by Hector Buitrago, or "Martin Llanos," and the dissident faction of the Centauros Bloc operating in Meta and Guaviare, under the orders of Manuel Piraban Garnica, or "Jorge Pirate," and Pedro Guerrero, or "Didier" or "Cuchillo," are an example, El Espectador reports.
• Independent presidential candidate and ex-Magistrate of the Colombian Constitutional Court Jose Gregorio Hernandez argues that ‘the Attorney General’s office needs to investigate the links between some Congressmen and paramilitary groups in Colombia before approving the Justice and Peace law proposals, and that in the mean time Congress should consider suspending the Justice and Peace law proposal until the investigation has taken place, Efe reports.

Thurs 09 – Two policemen killed in ambush; scientists in search of moths to clear coca crops.

• Two policemen are killed and nine more injured in the latest ambush of the FARC group in the Putumayo region. According to the authorities a road bomb went off while a police truck was passing by near Rumiyaco. They blame the FARC group for the bomb and the subsequent attack, El Colombiano reports.
• Scientists in Colombia this week proposed using natural predators to eliminate coca plants in the country. The suggestion entails releasing eloria noyesi moths, bred by the government, into the Andes. The moths are then expected to seek out coca plants where they lay eggs from which caterpillars soon emerge and feed on the plant to the point of destruction. While a potentially beneficial idea, many point out that releasing millions of moths into an ecologically fragile region could destroy the natural balance in the Andes with moths targeting plants other than coca. Instead, they recommend programmes aimed at reducing cocaine consumption, Associated Press 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.